The Envoy flight crews based out of Chicago, Il are vying to get the Chicago (ORD) to Columbia, Mo (COU) 4 hour layover route. The flight is scheduled to arrive at 10:10 AM a few days a week. As soon as they are out of the gate in ORD, they are chomping at the bit to get taxied and onto the runway for take off. When the winds are at their back, they haul butt to land at COU as quickly as possible. Sometimes as early at 0930. This has been passed around in their private Facebook group.
The ORD flight arrives, we ramp agents get the passengers and luggage offloaded. Dump the lavatory and replace the sanitary liquid plus clean and sanitize the cabin. The flight crew heads into the crew ops building while we finish with the aircraft and finally head inside.
Flight crew and ground crew begin cutthroat MONOPOLY!!! Vicious financial playing with the intent to bankrupt all other players. No children's game here. Ruthless 3 plus hours of playing. One captain won, one First Officer won, two ramp agents have one a game apiece, and I am the crowning champion with two games won. They know that and want to beat me. We tell them that fist fights and sword fights are acceptable means of property disputes.
We have the rest of May and all of June for this. Word is in July. COU will resume to 7 flights a day and 4 hour layovers will cease.
Gordon Gecko was right. Greed is good.
