Non-revving, not as great as you may think

As you may know, Rob is a pilot in the Air Force Reserve and for an airline. This means we can fly basically for free, but we do pay taxes when we fly on international flights. This is an amazing benefit, considering how much he is away from home, and it does allow us to travel a lot more than we would be able to without the benefit. But it isn't without a few drawbacks.

Mainly, you have to understand that we are flying space available. This means we get the unsold seats on flights. We don't know for sure that we are going to be able to get on the plane until we get to the airport, go through security, walk to the gate, and wait for everyone else to get on the plane. Flying is always stressful until we are seated on the plane!

Consider a few things. First, if any other flights are affected by weather or maintenance, those affected customers are given seats first. And rightly so, people who pay should always be taken care of first.

Second, we get the unsold seats. This means we are never guaranteed to sit together. When we fly with the kids it is likely that they will be in one seat and we will be somewhere else on the plane. And it is against employee policy to ask a paying customer to switch seats with you so you can sit with your child. If they offer, we are allowed to take them up on it.

Finally, did you read the post I wrote on my packing process? Remember those two lovingly packed suitcases? In the non-revving world those are huge liabilities. We never know if we are going to make a flight. But there is always room for our bags! So it can happen that a checked bag is put on a plane and makes its way somewhere while we are stuck at the airport. Most families who fly standby pack only in carry-on luggage. And as soon as our little buggers can pull their own bags, we will adopt that strategy too.

I'm grateful that we have the ability to fly for free/low cost, but just once I would like to wake up the morning of the flight and know I will be at my destination that night.

One way we mitigate the stress of non-revving is by staying flexible. For this trip, our ultimate goal was to be in Orlando. There are two direct flights a day to Orlando International from Cincinnati. But the day before, we knew those flights were full, so we checked other airports in the Orlando area. We were confident we could make a flight to Atlanta, and from there it looked good to fly into Melbourne, which is about 45 minutes away from Orlando. So that's what we did, we flew to Atlanta and then took another flight to Melbourne. It meant an extra hour in the car, but at least we were in Florida!

Here are some pictures from our travel day!