Jumpseat: Copilot Shell Game

Les Abend

Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 07:12 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The author experienced an unprecedented "copilot shell game" during a multi-leg international trip, involving four different copilots due to unforeseen issues like injury, lost credentials, and flight delays.
These frequent, unexpected changes created significant logistical challenges for crew scheduling and tracking, requiring creative solutions to keep flights operational, often leading to delays.
Despite the constant personnel swaps and last-minute reassignments, the flights maintained continuity and safety, largely attributed to the professionalism, adaptability, and high standardization of the airline's flight crews.

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(January 2011) — I had just begun to fill up the tank on my truck for the drive to JFK when my cell phone rang. The caller ID displayed “Crew Sched.”

“Great,” I thought. I was probably going to be told that my trip to London was delayed. Nope. The news was something that I hadn’t expected. My copilot had managed to sprain his ankle before leaving home. A reserve copilot had been called. Unfortunately, the reserve copilot was 30 miles from his house at the time he was contacted. He needed to return home in order to change and pack. And then he faced a two-hour drive to JFK. I would discover later that this was to be the first round of a copilot shell game.