so the plane is up, going, auto pilot is on, What do you do? do you just listen to iPods or do you talk?

play cards, read, eat, sleep, meditate, sew,crochet, write letters, manicure.

both talk and ipods.

go potty break ,drink coffee, eat, nap maybe.

Nap...No..Airline company is usually ban napping.

Some may play l spy, Ipod Maybe. They have to fulfill other duties such as staying in contact with atc, looking for the best route to diverse from turbulence and storms and look over the systems etc etc.

Some other things may include briefing the cabin, and the flight attendants.

Drink...

l am a pilot. l have a license to fly on Boeing 747,737,777 and airbus a320,330,340.Trust me ,when l take off and start cruising on 11000 m (on autopilot_)i can not sit and relax l must check fuel flow,power,gas..i hope that l helped you.

my boss kept asking that same question. he sees his chauffeur struggling in traffic and such and can not believe his executive pilots, who get paid twice as much, have it so easy.

We have it easy for a reason. We have 100s of thousands of dollars worth of training, a college degree, and when things get hairy its up to us to make things right. No chauffer has to deal with that or has that much training.

You monitor the radio and take turns napping on really really long flights. Would you rather your pilots nap in cruise or on short final?

On an Air India flight the other day it was reported that Air Traffic Control had to ping the two pilots because they had fallen asleep. They had not descended for the final approach and, indeed, had overshot the airport by 15 miles and were still heading away from the airport.

patty cake

l dont have a autopilot, so l actually hand fly the airplane at all times.

Talk about family and other stuff, check readings like fuel pressure and other stuff on the displays, eat, plot routes.

Work. The job, the pay, the training is not for the average run-of-the-mill ''normal'' flight. It is for the dark & stormy night, when you're close to duty time & beat, weather sucks & the fire light goes off -- divert to a short strip, in the dark you've never been to before with weather at minimums & braking action last reported as ''grim''.

And all of u in the back go home to ur families (me too) because l did my job & earned most of the money that night l will ever earn in my career.

Unless some CEO who has never made a decision that saved an aircraft & a life runs the company into the ground & takes his golden parachute while our retirement goes up in smoke. And puts a bunch of 61 year olds on the street to start over.