Three guys are in the cockpit for today's flight from Los Angeles to the beautiful splendor of Newark, N.J. Normally, having a jump seat rider in the cockpit for such a long flight is a huge pain in the butt. Today, it's not so bad because the seat is filled with the butt of Jeff, a classmate from those wild and woolly days in the late 1970s when the airline screwed up and hired us both.Today's cast for our five-hour sojourn eastward is completed by Fred, a senior co-pilot who could be a very junior 737 captain, but decided to remain senior in the right seat of the 767 and have a life instead.Climbing out of three-three-oh for our cruising altitude of three-seven-oh it was Jeff who started what was bound to be a long conversation that would lead to the time passing much quicker, but would also mean that my Jepps would be out of date until another trip with a long leg when I'd have the time to put in the changes."So," Jeff began, "The airlines are still losing their asses and it is up to us, the line pilots, to ride in and save the day. Am I getting this right?"That's about it," chimed in Fred, who until right this very minute looked like he was in a coma. Fred has a low-energy way of flying. Hunched over in the right seat, he spends most of every leg with his head resting against the glare shield. Occasionally, you will hear a "ugh" out of him, but that is usually about all.You must be pumped up today, Freddo. Both of you guys know from the past few weeks that we have to save the company money so they can fund that guaranteed pension fund the big boys voted themselves. I'd hate to see any of our vice presidents go without. I just couldn't bear it if they suffered."Very funny, dork," continued Jeff. "Dork" is a pet name Jeff gave me back during our initial engineer training in the 727 when we were simulator partners, as in: "Protect essential, Dork!"
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/features/ceo-of-the-cockpit-21lets-fix-this-airline