Working At The Airport (uh, again)

So y'all know I quit my previous job at the airport and now work..at the airport again.

Let me explain *takes momonguos breath*:

I quit my previous job because as much as I really did love it, it didn't pay enough and I had to move up. I was sort of a manager at that job honestly, because the team was small but I also wasn't because I still had other bosses and managers. In short, I was only an employee and in the future if I were to stay there for 2 years I would have to be either bumped up on the ladder or in pay, and neither option had the opportunity of happening. I really loved working there, and if I'm honest, it's the coolest college job ever. You get to be outside, in the sun all day, or when you're inside you get to be making perfectly burned coffee and chatting to pilots and their families and their dogs all day.

but yea if I'm honest I did get yelled at by my boss before for talking too much.

However! If you love planes and people and cute dogs and ok coffee, you should try working at your local FBO! I would love to go back even, but most likely as a CFI since after only about 2-3 weeks of me being gone, they hired someone else. Opps. Guess that door closed on you Abbie. No going back. 😂

There was also the time I guided my first plane in. It was a small green-and-white piper, and I was SO PROUD. It was just the owner, his wife, and their dog, but I felt like the whole world just saw me guide that plane in and do it like a boss to if I say so myself.

There were also many moments of spilled/burnt coffee, as I've alluded to.

And how can you forget that buzz of excitement when a student is meeting their examiner for a checkride? And later when they hopefully pass, the huge grin and shaking hands they can't hide.

Sometimes there was drama, most times actually. Pilots are pretty peaceful, but we love a good story and sometimes we might create happenings when nothing is really going on. It might be about the rude customer who charged into the FBO demanding things, or yelled about our prices being too high, or it might be about a CFIs latest trouble student, but you can bet there never was a slow day that summer in that small FBO!

Well, once Fall & Winter come, it slows down a lot! (as evidenced by all my pictures with the fuel trucks in the silent still mornings of no fuel calls)..But Spring and Summer are great n' busy times at the airport! :)

So, all that brings me to how I met a local pilot who was flying tours over the gorge.

He told me his 2nd job was working for a local Part 135 airline. I won't give details or names, but this pilot friend introduced me to his other coworkers at the Part 135 and even showed me around and essentially told me he could get me hired there.

At the time, Summer was ending and I was finally feeling very competent and comfortable with my duties at the FBO. I liked being in charge (kinda), running the fuel truck, boss of the tarmac even among the big jets (you aint nobody if you out of fuel), getting to meet and talk to so many people, I didn't really care to leave. But I was also itchy for change, and if you know me, you know as soon as I start to get comfortable, I gotta leave. It's like this blessing/curse that ensures I'll always be learning and improving (but also being a noob at everything and making a fool of myself).

So when this pilot friend dude told me to come check out his other job, and told me he could hook me up and when he offered more than once, in fact maybe more around 3-5 times to get me hired there, I agreed. At the same time, I was thinking I needed to move onto somewhere with higher pay and this place had about $3 more, and more opportunity for my future as a professional pilot. While this friend convinced me the job was basically mine, I met a business owner who flew helicopters and did some drone work too. He wanted to work together, possibly do some contract work, and we worked well together from the few times we'd talked at the airport so I also looked into working with him.

Back in Jan, I ended my contract with the helicopter dude, but was shortly after (about a month later) hired at the Part 135 this friend pilot had tried to get me into. They finally called me!!

They took awhile to let me know, but I'm so excited to start and training should start soon!

They called me while I was on campus in the library studying furiously actually, so that made it better somehow haha. I'm so thankful to all my friends and mentors who have helped me thus far, and to Globalair SO MUCH because y'all have helped me continue flying through the Winter!!

:)

https://www.globalair.com/

me when I finally got the phone call that they wanted to interview me!

(and here's some throwback videos of working at the FBO! :)

Day In The Life Working At The Airport: