Page 26 - Volume 20 Number 9

24 • TWIN & TURBINE SEPTEMBER 2016
From the Flight Deck by Kevin R. Dingman Retire Me Not
To quit, or not to quit
airline career, however. I hoped to fly an airplane in which I was familiar and comfortable – like a slow song on a soft couch in front of the fireplace. But, we have a new system to select the trips we fly, new FAA duty time and rest rules, new electronic kitbags, a new labor agreement, new management, lots of new people, a new uniform and now a new airplane to learn. It feels like heavy metal music on a wood bench at the DMV (Dept. of Motor Vehicles). After 45 years of flying, too many ‘news’s can become negative instead of nice. I will need to look beyond the flock, ignoring
More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly. This kind of thinking, he found, is not the way to make oneself popular with other birds.
– Richard Bach
As described in Mad Dog (T&T June, 2016) the MD-80 is being retired at my carrier. I just received an e-mail from the company making it official: YOU WILL BE DISPLACED FROM YOUR CURRENT BID STATUS TO ORD CA 737 DOM EFFECTIVE 01 OCT. Yes, it was an automated, computer generated message and yes, it was all in caps. Despite my head-in- the-sand optimism, I’m kicked off the MD-80 and assigned to the
737, domestic division, in Chicago. Outcast, banished from the flock – in caps.
I suppose those outside of the industry may think, still, that’s great news, right? Your position at the airline is being deleted but they are offering you a modern airplane and a Captain’s job to boot. And you’d be right; it’s nice to not be put out on the street. And it’s great to still be a captain. It’s not how I pictured the last few years of my