One of the first people to review this book was a lawyer who had worked with airline pilots for 20+ years. His very first piece of feedback was:
“Wow, I’ve been advising pilots for years on this stuff and I never really understood why I was saying what I was saying until reading your book!”
The airline industry is incredibly unique, and those people who get to work within it learn the finer intricacies of how the airlines really operate. It is an incredibly complex world that requires all 2 million parts to work perfectly together to make the operation function on time and well. Quite frankly, its nothing short of a miracle that the operation that airlines run daily function so routinely.
Sitting at the tip of this operation, both literally and figuratively, are the pilots who are tasked with getting the airplane, its passengers, cargo, and other crewmembers to their destinations safely. Pilots have had a mystical aura around them and how they operate their aircraft since the earliest days of aviation. Some of this is due to the complex nature of flight and those who control and master it, but more so, that the finer workings of pilot life seems to be shrouded in mystery and held secret within the “club.”
Auras aside, this book aims to peek behind the curtain of what an airline pilot does daily. How do we get hired by our company? How do we train? How do we get our “routes?” How can you be sure your pilots are healthy? What does seniority mean? What are a pilot’s obligations to passengers and flight attendants?
Or maybe you are close to the industry in another way:
What if you are the spouse or significant other of a pilot and want to learn more about your partner’s career? Maybe you are an operations specialist who has always wondered what exactly the pilots are doing up top during preflight. Perhaps you are one of the many other aviation professionals who work in the airline industry, and would benefit from better understanding how pilots train, structure their workdays, commute back and forth to work, build their monthly flight schedules, and what the pilot’s union is and does.
In any case, this book will show you something of the “how” airline pilots make and manage their careers, while piloting passengers and cargo safely and efficiently around the country and the world.