f.a.q

I get a lot of questions having a husband who has a career as a pilot- the top four:

How long is Brant usually gone for?

It depends on the month and the routes that Delta gives to Skywest to fly for them. He'll be gone anywhere from 2 nights a month to 16 nights a month.

What is his route?

He doesn't have any set route- its different every month but is generally in the area of the west (California, Oregon, Montana, etc.) Every once in awhile he'll go to Atlanta, Canada or Mexico.

How does his schedule work?
Skywest awards schedules on a bidding system that is based on seniority. Having worked for them for a year and some change, right now his seniority is still somewhat low and the only way for him to get Sundays off it to be on reserve (which generally means he will be on a two hour callout to get to the airport). At the beginning of the month, he may have an absolute empty schedule that fills as the month goes on (and yep- trying to schedule anything around his schedule is daunting- sorry to our friends who we've had to bail on at the last minute because he got called on a trip!) You also gotta love those 4am calls from Skywest telling him to be at the airport in 2 hours and will be gone on a 4 day trip.

I couldn't stand my husband being gone so much- how do you do it?
What makes up for him being gone is that fact that he absolutely loves his job and looks forward to going to work (although the hardest part of the job is being away from home). It makes it easy that I'm an independant person and have work, church callings, the gym, extracurricular classes and sports, etc. to keep up with while he's gone (its not like I sit around at home twiddling my thumbs waiting for him to get back from a trip). Before we were engaged, I actually asked a few wives that were married to pilots (one of them being my age) what is was like being married to a pilot and they ALL had the same response- they LOVED it! Saturdays and Sundays are the biggest bummer when he has to work because those are my days off (I spent the first 8 Sundays of our married life going to church ALONE) but I love hearing about the different crews that he flies with and the stories he has. My m.i.l. is also married to a pilot so we get to swap stories (if your looking for an exciting travel blog, her husband- of course aka Brant's dad/ pops/ my f.i.l.- posts about his international travels here).

Any other questions?