Originally Posted by orangeandwhite
You know, I am pretty sure I had this fellow for JFK-BDA a little while back. I think he blew a whistle, like a train conductor. He joked towards the end of the flight about raffling off a 757 to whoever knew the answer to some trivia questions.
YUP . the Captain in question is/was a fixture on the BDA/JFK runs. Had him several times on that flight. And it does return BDA-JFK then CUN... so I am sure its the same guy.
We were stuck in JFK for de-ice and then refuel (5 hour ordeal) so he had a 'raffle' onboard. I think he did a walkthru of the cabin while were were sitting on the tarmac waiting for de-ice (in full proper Bermuda shorts with Captains shirt/jacket) and then we had to guess his age.. or the weight at takeoff or some thing. Think it was a bottle (full bottle back in those days not the half bottles) of champagne!
The Bermuda shorts and train whistle were his trademark and the FAs loved to fly with him. On the initial PA and the landing PA he would give loads of information (and not always the same each flight) about Bermuda and the island and the plane and weather ... I commuted weekly for 18 months to Bermuda and had the same crews many Sundays outbound and Fridays return (for the month of their schedule). This Captain however was a very frequent Captain tho!
One reason (from what I was told) that crews like AA1444/AA1443 JFK-BDA and return is that the rest time was a very long one. The arrival was so late at night (11pm? and 80% of the time later) and the departure so early in the morning (7am?) that they crew could not do a single overnight. Both cockpit and FA crews had to do like a 32 hour layover in Bermuda! They all loved the layover, but paid for it on the return as I think their day was BDA-JFK-CUN-MIA and many were NYC based and had to deadhead home later....
Ah the memories!