This is a pretty good read I found a few months back from Reddit
spudmunkey17 comments on People who work for airlines, what are secrets passengers don't know?
"Passengers have no idea how complicated a flight is from a pilots perspective. Let me walk you through it.
We show up around an hour before the flight and get the paperwork. Is the weather ok? Is the forecast for the destination going to be above our minimums? Is it above minimums, but requires an alternate airport to be listed in case the weather doesn't go quite as planned? What equipment is broken at the airport that might affect these minimums? How about the departure airport? Do we need to plan for an airport to go to if we take off and have a problem, but can't get back into our departure airport due to weather, slippery runways, etc.?
How about the airplane? Is everything working? Certain systems are allowed to be broken. Are there any of those on this flight? How will it affect us? Will it change the weather minimums we checked out earlier?
Where is my first officer? And the flight attendants? I guess they must be at the airplane. I'll go there.
Nope, they're not at the airplane. It's getting close to boarding, I'd better find them. Called scheduling, they said that they are on an inbound flight that just arrived, but on the opposite side of the airport. It'll be 10 minutes for them to swim their way through the terminal.
I'll do the walk around while I wait. What's that on the belly? Must be hydraulic fluid, that's about all that is around there. Better call maintenance.
First officer and flight attendants are here now, that's good. But we're 10 minutes past boarding now.
Maintenance shows up and checks out the mystery fluid. It's hydraulic fluid they say, but it's old. They wipe it off. If you see any more when you get to your destination, let us know. Probably just spillage from when they serviced the hydraulics last.
Tell the gate agent we're ready to board. It's 10 minutes to departure time now.
5 minutes pass. No passengers get on.
A passenger is being wheeled down the jetway in an aisle chair (a narrow wheelchair designed to fit in the aisle of the airplane.) Takes 5 minutes or so to get him situated. The rest of the passengers file on.
Meanwhile, the first officer is getting our clearance. Bad news, there is a ground stop at our destination. We can't leave, and we don't expect any more information for 30 minutes. Not that we can leave in 30 minutes, just that we will get an update in 30 minutes.
The passengers have all filed on at this point. I make an announcement apologizing for the slight delay in boarding, we needed to have maintenance come out to check something, but we're all good in that regard. Unfortunately, ATC is telling us that we can't depart yet due to weather and traffic, and we will know more in 30 minutes.
You can hear the grumbles from the cockpit.
30 minutes pass, during which the first officer and I get the checklists done as far as we can, and get to know each other a bit. After all, I've never seen this guy before in my life. There are thousands of pilots at this airline, we don't all know each other.
The first officer calls to find out about the update. Good news, you can leave, but you have to be airborne in 5 minutes. ****. We're still at the gate with no engines running. Can we get them both started, run the checklists, and taxi to the runway in 5 minutes? Better have a go at it, otherwise we might miss our slot.
We scramble and get it done. We take off 40 minutes late. Not too bad considering the situation.
Halfway through the flight, we see a group of thunderstorms on the radar right along our route, blocking it and any options to the left of it. We as ATC for a deviation to the right to get around that line.
"Unable due to traffic" is the reply.
Great. Now what?
"Center, we can take higher or lower if needed, but we need a deviation to the right."
"Spudmunkey 17, uh, descend and maintain 14,000, passing 16,000, deviations to the right up to 20 degrees approved. Advise when direct to wherever."
****, we're still 2 hours from our destination. If we descend to 14,000 feet, are we going to have enough fuel?
A quick punch in the flight management system, and we do, but barely. If anything else happens, we're going to have to go to plan B.
Luckily, nothing else goes wrong, and we land, although the extra weather deviations and lower altitude result in another 10 minutes added to the flight. We land 50 minutes late.
We park at the gate and open the cockpit door. Various comments come in from the passengers ranging from the most common: an apathetic "thanks," to the occasional "this is why I don't fly your airline" or any other variation of it.
The plane is empty, and we have to start the process all over again for the next flight.
The problem now is that we didn't start it all 1 hour before departure. It's departure time now, and the gate agent is asking if you are ready to board. You haven't even looked at the paperwork yet.
So, you want to be a pilot?
EDIT:
I'm not looking for sympathy. I merely meant to answer the "what's something people don't know..." part of OP's question. People tend to think that pilots just roll in at leisure and hit the autopilot button. I meant to educate those people a bit.
My situation is hypothetical, the numbers are arbitrary, but the point still stands. This is not an abnormal day for a pilot. It's not a good day, but it's not a bad day either. Throw in a diversion or a ramp with no gates approaching the "passenger bill of rights" times for being "held hostage" on an airplane, and things get a LOT more interesting. Like we want to keep you on the airplane. Because we're evil like that."
-Spudmunkey17 October 18th, 2013