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Podcast.004, you're cleared for takeoff. Roger Metro Tower, Podcast.004 is Rowan. And we're here today with Juliet Grant Lindroop, who is an American Airlines fan. Juliet, before we talk about your current position, will you tell us how you got your start and aviation and about the journey that brought you to where you are now?
Sure. When I was three years old, I wanted to slide airplane. And that was like all I wanted to do. And I bothered my parents about it so much that finally, when I was 15, they asked if I wanted to learn to find.
Yes, I was very much one-worded fly. So my dad set me up with flying lessons when I was 15. I was ready to solo on my 15th birthday, so I get... Awesome.
After? Yeah. I had a good time. So I had my license once in 1980, and I went down my driver's life.
You got your pilot's license before your driver's license? I did. Oh, cool. Is that?
Yeah. So another funny story is you have to do all this cost-country time. Before you can get your instant rating. I was having a blast doing the cost-country.
Because I love exploring. One day I went out to get my Arizona to go explore that area. And my dad had been bothering me because he knew you'd get an instant rating. You could get a consumer.
I'm like, oh, eventually I'll get one of them. I was in Southern California. The home of June is 200 over time. I get up to come home.
After spending the weekend in Utah, I was flying around the area of the desert. And, oh, this is fogged in completely. I have to get back to the top. Here I was spending days and days in Arizona waiting to go to the client.
So my father was a pilot three-nighter. He said, look, why don't you fly to Apple Valley? And if you see the airport, you can go in and put it in Apple Valley, which was on top of the mountain. So, shut up.
I booked the Apple Valley and looked over. And now I can see Carl's at airport. It was the only time it was VFR that whole month. For about 5-40 minutes it was VFR that whole month.
That was it. So you were a lucky lady. I got in. I got in.
I think I'm going to get my instant rating now. I was in college and I was trying to get my commercial rating. And by then I was paying for my college and my commercial rating. I couldn't be both.
So I gave it up for a little while. I was doing that, I graduated. I went back and got my multi-engine, my commercial. My flight instructor rating.
I had two kids. I was married. I was in the body house. I was all in the span of five years.
And I did that for five years. I started a door in the county airport in California for five years. I was trying to get the time in so I could get my ATP. Got my ATP.
And I finally got on with Translate Fairline. I upgraded in six months. I upgraded to Captain in six months there. It was a Jetstream 32 for most of my time at Translate.
And the last year I was with Translate for three years. So at the end of the third year I got hired at America. Yeah, so I got hired in 1999 in American. So that was before the Freedom considering purchasing the ATWA.
Now you had a fairly quick upgrade with Translate to Captain. Was that by seniority? It was all based on seniority. I just got hired there at the very right time.
We're very short on pilots. Very short on pilots. When I got hired at Translate, you couldn't even get an interview there at most of the year lying unless you had 2,500 hours of total time. And it was 5,500 hours of multi-engine.
Of course I had 5,000 hours of total time. I think 1,500 hours of multi-engine time when I got hired there. As soon as my seniority came up I was able to jump over to the left seat of the Jetstream 32. And I think we did reserve for like a month.
And that's how quickly they were upgrading people. Oh, that's great. The chief pilot called me into his office right after I upgraded. And they were extremely supportive of when in there.
But he did have a conversation with me. He said that I was only the second female captain there. And so if anybody gave me a hard time to take care of it and then run a later and do it back to me. And I did have some issues with the passengers and I had an issue with Air Test Controller.
And I have to say that the management at Translate were always 100% behind me. And the guys I work with for the most part and behind me and very supportive of me. My male first officers that I had, passengers started giving me a hard time. They had one of their sisters.
And I did have a female first officers that I had. One that I'm still very, very good friends with. She's an American now. And a funny story is we were walking down the terminal at TWA meeting with the other female first officer.
And there was all this crap and everything going on. So what's going on here? And they said, oh, it's TWA first off female crew. And we looked over and said, well, where would the press fan when we flew together?
We got no press and we were the first female crew at Translate. It was like no big deal. So that was pretty fun to come moderate between the pilots and the flight attendants to a really great end. At the time I needed to get on with Americans.
You know, American has been very supportive of women. Every year I do the air raid's clap, which is the all women's air raid. And they ask the police to make sure that I have the time off work to make sure that I didn't run that air raid. I rate them the way they make sure that I have the time off to schedule during the air raid.
They also have been very good at supporting the other women who are very involved in women in aviation. When the Germany for the 99 conference they told me, don't worry about your trip. If you can't get off your trip, just know you're not going to fly them and we'll get them covered for you. And you're going to go to that conference.
Don't worry about it. No, that's great. So I have to say, as a woman's pilot, they only have to follow us with as a passenger. Management and my co-workers have been very supportive, very positive.
You get the odd jokes from the guys and give it right back to them and then spill it. Oh, okay, you're cool. You're fine. And we have a good trip.
I've had multiple occasions because I fly international so there's usually three pilots. Multiple occasions, three pilots in the cockpit in fact all next month. Right now I'm paired with a female captain and another female first officer. So we're playing on having a really fun month.
Oh, great. I'm a great time. And the women of JFK, the women pilots of JFK, we get together. We try to get together every couple of years and have a party.
Is that your base, JFK? Yeah. You mentioned issues with the passengers, Juliet. So what's an example of the encounters that you had with the passengers?
Well, I think the funniest one was the other female captain and I were going to go fly. Hey, I'm going to go down to the airplane and get it ready to go. And she's like, I'm right behind you. So we're walking to the gate.
I walk for my ID. And she's like, I'm going to go to the guy between me and Peggy. And she says, well, that better be a man or I'm not going. Oh my.
Peggy's standing right behind him. And she says, I am the other pilot on the captain of the airplane and she's my first officer and we're going to Miami. You're welcome to get on or you're welcome to take the next flight. I don't care that we're going to Miami.
She says, well, I'm calling. I'm calling American and calling them. I don't want to be no pilot. She says, and you will lose that battle every time.
Wow. What year was this? Like two years ago. Oh my.
Isn't that wild? And you get the odd passengers on some of these international flights that are not too happy having a female pilot on board. I'm going to go to the captain and the captain will give them two choices to down and be quiet and take this flight with us because she's just as well outside if not well if I don't want to fall off. They don't.
They don't. Wow. That just amazes me that that's still happening in this day and age. I guess it's always there.
There always going to be a few of them out there. Yeah. Well, the funny thing is that on the weekend and the summertime I fly for a vintage airplane museum and just just a Sunday Saturday. My husband and I own a vintage airplane also.
We had bought it up to the museum to fly. And so I'm up there flying the airplane and all day all my husband heard is that the fact I find the airplane. Well, they want you. That's my wife.
I'll be like a day of the day. I got really annoyed after a while. Wow. So on the flip side of that, I used to own a breezy and fly into air shows.
And one day there was a woman who took a ride on my breezy and it just blew her husband's mind because he had been trying to get her to take an air ride all day. She'd never been in an airplane. No, I don't know if you know what a breezy is, but there's no cockpit. I do.
I've been in a breezy. Okay. Okay. So she saw me land and she saw me pull off the old time leather flying cap and goggles and the hair come falling out and she said I want to fly with her.
So and she did. It was an awesome time. It was great. Describe the typical week in the life of an airline pilot.
Oh, yeah, the typical week in the life of a pilot. I think that the hard part about the week is like my last trip was a three day direct trip to the North Switzerland international. It's like a different ball game than domestic flying. Sure.
So I'll talk about that in a minute. But you know, here we are in Zurich and we're expecting to come home on Thursday and we land in New York at 1230 on Thursday. And the plane that the other crew was flying over or something happened. I don't know what happened, but we got to spend an extra day in Zurich.
So you have to be a little bit flexible because, you know, yes, while we work for a fiddle their line, the schedule doesn't always go as planned. It still happens, huh? It still happens and it happens. Sometimes it just isn't a run.
Like the trip before that, the last trip I had just done to the George Switzerland, we got to stay an extra day. It came standing, came up the East Coast and went to Milan, but I knew it was going to be five or six days before we got home. So we had to get the airplanes away and, you know, away from the East Coast. And so they just had everybody fly out and they said, no, we're coming home for a five or six days.
Wow. So you never know what's going to happen. Yeah. So you may have a schedule, but you have to do yourself some flexibility.
You don't want to try to do a trip the day before something super important, like a wedding that you have to be at your kids wedding or something like that. You just have to be flexible with it and just kind of roll with it and just be okay with it. Sometimes you're just not going to get home. So Julia, how have you balanced that with family life?
Do you find yourself missing important events in your children's lives or how do you work that out? When my husband and I got married back in 2002, we had two kids from previous marriage. And so we were working on lending the family and that was tough, but we both did a very senior in our bitch's house. He was pilot three nights at the time.
And we both did a very senior in our bitch's house. He's there for the important events for the kids. He is 737 captain. I want to be there for the important events in my kids' lives, even though they're all grown and gone.
There is important events coming out with weddings and what I want to be available for. And now I have to worry about am I going to be able to get the time off for it? Because if I was a captain right now in 737, I would be preserved domestic. Right.
Remember I said domestic at the home of the ballgame and international? Right. I was with American for five years on the M.T.80. And the single month went by when my schedule didn't get messed up by or a really good nanny.
Right. When I moved to the East Coast and married my husband, we had a live in nanny that we trust. And she wasn't there to show her in the blank when one of us couldn't be there. Very well put.
I like that. Yeah. And it worked out really good. Even at the Narrowing Pilot, I didn't find international when my kids were little because I wanted to be fun available all the time.
Just so that they would know that I was there all the time. Right. And my nanny would call and say, well, what do you want me to do about this or what do you want me to do about that? And so this is the way I'd like you to handle it for me in my absence.
I was just saying when my mother was watching my system, this is the way I want you to handle things. I don't want you to make decisions for them. I'll make all the decisions. I just want you to execute decisions for me in my absence.
For women to think that, you know, if I hire nanny, somebody else is raising my kids. I'm just still raising them, but executing your gang plan for you. That's well put. I like that, Julian.
That's the attitude you have to come into it. You're still in charge. You're still the captain of your children. You're still the captain of your ship.
You should be delegating that duty in your absence. And after a little after a year after we got married, I was left. Okay. Yeah, we have some explaining to do on that one.
Yeah. I was fairly injured in a car accident on my way to work. And it was probably the best thing that happened to me because it made me re-evaluate my life and my priorities. People don't often think about.
First piece is the money. You have to have enough money to retire. It has something to do when you retire. You have to sit around and do nothing once you retire.
I was so busy getting my career together and raising my kids that I'm saving the money, doing the things I needed to do that I needed to do so I could retire when I turned 60. And when I met my husband, he says, well, what are you going to do when you retire? I don't even need to think about it yet. And, you know, it's mid 30s.
I turned 40 and I had to... Okay. Now you have to think about it. I couldn't really take care of my kids.
We kept living in the ante because I was... I kept working once. I had literally nothing. And I didn't know what to do with my folks.
You know, I learned to do stuff. You know, once I was covered enough with my injuries, that's a couple of years, then I said, well, go back to work. The company said I wasn't going to be able to go back to work. Go back to work.
And my husband says, you've got to figure out a way to live with this current behalf because this is what you have and this is all you have. And you've got to figure out how to live with it. So I started going back to school and I studied back to my friends and I studied web design and I studied, you know, how to do all the Adobe stuff on the computer because my left arm wasn't working properly. So I could only do it on the computer because I was left handed.
And started a business and I started doing animal therapy with my dog. And then I got even better and I went and got out. It was called a non-urvety and joined a stee patrol. So I could save people on the hill when they crashed and burned.
Because I grew up in the teens. That was great. Oh, sure. So, you know, I peed and started doing that.
And then I rejoined the 99 and was doing stuff with the 99. Even though I didn't have a medical. And then one day they called me out of the blue and they said, okay, how? And I'm like, what?
They called you. They called me and they said, oh, we've, we've approved you for third-class medical. And I'm like, oh. So now you could fly as a private pilot with a third class.
Yeah. And I called American Airlines and I said, hey, I've heard third-class medical and I said, say what? How does that happen? I don't know.
But as long as we're short, I had one more surgery. And the company was, I needed to make a surgery to be able to go back to work. And so in the end I had the surgery and I went back to work. And the company's been very supportive and they were, they were good to meet me.
Throughout the entire stability thing. Oh, that's amazing. So Juliet, how long were you off on disability? Eight years and one day.
Oh my gosh. So you had a lot of free current training to do when you went back, didn't you? I had to go back to, in the blessing for me. In more ways than one, it was the blessing for me because it gave me an idea of what I'm going to do when I retire.
It gave me, I mean to be there for my kids. They were going through a rough time and part of that was because I was disabled and I was home all the time, micromanaging their lives. Which they love. I'm sure.
Well that made me there for all the college visits. I followed them to all of their colleges. But for me going back to work was, I have to rearrange my life to work fit into now my life. Rather than my life getting into work, my work had to now fit into my life.
And that's been one back in 2011 and it's still a very difficult transition. So it's still struggling with it quite a bit. You know Juliet, it occurs to me as you talk about this not having a plan for retirement. And I wonder if that isn't somewhat unique to aviation because as pilots we're doing what we love.
You know, if I worked a nine to five job just doing something for income to pay the bills, I would have other hobbies and outlets and creative outlets and so forth. But we as pilots, I really didn't have a plan when I medicaled out. I was already doing what I loved. The problem is we put our heart and soul under this career.
Yes. And you don't get to where we are without your life. You know, my heart beats to the time to the engine. Right.
And an airplane. If you actually have my chest, there's an airplane in there. In place of my heart. It has to be that way.
It has to be that way to get to where we are. To get to the level. Because it's only up to not just for a woman but for a man too. And so you have to have a passion for it.
You have to love it. Witness the fact that on my day's off I do the same thing I do for my job. So you do a lot of mentoring? I do a ton of mentoring.
I do a ton of mentoring. I do a ton of mentoring. They're professional pilot leadership initiatives. And I do also mentoring of young people that want to learn to fight.
Not just women but men also. You know, young boys also. Sure. So, we're mentored users.
Shout out. You want to give to someone? Yeah, my dad got me started on the path with being supportive. He always said to me, just because you're a girl doesn't mean you can do whatever you, you want to do.
The only difference between men and boys and girls is your hand a little bit small. So actually you can get your hands in the tighter space in the boy's hand. So there's, you know, most of you can do more than boys can. I couldn't do it.
One of me there was a very cute woman pilot. That was a, and I didn't learn that about four years ago that we were invited to the front of the front of the team. He looked at me and said, you know, you're in a very elite group. Didn't understand how to.
Yeah. He said, I just saw that number somewhere. It's about right. Yes.
I knew a lot of women pilots at the flight school. I worked with a son of my aviation in California. Chief instructed with a woman. And we were about half and half.
50% of us were women. Right. The instructors and I taught a lot of women to fly. So they didn't be right.
So women to fly. And I flew with a lot of women at American Airlines. I probably turned out to be like, those are the ones at American. They're so cute.
How many are there? American. American and US are combined. There's 411 in pilot.
Out of 14,000. Out of 14,000. Wow. And I just found out that figure because we're getting new uniforms.
I just found out that figure about six months ago. I thought it was much higher than the United States. Less than 1% of the airline transport pilot. Okay.
I probably know. I'll be too. Yes. I feel like it's a flow with all of them.
It's like, but you walk into operations. And so that's why it's hard for me to wrap my head around that. You know, I'll get in the cockpit and the captain will say, well, you're the first woman I've ever flown with. I'm like, what?
How come that may? How come that possibly be? I found a few family life with my family then. Somebody that works Monday through Friday night at five.
But as soon as we park at the gate, we walk off the jet. And we really don't have to think about our jobs other than, you know, looking at the weather every once in a while. I was doing a trip to my crew. I'm like, Chris, I'm going to call on me.
And I got a trip to make up to them. And then we will have hours this month. And I'm waiting for the best, great trip to come and I'll take it. They keep calling me with all the steps that I don't want to fly it.
I keep saying, no, I don't want that one. No. No. This is for a really, really great trip to come and we need to work out.
No, I totally get what you just, what you just, no, no. We hang up the headset and we're home and we're home without family. We don't have to answer the phone. We don't have to type up emails.
We don't have to do any of that stuff. You know, an hour once a month, my train's for me. I just spend seven minutes putting the trades in that I want and just let it run on the bus. have my undivided attention.
So I think we get to spend more time with our kids than people that work Monday through Friday 8 to 5. I always tell that way, because you don't take your job home with you at all. Once you step off that airplane and get in your car, we have nothing to think about until the next flight. And that is a very awesome aspect of being a pilot.
Yes, it's a great job. And I think it's a great job for moms, because again, we can, for the most part, work as much as little as we want to. It's a fantastic part time job, it really is. Because I can work like this month, I've worked full four days.
Well, it sounds like you're in a good place, and you're enjoying life, and you know what you're going to do when you retire, so that's just great. You got it all together. The accent with the blessing, the non-disability with the blessing, coming back to work with the blessing, and having my supersuppence and blessing. Oh, that's beautiful.
And the good part is that you understand my career. United Airlines doesn't do it as a trapean, as Americans, as Americans, in fact, they don't. We make it a way of life. At the time, it's where your wife is.
I don't know. I have no up to it. Well, Juliet, I really appreciate you spending all this time with me. It's been a fun interview.
And is there anything else you want to add that we haven't talked about? Well, I think that's about it. I mean, it's a great career. Somebody wants to get into it.
But they got a tough one to get to Cancie, but once you're there, it's great. Black and enjoy the vibe because it's fantastic. Thanks again, Julia. I wish you many more fantastic lives, and you are clear for departure.
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