Perhaps if we dug a little deeper we'd find out just how little time off Renslow & Shaw had in a month. And how frequently their rotations began in the early morning and then ended late in the evening, making them totally uncommutable. I don't know, but perhaps her day of skiing was simply how she chose to spend her one full day at home. Or second of two full days. You get the idea.

If you think it's acceptable for regional pilots making less than $25k per year to have a whopping 8 to 10 days off a month, with perhaps 6 of those days actually waking up in their own bed in the morning and sleeping in their own bed at night, then perhaps you're not a very nice person.

If I were in her shoes, my feet would really hurt. But, seriously, in her shoes, assuming my guess about her time at home is correct, I'd probably not feel too bad about skipping the morning-before-the-trip-commute to have a day with family, even if that meant risking missing work if I couldn't get on the redeye, and risking being tired for the first day or two of my rotation.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have had a schedule very similar to that which I described above. I sucked it up, did the safe commutes, hated it, and quit after a few months. I was fortunate enough to be at a stage in life/career where I had that option. New hires/new upgrades at bottom-feeder regionals are not so lucky.

As far as blaming the FAA - that may be a little unfair. But blaming the pilots for trying to have a life on a Colgan schedule is more unfair. We can certainly say that the FAA ought to be doing more to force airlines to schedule their pilots in a manner that is not so conducive to accumulated fatigue, such as rotations that start in the early am and end a few days later at 11pm, to be repeated ad nauseum with a just couple of days to recover each time.