Let's say I have a 9 hour layover between one long day and another very long day. For us, that 9 hours is 'block to block' - it begins the moment the door is opened on the aircraft and ends when the door is closed after boarding the aircraft the following morning. So that 9 hours quickly dwindles...subtract 40 minutes deplaning...another 20 getting to the hotel and getting room keys, and another 20 to get back from the hotel and get to the gate. We must be at the aircraft an hour before push time - so subtract another 60 minutes there.

That 9 hour layover gives me less than 7 hours actually in my hotel room. Once we subtract about two hours for face washing and teeth brushing and showering and undressing and calling home and getting to sleep, I'm sleeping about 5 hours. If I'm lucky. Since I'm not lucky, that precious 5 hours of sleep will probably come just before a scheduled 14 hour duty day.

But I suppose we should probably suck it up and get to the airport an EXTRA hour in advance to wait in line with the passengers. We'll need that time if it happens to be a busy day for security. If it isn't a busy day, I suppose we could just sit at the gate doing absolutely nothing, waiting. That would be a really efficient use of our time, eh? With some trips, we have very little time to get from one gate to another - and sometimes it is necessary to go through security to get to the gate. If we had to wait in line, planes would be late. If they rigged the schedules to avoid the time crunch, our trips would be less efficient and less productive. It would require more FA's and pilots, and that costs money.

Truth is it really isn't that big a deal. We're usually in and out in no time, anyway - and there are certainly more important things to get stressed out about in life.l