Katie Guello was recently promoted to captain while working for Avelo Airlines at Tweed Airport after attending her first class in 2009 and becoming a pilot in 2017.
Captain Guello’s schedule consists of waking up early, sometimes as early as four in the morning for a flight. But it also depends on the flight plan. Most of the crew members know each other very well. Captain Guello says, “Every flight has 2 pilots and around 3 flight attendants and we work together for a month so we’re very close with each other.” Usually, before any flight, she has a meeting with all her crew members and has some checking on the aircraft to make sure that there are no safety hazards. They also talk about the weather, the airport operation, or anything else needed to be discussed before the flight.
Captain Guello is assigned her schedule every month, which lets her knew when and where she will be flying and how many days she has off in different cities. She shared: “I fly at most four times a day if it is a short flight like from Tweed (New Haven, CT) to any states around Connecticut” but for most of the times, she flies two times a day, “like from here to Florida and Florida back.” After these flights, she has three to five days off until her next flight, so it does give her lots of time to relax after a long flight.
One of Captain Guello’s favorite places to visit is Savannah, Georgia because there is a lot of scenery and history in Savannah. There are plenty of places where you can visit with mysterious mythology and history, like a gravestone on a runway.
Her inspiration to become a pilot started with a field trip that she had in middle school, when she was 13 years old. This trip was sponsored by an organization called the Young Eagles and everyone in her class go to the trip. She still remembers her very first flight was on a CESSNA 172 aircraft. Ever since that trip, it has been her dream to fly, to be a pilot, to be on a plane. After she graduated high school, she brought her dream to Lake Superior College in Minnesota. While studying very hard for her dream, she also had a part-time job as a dishwasher to pay for her flight lessons.
According to Captain Guello, one benefit of being a pilot is that one can travel a lot and fly anytime they want but there is a federal restriction to how many times she can fly. While there are a lot of benefits like meeting new people, traveling, doing what she loves, and her monthly schedule, there are also disadvantages like how she has to stay away from home for a very long time or not being home very often. Overall, the endless training, lots of reading, and being a mentor, a pilot, and student instructor for years, finally paid off for all the hardship she’s been through as she’s now a captain in Avelo airline at Tweed Airport.
Since she was promoted as a captain, Ms. Katie Guello is one step closer to her goal of having her own aircraft. Captain Guello said, “It’s always has seemed a dream, just a small airplane that I can fly and share with friends and family.” She imagines being able to travel more easily with friends and family and sharing her love of the sky with them.
