Jumpseat

[This is a story from a while ago - passenger access to the flight deck is now strictly verbotten.]

A "snowbird" is a Canadian term for someone (usually a senior or retiree) who spends most of the year in Canada, but heads to the south for an extended visit during the winter. Many snowbirds own a condo or trailer or house down south. The popular locations are Arizona and Florida.

My mom is a snowbird, spending 4 or 5 months a year in Phoenix, rather than winter in Northern Ontario. For her first winters she/we would drive both ways so she can take more luggage, her dog, and her car. One year, when I was driving her back, I left Ottawa at 6am, arrived in Phoenix in the early afternoon, and by 3pm we were on the road back home. That was the last car trip - she's getting on in years, shouldn't be driving that distance (4-6 days in a car is tiring), and she couldn't see the sense of taking 6 days to make the trip when she could do it in 6 hours.

In the fall (of 1999, I think) I had driven her down, and was flying back. I had some expired upgrade coupons, but the aircraft was only one-third full so the gate agent said "why not?", and upgraded me from budget tourist el-cheapo to business class.

After enjoying the meal and the wine, I noticed that the flight deck door was open. Myself and two other pax spent the trip on the flight deck. The captain was the PNF and chatty, the FO was doing all the system monitoring and was flipping the jeppesen charts to the next available airport.

Flying over southern Ontario it was absolutely clear. At that time I lived in the area, and I could point out the small towns and name them - the crew could name only those with an airport.

I got the jump seat for the landing in Toronto. It was a Saturday evening and things were very quiet, but we did some racetracks northwest of YYZ - apparently there was a new software load in the ATC computers, and they were being very careful with the traffic load for the first few hours.

The captain did the landing - and he greased it.

Thanks to OBL et al, flying the jumpseat on that flight will likely be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.