In , my future husband and I were both commuter pilots at different airlines, and after dating for three years, we decided to hitch our collective wagons. We met each other at the wedding of two pilots. Apparently, two marrying pilots beget another set of marrying pilots, so the result was inevitable.
I was still flight instructing when we met, and my future husband was already an Airline Pilot capital letters used to represent awe. For three years, he was willing to do a three-leg commute on his days off to come see me.
We were based in Richmond, Virginia, and Fresno, California, respectively. A man with no parallel, he was and is definitely a keeper. Exactly zero sarcasm intended here. While dating and during our days at the commuters, we often used our jumpseating privileges to travel around, not only to see each other, but everything else as well. We were poor commuter pilots. Even the taxes you have to pay in order to list for standby on a flight as a non-rev which puts you slightly higher on the priority list than a jumpseater were too expensive for us.
Those extra seats can be a major perk for traveling airline pilots. As an additional perk when jumpseating, sometimes you even got to sit in business class and feel fancy. Sometimes the flight attendants would feel sorry for you and load you up with first class leftovers. Once, my husband was sent home with an entire sleeve of Biscoff cookies. Jumpseating for free a great pilot privilege was the way to go!
In addition, when we sat up front, we found it fun and interesting to see how pilots at the other airlines do things. We planned on jumpseating there.
