Greetings from Detroit City!

by Pa Rock
Airport Lurker

Yes, it's true, we are back on the road heading home. It was snowing in New York this morning as we flew out of La Guardia in a plane pointed west. I think that many in our group held their breath until we were safely across the Hudson River and climbing above the clouds. I was scoping out the horizon looking for suicidal geese!

I ran into our pilot in the Detroit airport after we deplaned and we talked about the emergency landing in the Hudson earlier this week. He said that his fellow pilot did a very fine job of executing the maneuver, but acknowledged that a whole range of variables also lined up just right. No matter how much skill a person has, luck is still a factor - but if the skill had not been there, no amount of luck could have saved all of those passengers.

Here's what I think: the airlines need to quit screwing around with the salaries of the pilots and the flight crews, and raise the price of the tickets enough to meet their expenses and hire highly skilled people. I really don't want to fly in a plane that is staffed with unhappy employees or the ones who aren't skilled enough to get a better job someplace else.

This will be a long day. Our next hop is to Kansas City, and then I trudge on to Minneapolis and ultimately Phoenix. I should get to my apartment around midnight. I feel like a flea on a mighty big dog!