Should husband have got taxi at 4am after finishing work late?

[Groay]

Husband is a pilot. He ended up at an airport that is not his home base. This meant he stayed overnight in a hotel. I was fine with this. But I have since learned that everyone except him chose to get in a paid for taxi in the very early hours. Husband’s taxi was for 2pm the next day. Everyone else wanted to gain that day back by getting the travel over and done with.

It meant that I had to cancel an event I wanted to go to. Dh knows I was trying to figure out alternative childcare but the hassle wasn’t worth it in the end so I sacked it off.

Do I have a right to be mad? Dh could’ve slept for three hours in the taxi and then driven the 20 mins home. And had basically the whole next day to chill with the odd drop off here and there for kids.

He said he was knackered. He FaceTimed me from bed and he was definitely tired but I can tell when he’s exhausted. He was actually quite talkative and I had to say get some sleep to him! I was up with poorly baby

Well since the OP hasn't clarified the issue I'm entitled to take a punt...(AFAIK they haven't even clarified if DH is short haul or long haul...?)

The company's offer of a hotel room is a pretty good indicator that an extended duty was involved for the reasons previously stated....

As for your comment about flight time and diversions,.Birmingham, Glasgow etc, the important thing to understand is the duty day (timeed from report - clocking on- to final engines off) is the limiting factor not the flying hours/airborne time, they are different metrics..

i've seen a single sector Longhaul day (JFK-LHR, no diversion, so maybe 6 flying hours) end up as being very close to a 15 or 16 hour duty due sub-optimal de-icing at the start of the day in JFK.

on another Single sector flight that needed a divert the 14 hour flying time ended up as a close to 24 hour working day for the crew ( caring for passengers after shutdown, so the duty clock had stopped) because of problems on the ground at the diversion station.

In neither of the above cases would I have fancied going anywhere near the controls of a car without catching up on sleep first.

Certainly in the absence of further info I'm still siding with the DH.

Also team DH. Him having proper sleep is far more important and none of this was his fault.

As I've said previously, I think the husband was sensible here.

However, people aren't taking into accounts given the op was looking after a poorly baby at 4:00 a.m. and has other kids, it's entirely possible she was looking at a 36-hour day or thereabouts.

So whilst he made the right choice, and the safe choice, I can understand her frustration. Tempers get frayed when there's very little sleep going around.

We don't know enough information here to know who would 'win' the tiredness award. It could be either frankly. But 'who is more tired' is never a helpful way to think about it when you're in those trenches, but incredibly difficult to avoid sometimes. I remember locations being insanely jealous of my husband because he got 10 more minutes than me 😂.

I think you are being very unreasonable and quite selfish, I am team DH for this one.

There's always the option not to have lots of children. That way you get more sleep and can go to more parties.

Usually people who tarvel for work try to get home ASAP. They take awkward flights and times to get home. I understand why he stayed but if everyone else left and he didn't, it doesn't look great. Was thia one off and he is usually quick to come home and involved in family life? Or does he often avoid spending time alone with the children?

surely he could have had the taxi drop him off at home rather than at the airport, if it's so close?
so no real need to drive immediately after the 3 hour journey?
(if he needed his car in the afternoon, he could have gone to the airport after he woke up to pick it up)

But they weren’t the pilot

Probably booked late checkout as he wasn't in bed until after 4 am?

Presumably because the airline's policy for taxis is that they will only pay to get them back to their base. And it would then have to be 2 bookings for DH to get home

I’m actually shocked at how unreasonable you are being, OP. He’s a pilot ffs, the responsibility is huge, and the importance of proper rest is paramount. Are you always this unreasonable about his work responsibilities? Because as a PP said, it is concerning to think that any of us could put our lives in the hands of a pilot who is being pressured by his wife to make unsafe decisions regarding his sleep. You need to reassess your attitude towards his job.

I wonder if his decision was a bit selfish.. a poorly baby might make sleep at home more difficult.
In the other hand I often find hotels horribly noisy.

Agreed, and also the mass move of the initial batch of crew in the early hours who decided they would risk travel might quite possibly have been done using a bus/minibus or at least several to a cab, in which case possibly no scope for individual house calls.

A commercial pilot must be fully rested and alert while responsible for potentially hundreds of lives, and you want to second guess how he manages that?

Team DH here.

Team dh on this hotel seemed very reasonable given this situation

Yes you are right, didn’t think of that 🤦‍♀️

Makes me feel extra safe while flying that the pilots up front might not of slept due to their partner at home haranguing them to take 3 hour cab rides at 4am.

OP he works a transport job. It unpredictable and has all sorts of unforseen delays. Sometimes he won't make it home on schedule. Get used to it.

I can imagine the subsequent inquiry, in which any surviving member of the crew would have explained that DH was shattered and had really wanted to sleep at the hotel but his wife had insisted that he travel all night so that he could get home in time to look after the children so she could go to a party.

Exactly this! Imagine the company saying they'd paid for his total room and taxi home the next afternoon as per company policy, but the wife insisted otherwise.

I wonder if the husband will get to see this thread-I would imagine it will be shared amongst some pilots and airline staff!

This thread is full of women saying they would have done the same as OP's husband in his situation (you can add me to that) so I have no idea where you're getting this post from.

Exactly, and your dp like this man will have to legally declare that they are “fit to fly/drive” for work purposes, can’t believe there’s so many people thinking that he’s being selfish for doing this!

Were the rest of the crew on point to do childcare when they got home ?

Did he realise, at 4am, the knock on effect of him staying would mean you not being able to go to your event? And what was the event? For me that’s the crux. Relationships are all about compromise and sometimes having to put yourself out a bit, pushing through* with kids even when you’re tired. I can completely see both points of view here and it’s a tricky one. I assume no way he could have got a taxi earlier than 2pm?

ETA: pushing through within the safe limits of what’s allowed for pilots wrt to rest, but in this case given he wasn’t flying the next day, I think there was scope for him to take the hit and head home.

I think that poster is one of those who's hatred for men is so intense that they will always side with the woman regardless

It's not simply a case of him taking some supposed hit, there's potential for real jeopardy.

1. Driving: if he had an accident on the drive from the crew car park to home having not rested potentially the police/CPS could have been be all over him like a rash..(if he survives)...see, yet again, the Selby case, etc etc blah blah...

If the DH was prosecuted and convicted in those circumstances that's potentially a career ender.........

1. Flying: Possibly less of an issue but whilst DH was, as best I can work it out, supposedly not rostered for work Saturday it's unlikely but not impossible he was rostered for a Sun AM start. The DH has a responsibility (it's another one of those pesky legal things) to be, on paper at least, rested and not fatigued prior to duty...given the circumstances how/where would that best have been achieved?

Ultimately balancing an airline crew job with having young kids can be very tough on the whole family, and sometimes it's not possible to keep everyone happy...

But the employer (who has a duty) of care offered it as an option and it sounds like the co-pilot took it.

BTW, I’m not sure what the “right” answer is and I think that’s quite telling in itself, but I’m just not immediately Team DH.