Mesaba Airlines Opening

For those of you who don't know, Northwest Airlines recently returned service to the Dubuque Regional Airport. After graduation, I was hired as a Customer Service Agent by Mesaba Airlines who is a wholly owned subsidiary of Northwest and operates under the Northwest brand name. So you can call us Mesaba, Northwest, or Northwest Airlink; any is correct. We're still working out a few bugs in Dubuque, but other than that things are running smoothly and passenger loads are increasing. Yesterday, I took half of the day to go up to Minneapolis and go to Northwest's stopover store. There, employees can buy extra uniform pieces, luggage, t-shirts, and other souveniers. I got a pin for my badge lanyard and a hat for when it begins to get cold. I also had to stop and get a pair of sunglasses that I left a couple weeks ago after training. I hung out most of the day with my ramp instructor who took me around the airport. We met the load planners, and several other people from the operations department and took a vehicle around the airport to look at some of the bigger aircraft in Northwest's fleet. Among those were a 747, an A330 and numerous A319's, A320's, DC-9's, 757's CRJ-900's, CRJ-200's, and SAAB 340's. Sometimes it's fun just being an aviation nerd. I flew back on the 1:45 flight so that I could be back for work at 9pm. At night we have to clean the plane and make sure there are no weapons or other unauthorized foreign objects on board before sealing up the doors. I'm getting a lot of hours until the our final two staff members are trained, so I stay pretty busy. However, once it settles down this summer, I will be working on my flight instructor rating so I can teach at the University of Dubuque. Visitors are always welcome in Dubuque. Just give me a day or two notice so I can clean up!

There are a lot more cool pictures that I couldn't fit in this post. Take a look at my Mesaba album on Photobucket.com to see the rest.