Pilot Chat

On a recent business trip, I found myself having to fly on United. I haven’t had much luck with United. I can recall seemingly countless bad experiences on that Airline. On this trip I didn’t have a choice. It was the only airline flying where I needed to go.

First of all, my connecting flight got in right before the United flight was supposed to board. Or so I thought. As sometimes is the case on early morning flights, I forgot to do the time zone adjustment and I was actually an hour earlier than I’d thought. Anyway, I rushed up to the boarding desk and there were no United staff but two pilots looking at weather reports and other things like that. I thought that was sort of odd, so I asked if it was the correct flight. They said it was and I must have looked confused because one of them said, “Did you do the time zone shift?” I must have had a funny expression on my face. A combination of relief, shame and epiphany let on that they were right on.

So I sat in one of those really comfortable airport chairs to wait. You know the ones with the metal exposed right next to the most tender spot on your side above your hip? The ones that are cold in the winter and sweaty hot in the summer. Yeah, one of those. Shortly after I sat down, one of the pilots came over and sat next to me. He was a rather large man, but friendly.

I started asking him questions. I was worried that I might be bothering him, but he seemed open and even invited discussion. I asked him about the report he was reading. Does the report tell you where the pockets of rough air are? What plane are we flying in today? How did he get started as a pilot? We talked about a friend of mine who became an airline pilot and how I used to go out with him when he flew the little Cessna for hours and taught Japanese student pilots. He talked about his experience flying helicopters in the army and moving over to airplanes.

We talked about the flight that landed in the river out in New York and he told me why that was and wasn’t such an incredible landing. He said the important thing was that the pilot (Skullenberger?) made such a quick decision and that the newer planes have a propeller that pops out when both engines stop that provides emergency power to the hydraulic systems so the pilot can still control the plane. He also said that they were lucky that the weather was clear. If it had been cloudy, there would have been no way for the pilot to land clean. He also talked about the fact that because there’s not a lot of growth in the airline industry these days, most of the pilots flying the larger aircraft are really experienced and there aren’t a lot of new pilots moving in right now. That made me feel better.

We started talking about where we grew up and it turned out that he went to the high school two blocks away from my Wichita house. He attended Southeast high. His house was only a block or two from my house. That was cool. He actually knew where my house was. We talked a bit about Wichita, Kansas and where he and I have been since those days. We had a very nice conversation. Time ran out and he said he needed to board. As he was leaving he said, “So, do you have a good seat?” I said with a shrug, no, not really, I’m way back in the back. I don’t have status on United so I take what I can get.

When I got on the plane, I was about 3 rows from the back and the pilot came back and looked at me and said, “You’re in 32C, right?” I looked up and double checked, a little confused, and verified that I was. Then he turned on his heels and walked back to the cockpit. The passengers around me looked at me and said various things like, “Boy, what did you do?!” and “You’re gonna get kicked off now!” and “You’re in trouble.” I had a notion that he was going to do something nice to me, but had no idea what. Right after that, the flight attendant came back and said, “Are you traveling alone today?” I said I was. “The captain would like to upgrade you to first class.”

That elicited a different set of comments from the surrounding passengers. You can imagine. I of course had a big smile on my face and a whole row of first class seats all to myself.

I like flying United. =)