A New World

Yesterday the Hat Trick began a 30-day voluntary furlough as part of the flight reductions all airlines are experiencing.  It was the right thing to do as the kids definitely need a little more support as they finish their schools years online.  Mrs. East Coast Wing continues to work from home and she was having to manage both schoolwork and her own work.  My station has seen some tremendous cuts since March, some seasonal and expected, but others a direct result of the Coronavirus pandemic.  Beginning yesterday we are now down to one flight a day, after having a high of 11 flights a day in mid-March.  Ironically we've gone from not having quite enough staff and struggling to having way too many staff onsite for the one flight.  So I'll take a month off and see where we are in June.  The break will be good after a very busy winter and spring that then crashed into stress and anxiety due to the Coronavirus and going to work each day with these new stressors.

With this 30-day furlough I'm going to try and use this opportunity to write more, both on this blog and in other projects I have worked on, with fairly unimpressive progress, over the past few years.  I'm also going to use this opportunity to change the focus a little bit on the Hat Trick.  This blog was created many years ago to talk about three different subjects:  Hockey, Politics and Travel and those were subjects I really enjoyed discussing.  I still love to talk about travel and my professional life has gravitated towards that love by my employment with a major U.S. airline working in operations at a small station.  I've gone from being a Brooks Brother wearing lobbyist to a regular guy on the ramp, loading and unloading bags, marshaling aircraft in and even performing the pushback of aircraft at departure.  It's a huge change and I do like it most days, even the rough ones.  However, the political world has changed a lot and I'm growing more and more weary of it and I just can't stomach discussing the antics of the current occupant of the White House.  And since the NHL season is on hiatus due to Coronavirus it looks like I will just be covering aviation, focus on happier times in aviation and not the current crisis we are experiencing. More old photos, videos and old memories will be covered here, plus an increase in out to Twitter.  Hopefully it will be a positive occurrence in these dark times.