Unheralded Airline Pilots

On the cover of the August, 2006 Air Line Pilot [the Air Line Pilots Association's magazine], Captain Buck says “My heroes are the unknown, unheralded airline pilots who fly without incident or accident…”

Locked behind our cockpit doors we are largely “out of sight and out of mind.”  Sure, today’s airplanes are wondrous and safe, the air traffic system a marvel, but it is because of the airline pilots who are doing their job so well that it is rare when something bad happens.  It is a bad year when there are any fatalities onboard America’s airliners.  Can the medical profession make a claim even close?

In the first five decades of air transportation airliners frequently crashed.   Those crashes were always in the news and in the forefront of the public’s mind.   It is ironic that this is when airline pilots were largely respected, venerated and even considered heroes.   Not today.  Even after the events of September 11, 2001 we heard a lot about firemen and police officers, but hardly a word about pilots.

We need the public to hear about the important and competent job the nation’s airline pilots are doing.   Rather than just hearing about an airline pilot caught “flying drunk” or committing some other buffoonery, we need people to hear about the great job pilots are doing and what it takes to be an airline pilot.   We need to “toot our own horn.”  Nobody else is going to do it!

We, through ALPA, need to hire a publicist to actively place stories about airline pilots in the nation’s periodicals and broadcast media.   Rather than concentrating on paid advertising it would let the news media, always hungry for stories in this age of twenty four hour news channels, tell our story for us.

It is not by chance that Russell Crowe’s face is on countless magazine covers just before the release of one of his movies.   No, someone, a publicist, is working hard to make sure his face, and his story, is broadcast far and wide.

We can do the same thing.  We need to do this.   The airline piloting profession is under attack. Today I would wager that generally the public’s only thought about airline pilots is when they hear one of Jay Leno’s jokes. From what I read and hear I have the impression they think we are just a bunch of overpaid “airplane operators.”   Remember that “the public” not only includes Joe Everyman and his family, but members of the press, the government and airline managers.

We need people to say, “Those airline pilots … boy, those people make nowhere near what they ought to.   It’s too bad the economics of the airline industry aren’t better so those guys and gals could make more money!   Pilots are worth far more than they could ever be paid! Why, just the other day I was reading about this pilot the other day who …”

Capt. Sullenberger accomplished in five minutes what Air Line Pilot has not done in forty years.  His and his crew’s story is a dramatic example.  But it points to the kind of things that can happen to the public’s perception of the airline pilot profession with good publicity.