I showed up in DC for a 5:30 AM flight to Kansas City, followed by a flight to Milwaukee where I faced a 3.5-hour layover in the airport before our return trip to DC. Then it was back to Milwaukee for the night. During the 3.5-hour layover, I rested under a CNN Airport News Network TV reporting on overworked and underpaid regional pilots. I sat listening to experts compare the experience level of Sully on the Hudson with that of “commuter pilots.” I’ve been a commuter pilot for 10 years and have stayed here while watching friends move on to major airlines with the “experienced pilots,” only to get furloughed as those major airlines give more flying to us—the regionals. When hired in 1999, my “Region” was Pennsylvania. Now, it’s the U.S.
After my time wandering around the airport, we boarded for our flight back to DC. A line of significant storms was moving towards the east coast, so we loaded up with fuel and planned on flying south to sneak in from the west. As we passed over the coal mines of West Virginia, Washington shut down the arrival corridor, and air traffic controllers turned us around to hold. The line of storms was getting ever closer to our destination as we left the hold to fly over central Virginia and sneak in from the south. (The line of storms was actually over DCA when we made the turn north and began our descent to the airport.)
As we turned north towards DCA with a view of the storms over the field, we did a 180 turn back to Richmond to wait out the weather. Before we made the decision to divert, the approach controller told us we would be the last arrival and she “thought” we could make it in. The airport shut down soon afterward, and all the planes on the arrival behind us followed our lead to Richmond. This meant we were first in line for fuel and the first out when Washington reopened an hour later.
Now, the storms were between us and DCA, so our planned 20-minute flight took an hour as we flew west to Roanoke before turning back north and east, up and around the line.
Since we can only be on duty for 14 hours and it was now 8 PM, we would never make it to Milwaukee in time to land legally. Our 76 passengers, who had been delayed for hours and were waiting for us to go to Wisconsin, watched as we turned the airplane off and headed for the employee lot after the announcements were made that the flight was canceled. I tried to keep my eyes down and hide my enthusiasm that soon I would be in bed, getting much-needed rest.