Someone once told me this and it stuck: “if you die tonight in your layover hotel, that flight will more than likely still go. It might even go on time, but it will still go.”

This is a job. A pretty good job, but a job nonetheless.

You work here under a PWA and you are governed by the PWA (transactional=what we get for our time)+FOM (company policies)+Vol 1 (how to operate your jet).

At the end of the day—we all just work here. You have to learn how to answer the following question when you’re assessing things: “is this a ME problem or a DELTA problem?”

Example: Me problem might be—I am burnt out and have kids at home and I’ve been working to much. Ergo my attitude is bad at the moment.

Delta problem: scheduling a day within 17 mins of max duty day doing ATL-MCO shuttle in July and you time out and refuse to extend.

The me problem: I try to correct. So that I am not a douche at work to people I work with and customers.

The Delta problem is above my pay grade. It’s not my fault that they hired 0 pilots in 2025 and want to trust an optimizer to pick up nickels while stepping over dollars. (see PB days as well)…..

Our contract can and must improve this cycle and every cycle going forward. We don’t need to give up pay or QOL items to get improvements.

They have painted us to be the bad guys. Which isn’t good for anyone including the corporation long term.