This week we walk through every detail of the day in the life of an airline pilot!
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00:01
Behind the Prop Inrto
Clear prop 773 Cherokee number two following twin traffic three mile final one trolley bravo makesford in Runway two five going four mile.
00:10
Nick Alan
This is behind the prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot Bobby Doss and his co host, major airline captain and designated pilot examiner Wally Mulhern. Now let's go behind the prop.
00:24
Bobby Doss
What's up Wally?
00:25
Wally Mulhern
Hey Bobby, how are you?
00:27
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. This week we're going to do kind of a Reader's Digest episode. Just it's going to be a day in the life of being an airline pilot. We're going to kind of interview Wally today and get to know things that maybe we don't all know. Many people are trying to become airline pilots and I'm not sure they all know what they're in for. Wally, what about you? Do you think they do?
00:50
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, I totally agree with that. I, you know, when I do check rides, I take an opportunity to get to know the applicant a little bit and then I tell them a little bit about me. And usually at the end of the checkride a lot of times they'll say, hey, can I ask you a couple of questions? And they will ask some questions and they're very, a lot of times very basic questions. And so what I have learned is that we haven't done a very good job of letting people know or people just don't know what it's like. I mean, I think if someone says, hey, I want to be a high school football coach, I think they can envision that probably going to be really long hours during the fall, the summer, the fall, and not as bad in the spring.
01:41
Wally Mulhern
You know, you got an idea of what your working hours are, but I don't think a lot of people have any idea what it's like to be an airline pilot. So from a scheduling standpoint and all, all the other things that go along with it as well.
01:58
Bobby Doss
Yeah. I don't think people definitely the schedule, we're going to dive deep into that one. I would even say, we've talked about this, that aviation is still a secret society for some reason. It's not like high school counselors are talking about it and they're not advertising the true capabilities or possibilities of aviation as a whole. But if a high school kid, 18 year old boy or girl walked up to you and said, hey, what's the likelihood that if I don't have any medical issues that I could be an airline pilot today, what would your answer be? To that young man or woman?
02:32
Wally Mulhern
Very likely, yeah.
02:33
Bobby Doss
Like they literally just. If they went through the training, then they got to have some source of funds, obviously. But very likely that they would become a professional pilot and work for a major airline out in the future somewhere. What. I guess one thing that I hear around the flight school is, you know, what's the chances that we don't need a bunch of pilots?
02:59
Wally Mulhern
Right?
02:59
Bobby Doss
We know there's this Boeing article says we need 80,000 pilots in the next 10 years. Everybody talks about that. But what if they stopped having two pilots up front? What's the reality of autonomous passenger planes? Or maybe getting down to one pilot in the front of a 737. Wally, what are your thoughts on that one?
03:21
Wally Mulhern
You know, I don't know. First of all, I don't see it happening from the standpoint of the airplanes that the airlines fly today are certified for two pilots. Okay? They're, they're made for that. It, you know, says on the paperwork you gotta have two pilots to fly these airplanes. So first of all, a lot of changes would be, have, would have to be made. There are certain controls on these airplanes that you can't reach from both seats. So from that standpoint, it would be tough, but, you know, just to just make it really, really simple. You know, we fly long distances and for long periods of time in these airplanes. It's not like a 172 where we're flying for, you know, maybe two hours. I mean, maybe you could, sure, you can fly them for four hours, but probably not.
04:23
Wally Mulhern
Doesn't happen a whole lot. But, you know, in big airliners, you know, just simply using the restroom becomes an issue if there's only one pilot up there. And I don't think people want to sit in the back of the airplane knowing that the pilot is in the bathroom using the restroom and the airplane's on autopilot for, you know, even a few minutes because sometimes things go wrong.
04:52
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I mean, that would be devastating too. I mean, you're obviously sitting up there wearing a seatbelt in case there's a turbulence problem. Imagine hitting turbulence or something in the bathroom and nobody being up there. I can tell you for sure my wife ain't getting on a plane if there ain't. There ain't one or two people up there for sure. I mean, there's no way she'd get in a freaking drone to go across country for sure. So I think it' Long way off. I think a long way off. And I think people that think it's closer than a really long way off, it's just not going to happen. I, I get a chance occasionally to fly a fairly complex jet that is single pilot, and you watch that pilot operate that airplane. He's got his hands full. Right.
05:37
Bobby Doss
And I can't imagine how much workload would be one pilot. I don't care how much they automate, it would still take a lot to work the radio and to work whatever controls you had to work. So I think we're a long way off. So the pilot shortage is real. We're going to keep using pilots for a long time to come. So if you think it's part of your future, you want it to be part of your future, it's definitely really possible. So now let's talk about the good, the bad and the ugly, and we'll start with schedules. I think the paradigm for me is it's one of those things we talked before we started here today.
06:12
Bobby Doss
Like if I didn't know what I was doing, whether I was on or off duty, you know, the third day of January right now, that'd be mind blowing to me. But you don't know if you're working the 3rd of January yet and you always don't know the month before. Right. You've never been able to. Well, I'm sure you have and you're going to tell us how. But like, how did you plan a Disney World trip with your kids four or five months in advance? How's that possible?
06:38
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, well, that's, yeah, that's what vacation is for. You know, we do get, we do get vacation and it's all seniority. I can basically, I can get any days off that I want as long as I know far in advance and I can bid for it. Here's an example. So I've got a good friend who invited me to go to a Texans game on January 1st. And I had to tell him, bill, I don't know, I can't tell you. I won't be able to tell you until about the 15th of the month. You know, I'll, I, if I want to get it off, I should be able to get it off. But, you know, at least at my airline, our, we bid for our schedule a month in advance. The bidding closes on the 12th of the month.
07:33
Wally Mulhern
So today we're recording it's December 10th as we're recording this episode. And this will come out on the 12th. So at 10:00am Central Time on the 12th of every month, our bids close. And when I say our bids, it's my wish list for my schedule for next month so I can go in. And what my airline does is they publish all the trips. So we have this document that has all the trips listed for next month. And I can look at it and I can say, well, gee, on January. Yeah, January 7th, there's a, a really nice trip that has a Kona layover. It has a, you know, a Los Angeles layover and then back home, you know, I'd like to have that so I can ask for that trip. I can also.
08:30
Wally Mulhern
Basically what we do when we bid is we tell the system what we don't want, then we tell the system what we do want. So I can go in there and say, I don't want to go to City xyz. So I can say, avoid xyz. I can say if I'm okay just to fly in and out, but I don't want to layover there. I can say, avoid layover at City xyz. So the first thing you do is again, you tell it what you don't want. Then you tell it what you do want. You could say, boy, I like to go to Honolulu, so give me Honolulu layovers. I like to go to London. Give me London layovers. I don't like trips that are more than four days. So I can say, avoid trips five days or more.
09:23
Wally Mulhern
So I can, you know, I put all that stuff in. And where you lie, seniority wise, you know, the more likely that you're gonna get what you want if you're the number one pilot, you're gonna get exactly what you want if you're, you know, and my percentage, I happen to be about 40%, so I'm realistic. I know that I'm probably not gonna get Tokyo trips out of Houston because they're very productive, high value trips. They're 26 hours of flying time in three days. And where I am at 40% seniority, probably not gonna be awarded any Tokyo trips, although I asked for them. But I'm realistic and I know that I probably won't get it.
10:14
Bobby Doss
And so just to put that in perspective too, I mean, that's, that's compensation, I assume, at some level. Right. Meaning, do you fly 100 hours a month or 70 hours a month? I think I understand it that all pilots of some sort have a floor or a minimum for the month, and then they have the opportunity to go above that if they want to keep working and fly more. Is that a high level view of what that looks like?
10:39
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah. I would say a good Generalization is about 75 hours a month. I would say 70 to 80 hours a month is probably what most schedules are originally built for. 70, 70 to 80 hours a month. There's, there's flexibility on both sides of that. So at least at my airline, we are paid and you're paid for flight time. That's, that's what you're paid for. So we get a minimum of five hours a day. So if we show up to the airport for a day, we're gonna get five hours. So if you take 75 hours, which is the middle of that range, divide that by five. If you're making five hours a day, that's 15 days. It's going to take you 15 days of work to get all that in. So that's probably pretty average.
11:39
Wally Mulhern
Now, if you happen to be a pilot who's very senior and you can hold this 26 hour, three day Tokyo trip, you just do the math. Three times 26 is 78. You're working nine days a month.
11:54
Bobby Doss
That's the math I was already doing. So super senior guy, you might work nine days a month. And when I first got into aviation and I heard these numbers right, I was ignorant to it. But what would you tell somebody, Wally that says, God dang, Wally, you only work 80 hours a month. You must have tons of time to twiddle your thumbs. Like, what do you do? 80 is a lot though.
12:13
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, 80 hours. You know, that's, it just depends. I mean, you do have a lot of time to twiddle your thumbs. For instance, right now, I'm on a layover right now, twiddling my thumbs, talking on this podcast. So you do have, you know, one of the many beauties of this job is you have built in time off. And really on my layovers is when I, I relax when I sleep. I mean, I catch up on sleep, I catch up on watching tv. The stuff that I don't have time to do at home because there's other things going on. But you know, 80 hours a month, that's a, that's a big month. The other thing is, you know, sometimes if you fly a particularly challenging three or four day trip, when you get home, you're just kind of wiped out.
13:08
Wally Mulhern
So, you know, may take a day or so to kind of recover from.
13:11
Bobby Doss
That because as you are in another city, your time zone is four hours off, really five without daylight savings time here. But you got to be out of whack. You, you kind of left in the middle of the day and you kind of landed in the middle of the night. Weird, I'm sure. But so your month is yours to pick, I'm assuming to simplify it a little bit, let's just call it four weeks in a month. Are you bidding four trips normally? Is that your approach to it? Is that most people's approach to it? I want for three day trips. I want for four day trips.
13:49
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, it just depends on what I have going on personally. In a month there might be an event on the evening of January 7th that I want to be able to attend. So you know, I have to look at things like that. Well, if January 7th, a Wednesday, I don't know what day of the week it is, but let's just say it's a Wednesday. And I also want to try to get weekends off. Obviously I can't fly a trip, a four day trip that week. So I'm gonna have to make some adjustments. I'm gonna have to go in and say, gee, are there any two day trips or you know, it's possible for, to not fly at all that week and wait, my flying around that week.
14:40
Wally Mulhern
The other thing that you're always concerned with is you really have to, you have to be looking really two months down the road. For instance, if there was something on February 2nd that I wanted that I needed to be off for, I could, I would have to factor that into how I bid for January because if I were awarded a four day trip on January 30, January 31, it would go into February 2. So here it is. You know, I'm bidding for January in December, but I'm also thinking of the next month, February as well. And you know, socially a lot, you know, believe it or not, I got a lot of friends who are not aviation people. And you know, a lot of times things come up and they'll say, hey, we're all going to get together on Friday night and do this.
15:37
Wally Mulhern
Well, I'm going to be in London Friday night. Now, had I known several weeks ago, it would not have been a problem at all to be off for this. But sometimes, sometimes you're not able to do some, you know, some social.
15:53
Bobby Doss
Things, are you, when you think about the month, are you tasked to bid a certain number of hours? Like, do you have to bid the minimum per se?
16:05
Wally Mulhern
Well, you don't have to bid if, but if you don't bid, you're gonna get assigned. So, so you're gonna, yeah, you're, you have to fly a certain number of hours. I mean, if you don't bid, it's not like they just pay you and you sit home. It doesn't work that way. Now you can be on reserve and that's a whole different, you know, it's a whole different thing where you're the pilot who is sitting home on call and you know they just had someone call in sick for a trip that leaves at 4:00 clock this afternoon and you're gonna fly that trip. Now sometimes it can be a very nice situation if people are not calling in sick and we've got good weather, you may not fly all month, but you are subject to being ready to go fly.
17:02
Wally Mulhern
Me personally, that doesn't really appeal to me, but some people like that.
17:08
Bobby Doss
The. Is there a ratio? Like is it one for every 10 pilots that sits reserve? Or is that something that you know? Or is it just. It's a, it's about 10%.
17:19
Wally Mulhern
It's, it's probably more. About 20% I would say, would be my guess. I really don't know. But I just, I wouldn't like that either.
17:29
Bobby Doss
I'd be on pins and needles all day. Like I, I can't get started on a project at the house because I'm waiting, I might have to leave. Right. That would be, that would be something that would feel awkward to me again. I'm sure you get used to this stuff, but. Okay, so now it's a week. The week has come. You got a four day trip coming up. There's no getting out of those things. Right. Like, I can take the middle of my week off. You're going to be in another country, more than likely. You're kind of. Once your work week starts, you are committed.
17:57
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah, to an extent. I mean, you can, I mean, if you get sick or if you have a family emergency. In 35 years, I've only been taken off the middle of a trip one time and that was when my father passed away. But you know, you, if I were, if I got sick right now, I mean, I would, I'd call in sick and somehow they'd be able to cover it. You know, worst case, they may have to delay a flight. But if you're sick. So there is that ability. I mean it certainly becomes a hindrance to the operation. If you're at an outstation, not at a pilot base or a hub where there are pilots ready to go, it could certainly cause havoc to the operation. But you know that's out of your control. If you're sick.
18:54
Bobby Doss
So the week set you know, this trip you're probably going one city, two city, three city back or something similar to that. What. And it varies with seniority and age and your flight line like 35 years in, you've probably got what you want for the most part from a trip perspective. But I guess I'm interested in the day we the show is a day in the life. So what's a day like you're gonna fly a seven or eight hour trip tomorrow that leaves the airport at three o' clock in the afternoon. What is, what does Wally's day look like?
19:31
Wally Mulhern
Well, so the day is going to look different depending on the airplane because each airplane type sort of has a different mission type. So, so I'm on a wide body airplane and the trip that I am on right now is a four day trip. I left yesterday at I think 9:40am and flew about an eight hour flight to Honolulu. We got in Honolulu about 2:30 in the afternoon, Hawaii time which was 6:30pm Houston time. And, and you know I ordered doordash, had some dinner, went across the street, got some snacks from the local ABC store and you know I went to bed pretty early.
20:24
Wally Mulhern
It was probably 9pm Honolulu time which is 1am on my body time and I basically have all day today off in Honolulu and I leave, I think we have a 6pm pickup at the hotel to go to the airport and then tonight I fly to Denver, we fly red eye. So we're gonna fly all night long today. So at some point this afternoon about a two and a half to three hour nap will be in my future. We land in Denver tomorrow morning, which would be Sunday, about 6 in the morning and then I have 24 hours off in Denver and then leave the hotel fairly early Monday morning. And then we fly from Denver to Chicago and back to Houston and I think I'm home at 4, 4 in the afternoon or something on Monday afternoon. So that's my four day trip.
21:29
Wally Mulhern
And I think this trip for four days is worth about 22 hours of flight time. So a little bit over the minimum if you know the minimum of 4, 5 hours a day would be 20 hours. So a little bit extra. Now you know, if you're on a, maybe a Narrow body airplane, 737, obviously 737 can't fly eight hours. So we're not flying those from Houston to Honolulu. So your trip may start out with, you know, day one. You may start out and go frame, let's say Houston to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, two and a half hours, Fort Lauderdale to Denver, maybe a four and a half, five hour flight layover in Denver, wake up the next morning, you may go from Denver to Omaha, Nebraska to Chicago to Calgary, Canada.
22:37
Wally Mulhern
Again, I'm just making this stuff up, okay, but something like this, you know, it may be, you know, a 10, 11 hour duty day. Eight in the morning, you get to the hotel in Calgary by 7pm at night, you may wake up the next day and leave the afternoon of day three and fly from Denver to San Francisco. And then maybe the last day you fly from San Francisco to Houston to San Antonio to Houston. And you know, that might be a sampling of what a trip at my airline might look like on a 737 or maybe an Airbus Trip A320 as well.
23:24
Bobby Doss
So you said you have pickup at the hotel tonight, right? To go fly to Denver tonight, tomorrow. That's in your city that you're in. What was yesterday like if you had to leave the airport, meaning the departure time of your flight was nice, 9:20ish or 9:30ish. What is the lead up time to that happen? What does it look like for us that don't know?
23:51
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, we are required to be at the airport depending on whether it's international or domestic. For an international trip, 90 minutes before departure, for a domestic trip, an hour before departure for the first leg of a trip. And that's where you meet the other pilots in a, you know, determined area, whether it be a flight planning area or operations area. And you kind of get to know each other. I mean the two guys that I flew out here with, I had flown with one guy years ago, I mean probably 20 years ago on the 737. And the other guy I had flown with about three years ago on the 767. So you know, we knew each other but you know, that's the training that you're going to get at an airline is so much of it is adhering to standard operating procedure.
24:50
Wally Mulhern
And that is how we are able to go fly with two or three pilots or sometimes four pilots that you've never met. And we can operate the, you know, operate this flight safely. You know, you look at sports and you go, well, gee, this football team is horrible because the offensive line is horrible. They've, they've never played together. Okay? And as they play more games together, they're going to get better. Well, luckily in our operation, you know, we have the, all the standard operating procedures, and that's what training is all about. So everybody is supposed to be doing things the same way. And for the most part, we do things the same way.
25:37
Bobby Doss
And so you have to be there an hour before I, I kind of know where you live, but let's assume you live about an hour from the airport. Do you, do you. What's the risk of being late for that? I mean, those of us that don't necessarily clock in, we don't know what that world's like either. So what if there's a traffic jam? What if there's. What if you spill coffee on your pilot's shirt? Like, how do those things get solved for when that plane wants to leave no matter what? Right. But there is life that gets in the way for all of us as well, I'm sure.
26:09
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I guess the guy, the surgeon who's going to go do a heart transplant down in medical center, you know, that could happen to him as well. And it occasionally happens. I've been lucky in my career. I can't. There have been times where things have happened, but I always, my father used to always say, you need to leave early enough so that when you have a flat tire, you can change that tire and still make it to wherever you're going. So my whole life has been about being early. You know, on time is late, so.
26:51
Bobby Doss
Agreed.
26:52
Wally Mulhern
Being early is kind of a mantra of my life. And the other thing that I have going for me and most of the airline employees have is, you know, we park off site. We do not park at the terminal. We've got an employee parking lot. So we park our car, we get our bags out, and then we hop on an employee bus, and then we drive the last couple miles up to the airport to the terminal. I know that if I am running late for whatever reason, I know I can save 20 to 30 minutes by just parking in the parking lot at the airport. Yeah, I'm going to pay 20, $25 a day, whatever it is, but if it means being on time, I'm certainly going to do it.
27:37
Wally Mulhern
I think most people have that attitude and occasionally I will, you know, I'll be walking to the airplane and I'll, my phone will ring and I'll look down and it's crew scheduling and I'll pick it up and they'll say, hey, I just want to let you know your first officer called. He's, he's in a traffic jam. He should be at the airplane 30 minutes before departure. And you go, okay, all right, well we can work with that. Especially if we're a three pilot crew. We've got three of us. So you know, you take on a little bit more responsibility and you know, when he or she gets there, you say, okay, we're all caught up. We've, we've done this for you. You still need to do this and this and hopefully we can get out on time.
28:24
Bobby Doss
So, so total day. I mean those days can be really long. Right? You leave your house at, call it 7:00am that day for a 90 minute call time. At least that 7:00am Houston time becomes at least seven. You're not to the hotel till 7 or 8:00, Houston p.m. time. Right?
28:48
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. It's a long day. And, and I have learned over the years, you know, when my body says, hey, I'm tired, I, I answer the call and I try to let it sleep. You know, a lot of people, oh, you're in Honolulu, you go out and you know, have a good time. Well, it was Friday night in Honolulu. So you know, kind of a, probably a busy night. I actually in the elevator, I told the two first officers, I said hey guys, I don't know if you guys are going to go out to dinner or what, but I said, I, I don't feel like fighting any crowds. I'm just gonna go to my room and relax and go to bed early. And actually both of them said, yeah, we are too.
29:33
Wally Mulhern
So it's not a wild and crazy lifestyle at least with me it's actually pretty boring.
29:41
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I bet if I was a 23 year old man it would be different than if I was a 53 year old man. But I can definitely appreciate your approach to a day. Now you see, mentioned doordash and those guys might have gone out to dinner. Do airline pilots have a per diem? Are you kind of on your own or what's that world like?
30:04
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah, we do have a per diem. And, and I don't even know what it is, but I will say it is more than enough to, you know, you can eat comfortably on your trip. I mean, obviously you have to pay it up front and on your paycheck the following month, you will have some per diem money. But yeah, I don't spend, I don't really pay attention to it. But, you know, I, I don't eat extravagantly. You know, $20 meal is, is probably pretty typical.
30:48
Bobby Doss
The. You've said the word seniority a number of times. I think seniority is a big thing in the airlines, the airline industry, aviation as a whole.
30:58
Wally Mulhern
Any.
30:59
Bobby Doss
I don't even know what the right question necessarily is, but that makes me a terrible interviewer, I guess. But what's the mindset for a young pilot who is coming up, maybe a regional pilot today who's got zero seniority, they're sitting in a McDonald's somewhere in an airport listening to us right now because they're on reserves and haven't flown in 30 days. Right. Is the goal to just constantly continue to try and get bigger jobs and having low seniority on those jobs, or is it, man, get to where you can have good days off and manage, you know, be able to bid what you want? I would think it's the previous one because that's got to have to do with money and an opportunity. But you tell me.
31:43
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, it all depends. You know, you hear a lot of people say, well, it's all about lifestyle. And, and lifestyle has a lot to do with it. And lifestyle means, am I gonna, you know, can I get weekends off? And it just depends where you are with your life. I mean, if you've got young kids at home, certain things are more important. Those Saturday morning soccer games or Saturday morning swim meets or whatever are real important. So you might better served to stay as a first officer on a given airplane rather than upgrading a captain because maybe your seniority percentage wise as a first officer is 25%. And if you go to be a captain, you're going to be at maybe 95%. So 95% probably on reserve, and you sort of don't have control over now.
32:45
Wally Mulhern
Now when you're on reserve, you do have days, okay, you're gonna have a certain number of days off and you can count on, okay, hey, the 10th and 11th are my days off. And, and I know I'm gonna be off for those days. But the days that you're on reserve, you just don't know what you're gonna be doing, all right?
33:02
Bobby Doss
Just a few rapid fire questions or thoughts, I think to wrap this show up. It's been very interesting and I'm sure all those aspiring airline pilots maybe are thinking, how is that the life that I want to live? But let's talk about facial hair. What's the deal with facial and pilots? I obviously wear a beard, so I don't know. That'd be weird for me to shave my face, but why is that? That's got to just be tradition or is there a safety aspect to it or what?
33:33
Wally Mulhern
No, there is a safety aspect of it too, and it's a head scratcher to me because we in the United States, you won't see major airline pilots with beards because, and this is what were told, that the oxygen mask cannot form a good seal around your face with facial hair, which makes sense. However, you go to South America and pilots have beards down there, so. And they're flying the same airplane, so same oxygen. That. I don't get that. I don't get that. But I don't, I can't even grow a beard, so it's not a factor for me. So I just shave.
34:16
Bobby Doss
I would also think that it could get out of hand. There's a subjectiveness to length and how you would care for it and presentability. And you want those guys to look professional for sure. I think some airlines are allowing mustaches nowadays, but I guess that's because the oxygen mask goes above the nose if you need to put it on.
34:37
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, we are. Our airline does allow mustaches. That's not an issue.
34:42
Bobby Doss
Okay, what about uniforms? Is that your own deal? Like you have to pay for uniforms. You get two a year and if you want three, you got to buy more.
34:50
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, we get, we get a certain allotment. I can't even tell you what it is that my airline, we're in the, we're about to be changing the uniform. So that's going to happen shortly. But I, I want to say the initial allotment, you get a uniform coat, you get an overcoat, you get a hat, you get, I don't know, six shirts or so and a couple pair of pants. I, I go through shirts pretty quick.
35:23
Wally Mulhern
So I buy, when I buy shirts, I buy 10 uniform shirts at a time and just kind of keep them in my closet and take them to the cleaners when I get off a trip and just kind of rotate them through and you know, they get, you wear them a lot and you know you're wearing a Tie so they're rubbing against your neck and so the colors get kind of, they get kind of dirty.
35:51
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I would, I, I tend to sweat and even if it's not really hot, I kind of sweat a little bit. So I would think they'd yellow a little bit or something. I would have to, I'd be pretty OCD about mine. Like I'd number them or something and really go through them so that they kind of color together.
36:07
Wally Mulhern
And I go through shoes quite a bit. I, when I have a particular brand of uniform shoes that I wear, they have rubber soles, they don't have a steel shank in them. So if I do have to go through security, it's not setting off any alarms. But I just bought three new pair. I got three pairs sitting in my closet and you know, I got five years before I have to retire. That will probably get me to retirement.
36:37
Bobby Doss
Well, I guess when you find something you like, I'm the same way. I, I would buy the same ones and if I could find five pairs of the shoes I wear to work every day, I'd probably buy them as well and put them on the shelf somewhere, especially if they were on sale or I got a special. No, you don't have to pay for parking. You said employee parking, so I'm assuming no paying for parking. Do you get a good deal in the airport, food wise, like discounts on, at McDonald's and Stuff because you're wearing the applets.
37:06
Wally Mulhern
Most places do give you a discount. Papacito's in the Houston airport actually has a little employee meal that's not even on the menu. I mean it's a taco, rice and beans and it's, you know, it's kind of a snack. I, I usually buy the real stuff, but yeah, you get, there's a little bit of a discount. There is. So, you know, and at hotels, typically if you eat in the hotel, you know, hotel food is usually expensive, but usually we get a 20 to 25% discount on eating in the hotel or even room service for the most part. So it takes a little bit of the sting away from it.
37:51
Bobby Doss
Well, and for me, I've always traveled and always wanted a late checkout. You just said your call time for tonight is in the six or so o' clock time frame. Right. So you're going to check out. You're not going to check out at 11am and sit around. They obviously accommodate Airline pilots differently.
38:07
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. And quite frankly, I mean that's all done through the company. So it's you. They know, they know we're leaving about, I mean, because when we check in, the sheet that we check in has our outgoing pickup time.
38:20
Bobby Doss
So they know and probably they'll flip that room and the pilot that gets there tonight at 9 o' clock will get that room all the same in some form or another.
38:28
Wally Mulhern
Yep, probably so.
38:29
Bobby Doss
And the last thing I'll ask is you've got to be like one of the world's best packers. You take a four day trip every week of your life. I'm assuming pilots don't check bags. So any packing tip that you would give the twice a year traveler that has made your life so easy on the road?
38:48
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, like my, I would say my toiletry bag. You know, when I get home, I don't even unpack it. It, it just stays in my suitcase. I mean I have deodorant that stays in there. I have deodorant that stays at home. A razor in my bag, a razor that's at home. So, you know, that never leaves. There are certain things that stay in my suitcase. For instance, my adapter for international, you know, electricity. You go to Europe and it doesn't, the plugs don't look the same, so you got to have a little adapter and they use 220 volts, so you gotta, it's gotta, you gotta have an adapter for that. So all that stuff, you know, just stays in my bag.
39:38
Wally Mulhern
And, and it sounds kind of boring, but I, I really have kind of the same clothes that I take on all my trips. Now this trip that I'm on right now is a little bit difficult because I have one layover in a tropical climate and I have one layover in a winter climate. So I'm having a pack, you know, I'm wearing shorts and flip flops right now. And then tomorrow I'll be wearing kind of a snow sweatshirt and long pants. But you know, I take a, a light coat that stays in my bag year round and it just, that's where it goes is in my flying suitcase. And I figure if it's really, really cold, I'm not getting outside.
40:24
Bobby Doss
Anyway, so might look at snow once or twice, but that'd be about it or each year probably for me.
40:29
Wally Mulhern
Right.
40:31
Bobby Doss
Well, it's been fun, Wally. Hopefully all the listeners enjoyed the conversation. Learning a little bit more what the month week day for an airline pilot looks like. Obviously 35 years in, you've seen a lot of variation from what you just talked about, from the twin prop planes you flew early days to where you're at today. But appreciate the time, appreciate you sharing. And for all you listeners out there, if you want to be an airline pilot, lots of fun opportunities and maybe some long days. But it's a career worth chasing if you want to chase it. As always, fly safely and stay behind the prop.
41:08
Nick Alan
Thanks for checking out the behind the Prop podcast. Be sure to click subscribe and check us out online@bravetheprop.com behind the Prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Creator and host is Bobby Doss. Co host is Wally Mulhern. The show is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to replace actual flight instruction. Thanks for listening. And remember, fly safe.