Okay now to my story about my first jump-seat experience. Jump-seating is something that airlines do for other pilots/flight attendants to help get them around. It's free for the flight crew to do and you can typically jump-seat on other airlines. I was scheduled to come home Monday after our first test to start a new computer based training program they are doing.
I got to the airport about an hour before my flight and discovered that they had changed the terminal on me. I had to run over to the other side of the airport to get there. I checked in for the standby list and the flight is over sold. I missed that flight and was hoping to get on the next one that left a couple hours later. There are two other guys in my class that are from SLC so we kind of have to fight over seats. One of them happened to get his name on the list first so he got on the first flight.
Our hope at this point is that we can get on the next flight but we're nervous because its over sold and there is 30 people on the standby list. We went and got some lunch and came back to find that the jump-seat was open. My friend was senior to me so he would technically get it. He was nice and let me have it because he had went home for the weekend. His plan was to try and jump on a Delta flight.
So I get the ticket and there is no group assignment to load so I waited for a little before I went and asked the clerk. She tells me that I can load any time I want. I get in line and go down and check in with the head flight attendant (FA) and tell her this is my first time jump-seating and I don't know what I'm doing. She tells me to put my luggage in the middle of the plane. I go put it down there and make my way back to the front (after standing and waiting for all the passengers).
After I make it back up to the front they tell me to go to the very back. I make my way to the back and introduce myself to the FA back there (he wasn't very nice). So I have now idea what I'm doing or where I'm supposed to sit. I proceed to just stand there in the back of the plane looking like a total idiot. I didn't know how to get the seat down. Finally one of the other FA came and got in the other seat and saw how he did it and figured out mine.
By this time we have been taxiing for a couple of minutes. I sit down and now I have to figure out how the stupid seatbelt worked. This other guy starts talking on the phone next to him and I can tell they are talking about me. He points to me and tell me to pick up the phone cause the captain wants to talk to me. I'm thinking that I'm in trouble because I have been standing around while we taxied.
I get on the phone and he asks me if I'm pilot or a FA. I tell him a pilot and he tells me that he is going to stop the plane and I need to come get in the cockpit with him. I was so flustered that I didn't comprehend what he said so I started to work on the seat belt. The mean FA comes back there and tells me I can't sit there because I'm a pilot not a FA. I get up and work my way back to the front while we are still taxiing. I could feel every eye in the plane burning a whole in my back. I start talking with the head FA and she felt bad because she didn't ask if I was a pilot or a FA.
The plane stops and they have to put a cart in the isle and one FA on each side of it while they open the cockpit door. I get in there and the captain proceeds to tell me that pilots and FA don't trade jump-seats all while sitting stopped in the middle of the runway. After the lecture I had to figure out how to work this stupid seat and seatbelt. Things went well after that. So that is my jump-seat story, most of you won't appreciate this story but my pilot friends will.
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