Three Times is Luck?

Oct. 27, 2008

Well, in this case not really. The first time was in 1964, where after almost 10 years at a service facility, the company lost a big contract and I was laid off. I was in luck then, although it didn’t feel like it at the time. The airline business was growing, jets were being delivered in, what seemed at the time, hordes, and I never lost a day of work. I swung right into a job at a “major,” the now-defunct Eastern Air Lines. I truly thought that I had it made. Barring some major screw-up on my part, I could look forward to a career in the regulated part of the aviation industry where job security was a given. Although individual carriers ran into trouble, the government regulators cushioned the impact of economic downturns. The industry as a whole looked good.

I can’t complain, as I was promoted past what I had ever expected in my career. Still, 22 years later I voluntarily left Eastern for a better position at a freight carrier, now also defunct. Eastern Air by then was reeling, and I thought it best to abandon ship. It turned out I was prescient indeed, and I missed the worst part of the terrible strife and turmoil that ate the life out of one of the airlines that founded our industry. The deregulation of the industry turned things upside down and there were entrepreneurial sharks swimming in the troubled waters. The old term “job security,” long a watchword for the unions, was now a joke. Even the sacred pensions were no longer a sure thing and indeed mine is now paid by a government agency. Still, leaving Eastern was voluntary so I don’t count that in the three times.

The freight carrier had spun me off with a small group to start a contract maintenance facility. Shortly thereafter it was sold off and vanished but the facility, by then a separate corporation, endured and is prospering today. In 1992, after managing the maintenance and engineering department, a disagreement on policy arose and I found myself in the consulting business, which is what you call it when you do not have a steady job. It was quite truthfully frightening, but at least the kids were finished with school and I was blessed with a loving, tolerant and understanding wife who had wisely chosen nursing as a career.

She had to be tolerant, as by then we had moved six times to different states.

I took up writing as a sideline and did a regular column for an aviation magazine for nearly 10 years and of course, am still doing my Ruminations column here. However, I finally did secure a steady job starting a new passenger airline in Winston Salem, N. C., which I voluntarily left after two years to move to a freight carrier, Tradewinds. Here I worked for 10 years. However, the third time struck — the fuel price crisis. Although well past 70, I was happily writing manuals and procedures for the company when the freighter charter business collapsed. Tradewinds went into bankruptcy and, now, instead of saying I am in consulting,

I am old enough to say I am retired.

I look at my industry in distress and shake my head.

I do not think it will ever be what it was — bold, roaring and feisty. Think of our hubris in thinking that aircraft like the Concorde were the wave of the future. Now we tout how daintily the engines on our latest aircraft sip their fuel, how quiet they are, how little noxious gasses they emit and can I plant a tree? I remember when passengers boarded without being strip-searched, when engine runups lasted four hours, when pilots trained by flying the actual aircraft.

The habit of going to work for 53 years in a business I happen to really like is not easy to overcome. I mostly miss the comraderie and interaction with fellow workers. I even miss trying to interpret the Federal Aviation Administration, OSHA and EPA rules that I have swum in for many years. Still, there is a small ray of light. When I was leaving, the president of the company asked if I might come back on occasion to assist with the manuals. So, if anyone asks,

I am not retired, I am in consulting.