WHO PAYS FOR AIRLINE HOTELS?? // it's not what you think

In this video we're gonna have breakfast at a coffee shop located inside of a bathroom. We're going to explore the Venice of Portugal and I'm going to answer the question who pays for the hotels, me or the company. Are you ready? Let's go. My name is Paul. I fly airplanes for a living but my passion is encouraging you to explore this beautiful world by giving you a glimpse into my layover life. In my last video I talked about how I picked up a trip and it was an automatic thing through the computer to pick up a trip on your reserve days which was true but what was not true about it is that that only works if the number of reserve days you have is equal to the number of days that a trip is worth or one day less. So for example tomorrow I start six days of reserve so I could pick up a six-day trip or a five-day trip on the computer. What happens when there's no trips like that available is that you have to wait an extra 15 minutes after the computer runs its program and then you can call crew scheduling and pick up whatever's left over. So that's where I'm at today. I have six days of reserve starting tomorrow so I have to wait for the computer to run the program and all those pilots to pick up trips and then it's a first come first serve first person to call crew scheduling gets the trip. So in a couple minutes that computer system is going to run its program and then I'll call crew scheduling and see what I can get. All right the computer has just run the program. There's still four trips in open time. Three London trips and one Porto trip. Porto is kind of a junior trip for us right now because the way the times are scheduled on it you don't need a relief pilot and so for people who are used to going to Europe and coming back and having a relief pilot on every flight, which means getting a nap, to not have one is kind of a big deal. So it's a beautiful city and one of my favorite countries in the world but it's a really junior trip because there's no relief pilot. So you fly over you depart at 10 o'clock at night you get there at 10 o'clock in the morning and then when you leave you leave at around 12 30 or so and come back but it's eight hour it's blocked at eight hours which means taxi time flying time and all that which is one minute short of needing a relief pilot. Because of that it's a really junior trip even though it's like one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. So I'm hoping when I call scheduling here in a couple minutes that that trip's still in open time and I can go to Porto. Welcome to United Airlines pre-scheduling. This is Marinella. Hey Marinella this is Paul Holty. Can I pick up pairing ECHO 3069 for tomorrow? Okay captain you have ECHO 3069 for tomorrow. Okay great thanks so much. All right ECHO 3069 is the pairing number it's like a trip number. ECHO stands for Newark. ECHO 3069 is Porto so headed to Porto tomorrow should be fun. All right on with my day see you tomorrow. Pro tip order Starbucks on your app before you go through security. That way it'll be ready when you get there. After arriving in Newark I headed downstairs to our flight operations area and made my way back to the pilot lounge to get some rest and after a quick flight across the ocean I was at... I love this hotel. Self-service espresso machine in the hallway, complimentary port on arrival, a super comfortable bed, sweeping views of the city but all that's going to have to wait because today we're headed to the Venice of Portugal, a city called Aveiro. Not only are the people of Porto incredibly welcoming and beautiful but even the sidewalks are meticulously placed limestone mosaics and when you look up from the sidewalk you see beautiful ceramic tiles on the buildings. Even the train station is beautiful but if you take the train about an hour and a half down the coast you'll find a little town called Aveiro. The city lies on the edge of the Ria de Aveiro, a saltwater lagoon that was historically farmed for its seaweed, salt and bountiful fish. They call it the Venice of Portugal because of the canals throughout the city. The boats you see here aren't called gondolas however they're called moliceiros and you can take a tour of the city for 13 euros and I can't think of a better way to see a colorful city than with a colorful tour guide. After our tour we stopped for gelato and then took a 10-minute uber to Costa Nova, a beautiful resort town on the coast known for its candy cane striped houses. We took some obligatory selfies and then watched the sunset on the beach before heading back to Porto. Oh man I got some sun yesterday. All right I need to pick up a trip for tomorrow because I still have three days of reserve left and right now it looks like there's a Barcelona trip, a Dublin trip and a Shannon trip in open time so I'm going to put my requests in for a trip for tomorrow in that order and hopefully I get one of those. Barcelona would be awesome. The program will run while we're flying back to Newark today and then when we land in Newark I will know what trip I got. Okay time to plan the flight and then it's off to the airport. All right you guys ready for a quick brief? Yes. Seven hours 22 minutes today. There's two things that might not work. Good morning from the cockpit your captain speaking like to welcome you aboard United flight 145 service now to Newark. After landing in Newark I checked I bet you're wondering what trip I got for tomorrow. I was wondering the same thing when I landed. I turned on my phone and found out that I didn't get a trip actually. There must have been some senior pilots who picked up the trips that were available and so I'm back on long call reserve now. There's some storms moving into the New York area right now so I'm hoping that there'll be a good trip that goes into open time tomorrow. Usually when there's storms in the area someone can't get to work because their flight cancels or whatever so I'm hoping that means I'll get a good trip. Until then I'm at my home away from home an airport hotel here in the Newark area and a question came up on my last video who pays for the hotels when you're on the road? That's a great question. When I stay in Newark I have to pay for those hotels because I'm based here the company expects that I either stay here or live here but when we're on the road the company pays for all those hotels it's all taken care of the transportation to and from the hotel is taken care of the hotels know what our flight numbers are and what time we leave and all that stuff so that's all taken care of but when I stay in Newark I'm staying at a hotel. Some pilots have a crash pad. Pilots and flight attendants have crash pads which is kind of like basically it'd be like an apartment with maybe two bedrooms and eight beds in it so you'd rent one of the beds and you can show up to it whenever you want and there could be nobody there and there could be eight people there so I kind of prefer to have a hotel because I get a room to myself and it's private and I don't have to sleep next to four other snoring pilots so that's what I choose to do other people do other things but when I stay in Newark I stay in a hotel and when I'm on the road the company pays for it so now I just have to wait for a trip to go into open time and hopefully I can snag it and go somewhere cool all right thank you all right good night I just got signed London tomorrow night um it's not really ideal it leaves at 11 o'clock at night and it doesn't get back to Newark until nine o'clock at night three days from now so I only have two days off after this and since I can't get home because there's no flights back to Minneapolis when I get back from I gotta go home the next morning I only have two days off so I'm going to be commuting home on the morning of the first day off not really ideal I was hoping for like a really cool trip but it's all right London's not bad it's just uh getting back late it's not really what I had in mind but now I got time for plenty of rest and uh off to London tomorrow good night one of the advantages to a crash pad versus a hotel is that you get to stay as long as you want I have to check out of this hotel because I'm here at platinum I get to stay here until 4 p.m and that's great but if I were in a crash pad because I don't have to be at the airport till 9 30 tonight I'd probably stay in the crash pad until eight o'clock and then head over to the airport so instead I'm gonna check out here and then I'll probably go to the crew lounge for a little bit and maybe grab a coffee and some food and then get ready to go to London tonight's flight is kind of unique for me I'm not the working captain there's a working captain there's a first officer and then I'm the IRO which stands for international relief officer and it has to do with the pilot shortage basically we're so short on pilots that they're using captains as international relief officers it's got a little bit of a different job description than what a captain does but I get paid the same and to be honest it's a little bit easier and it's kind of nice to just sit in the back seat I'll show you what that looks like I gotta get to the airport though I haven't showered yet today and I look gross so gotta get ready and then I'll show you what the IRO does after we landed in London the crew took an elevator from the plane down to the ramp where there was a van waiting for us we drove across the tarmac and after a quick stop at the customs office we were off to... my nap when I got in felt more like a blink of an eye but that didn't stop us from taking the underground to a posh rooftop bar called Madison's it's a great spot for epic views music and not a bad place to catch sunset so we enjoyed all of that we are headed back to Newark later this afternoon but I've got a little time and there's a coffee shop I want to go check out and it's in a toilet let's go blue dude blue moon the attendant is located in Fitzrovia in a quirky disused Victorian toilet it sat dormant for 50 years before becoming the cafe it is today when you go downstairs you'll be greeted by a super friendly staff and you can sit at one of the original urinals and enjoy a beautiful coffee they also have brunch food and snacks I had the avocado toast which was super tasty ironically what this former public toilet doesn't have is a public toilet I wish I'd had a chance for a second cup of coffee but before I knew it it was time to head back to the hotel and I'll meet you on the airplane I'll show you what the IRO does after we arrived at the airport it was time to get to work the international relief officer's job is fairly easy before boarding begins we head to the aft galley to check the lav and water levels this is basically to make sure the toilets don't overflow and everyone can wash their hands during the flight then we head outside and do the pre-flight walk around when we come back inside we verify the oceanic coordinates on our flight plan we also check the high frequency radios which is what we use to communicate over the ocean after pushback and takeoff the IRO calculates the break schedule and because they're usually on first break they also set up the curtain around our rest seat with all that squared away I settled in for my break and a quick seven hours later I was at I have just checked in for the last hotel of the trip this hotel I'm paying for again so seven days four hotels two that I've paid for here in Newark and then two that the company's paid for on the road I'm ready to be home though tomorrow's one of my days off and I'm using the morning part of it to get back home to Minneapolis so I'm really only going to be home for about a day and a half and then it's off on another adventure I hope you join me hit the subscribe button if you'd like and I'll see you on the next layover in this video we're going to have coffee in a coffee shop we're going to explore the we're going to explore in this video we're going to have breakfast inside of a coffee shop I love this hotel there's a complimentary port when you arrive a self-service espresso machine in the hallway I have two days off and tomorrow's one of them so I'm going to hit the hay could be worse