If you commute and wear the 'commuter jacket' (North Face, Columbia, golf windbreaker) it matches great with the white shirt and black tie. Just tell then this:

Passenger: "Are you a Pilot?"

Me: "No, I sell Bibles for a living"

Passenger: "Oh"

Me: "Wanna buy a Bible?"

Passenger: "Ummmm.....no"

Me: "OK"

/End conversation



Works great everytime, all the time

This may not qualify for "tool" status but it bugs the sh$t outta me: The jumpseater who comes down before boarding then proceeds to stand over us while playing 20 questions while we preflight, load fms, run checklists etc... Just ask for a ride then get out of the way. Why is this hard?

I just tell them to wait in the jetway until we close the door. You need to be a moron if you don't understand that your in the way.

True, however some crews are plenty caught up and just love to talk. You just have to be malleable.

Read this whole thread!! Last few pages remind me of a sort of tool story I had a few years ago.

Sitting in the old Million Air in Teterhole my cell rings and it is charter cord saying they recieved a very last min request for some special kind of Johnny Walker blue or red or pink or who knows (dont drink) and could I grab a crew car and get some quick?

I was able and at that time we were wearing those stupid white shirts with stripes and a tie. So I find a grocery store down the raod with a liquor dept and run thru the aisles looking for the right color of bottle.

Around the corner comes a mother and her 6 or 7 yr old boy who loudly blurts out "ARE YOU A COP"? The horrified mother grabs him and scolds him lightly and then looks up at me red in the face and says

"sorry officer"

Hey, it could'a been worse!

When standing in the hotel lobby waiting for the crew van, I usually get, "Here boy, bring these bags to my room..." from the little old ladies!

Yup. Got that one time too. I just put her bags in the van, asked her nonchalantly where she was flying to, then got in the van. She asked me why I was not driving. I told her "because I'm flying you to [wherever it was she was going]".

Jaw drop: priceless.

TW

Nope, Mekong Delta.

Day 2 of 4, at 0600ish (dark out), standing with gate agent and waiting for our inbound aircraft to deplane. This time i had a small Starbucks in hand...

Passenger walks up, greet him with a smile and a nod before he blurts out: "YOU KNOW... It's NOT good when you see your pilot drinking a COFFEE!"

Wait... What..?

I came up to the galley from my rest break on the way home from Shanghai the other day, and there's a First Class pax chatting up the (one) cute F/A there. She asks me if I want a cup of coffee to take up front, I say, "Nah, it'll just keep me awake..."