I watched the news report in disbelief. Went into the office the next day to a wild scene of people walking out the door with computers and house plants. The chief pilot was in his office wearing shorts and a tank top handing out letters of recommendation like candy while smoking a huge cigar. Paper was all over the floors. Furniture was missing. Uniforms, ID's and jep binders were tossed into a huge pile.

It reminded me of the last day of school before summer break at a junior high. Everyone was cleaning out their desks and lockers. Most people had a crazy look on their faces. Later that day a few of us lined up at the airport fence and watched as the last of our planes taxied to departure in a line and flew away. Most were emotional at that point.

It seems to me that nearly half never flew again. Few were able to secure a better job.

SkyHigh

 

Bar Harbor/ Eastern Express: I didn't work on Friday, but was told to report as scheduled Saturday. Came to MIA to an empty terminal. I took the bus to the commuter terminal and got laughed at by the AE pilots. Of course, our area was stripped bare.

Northeast Express: Got a call to retrun to BOS with 19 folks in the back. We told them we wouldn't turn arround unless they told us why. Ops said we were shutting down. Returned to BOS and kicked the folks out. We waited for an hour and were asked if we would fly the plane to MHT. We aggreed since our cars were parked there. At the hangar, I met with the other union folks and told all the crews to keep there badges. The airline president told us that we'd be back in the air in a week or two. Never happened.

Here's my suggestions if you ever find yourself in this position:

Keep your ID badge: Many airlines and pilots will allow you to continue jumpseating, even after your airline goes belly up. With CASS, don't expect to ride in the cockpit but you may be able to still ride in the back. It will help when it comes time for interviews.

Know your rights: File for unemployment right away. There is a waiting period. Look into job training programs. There is Federal money floating arround. The states run the programs, so benefits vary. Some folks were able to get type ratings and others used the money to go into other fields. A couple of guys started training in anew field until they were able to get another job.

Network: Civilian guys are terrible at this. Learn from the military guys on this one (It may be the only thing worth learning from some military pilots). Keep in touch. Find out who's hiring. We had so many Bar Harbor guys working the loop, that we had an airline even fly their interviewers to us. It saved guys big bucks.

 

Had a captain tell me a story of the demise of Eastern. He was in South America someplace with an entire crew - 3 pilots, 5 flight attendents - when they shut down. No provision was made to get the crew home. The captain went to American and asked for eight jump seats. When the American captain heard the story, he had the gate agents bump passengers to get them all home. "No one deserves to be treated like that."

 

Worked for a 135 operator flying a King Air. Our two Learjets had been sold previously and the writing was on the wall. Got orders to deliver the King Air to Peachtree Dekalb on Dec 23th. Two of us took it down and nearly got stuck in ATL due to horrific weather. Finally made it to IAD and watched our connection to SCE taxi away. Ended up renting a car for the 4 hour drive back on Christmas Eve while the commuter terminal was in turmoil from all the misconnects who weren't going to get home until after Christmas. I went on interviews on the company dime for a whole month before the boss called to officially let me go. Had an offer from PDT, but no class date so I took a desk job. Did that for two years, now I'm back flying.

 

I'm not a pilot, but I was working in airport ops @ PBI, assigned to terminal duties, when the last scheduled Eastern Airlines flight arrived. It was a DC-9. I had walked up to the a/c door on the jetway. As the passengers deplaned, they were all encouraging the crew and wished them well. All the FA's were in tears. I remember seeing the eyes of the CA & FO starting to well up. It was an emotional moment; one that I'll never forget.


atp

 

One of my instructors who flew for Eastern told me this story:

He was reviewing the paperwork for his flight when word came down that the airline was shut down. Everyone was supposed to just leave their station and go home immediately, but he decided that with a planeload of waiting passengers he couldn't just walk away and leave them like that. So he talked it over with his FO, found a few flight attendants who wanted to go to the destination of his flight, and flew it.

At the destination, he walked off the plane and was about to go try and find a jump seat home when he was asked to fly the plane back to its origin because the original crew who was supposed to fly the plane back had all gotten drunk when they heard that the airline had shut down.

 

But wait, I thought the AA guys were all Nazi's! Maybe even Nazi's have a heart.

I heard on CNN that the company I was working for was grounded by the FAA because of poor maintenence practices. It seems that the repair station they used for heavy maintenence (in Costa Rica I think) was putting salvaged/uncertified parts back in our airplanes during heavy checks. Entire fleet grounded overnight.

They filed bankruptcy, never paid me for my last months work and called me back a few months later saying they were starting up operations again and I had a retraining date scheduled. "Uh, yeah, I'll be there, when you gonna pay me my lost wages?"

 

My first aviation job was throwing bags for Midway/Midway Connection. We had been in bankruptcy for a while, and a deal with Northwest to aquire us had just fallen thru, and everyone was wondering what the next step was. That night, dispatch called our ops room and said "hey, don't let the crew or the overnighter leave the airport until they call us". So, crew comes in, calls dispatch, then tells us "they want us to fly the plane back to Springfield tonight". We say "what about our morning originator?" They say "They didnt say - they just told us to ferry the aircraft back tonight". So we call the Manager and tell him this, and then clean up and go home for the night.

Next morning I go into work and the Station manager has already been busy - all logos have been taken off the walls, anything to indicate the airline ever existed was gone from the terminal. I got someone from United to let me into the back - no one from Midway would answer the door - and like someone else described, it was the last day of school. Everyone figured we would never get paid again (and I didn't), so we were all just picking what we wanted to take in exchange.

 

What do AA captains use for birth control.....?

Anyone? ANyone?




their personalities!

 

Quite a story...Painful as it may be to relive, thanks for sharing SkyHigh.