Paul H. said:
The training took place out in Wilmington, Delaware. When we were done with training we got on the plane in Philadelphia to go back to Memphis and get our ID badges, which is what we’d been working toward for two months. After my simulator partner, Nick, and I had already sat down, the lead flight attendant came up to us, asked if we were the two pilots from Northwest Airlink, we said “yes” and then he said, “The Captain would like to welcome you guys up front.” Since I’ve never had a job where I was able to jump seat with the airlines I was pretty excited to be invited up to the cockpit! The jump seat is an extra seat in the cockpit for another pilot to sit in. I was sitting in the window seat, Nick was sitting in the aisle seat, and our examiner, Greg, was sitting a couple rows in front of us. As soon as I heard that we were invited up front, I jumped over Nick, and walked as fast as I could to the cockpit (Nick says it looked more like a slow run but I disagree).
When I got up to the cockpit door of the Airbus, the First Officer was standing there, and had a somewhat confused look on his face when I came racing up there. He asked me, “Can I help you sir?” I said, “The Captain wants to see me!” I burst through the cockpit door, tapped the Captain on the shoulder and said, “Sir, I heard you wanted to see me.” He looked just as confused as the First Officer and said, “Who are you?!” Just as he said that, I looked back at Nick and Greg, as they were taking their seats in first class. I then realized that when the flight attendant said that we were welcome up front, he meant first class, and not the cockpit. Maybe I’m not quite ready for an Airbus yet but when I am, at least I’ll know the way to the cockpit