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By golly, a strange thing happened to friend Peggy on the way to Savannah. First, let me assure you that Peggy is not a High Muckety-Muck Imperial Grand Poobah with any airline. She travels a coupla times a year, maybe three.

Peggy just flew from Huntsville (AL) to Savannah. Her ticket routed her from Huntsville to Memphis to Atlanta to Savannah, with a 2 ½ hour wait in Memphis. Not a good schedule, but one seldom gets a good schedule when buying the bottom-dollar online ticket. Seems like they punish you just to get even with you for buying their cheap ticket.

You ain’t gonna believe this. When Peggy checked in at Huntsville, Delta asked her if she would like to skip the Memphis stop and fly from Huntsville to Atlanta to Savannah, Would she ever! Peggy is a (lovely) senior citizen and that change saved her a long wait in Memphis, an aircraft change and got her to Savannah more than an hour early. She loved it.

CNN, Fox and USA Today should have done big stories on that rare event, but I reckon they missed it.

Folks, I haven’t seen that kind of service and logic from an airline in so long I can’t remember when it was, and that tells you how far down the airline industry has slipped. Is it possible that this is an indication of a change in attitude? Lord, I hope so.

What’s amazing is that I have heard more than one such story of the airlines being nice, fair and reasonable in the last few months. Even my brother, who has sworn off airline travel more than once, gave a good report on his last long trip.

For once, I am not thinking cynically about good news. I sincerely hope that the airlines have seen the error of their ways and have also seen the light. Please, please let this be the beginning of a trend.

C’mon now—everybody shout hallelujah!

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Would that someone could convince the guvmint—“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to interfere.”

We know times are tough, but do we fully realize the guvmint’s role? Consider that they first attacked corporate use of business aircraft, and bang, there went a blue gazillion jobs in aviation. Then they attacked corporate sales meetings. Bang, down went the meetings industry—already hard hit by the economy.

The cover story of the current issue of Convention South magazine, now in its 26^th year of reporting on the meetings industry, is “Washington’s hold on the meetings industry—Has Uncle Same Gone Too Far?”

Convention South reports that Roger Dow, president/CEO of the U.S. Travel Association points out that the Obama still holds gatherings of cabinet members “because of the importance of face-to- face meetings.” Yet, Dow goes on, “Over the past several months similar corporate and government meetings have come under attack…” According to Dow, the net effect has been the cancellation of “thousands of meetings, the termination of tens of thousands of jobs, and the loss of billions of dollars of spending for the American economy.” 

Now hear this—the NBAA annual meeting, one of the hardest-working conventions in the country, will be held in Orlando later this month. Aircraft will be sold, business will be done and progress will result. I’m going to be there—no matter what the guvmint thinks—and I hope you will be, too.

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John and Martha King have picked up the prototype Skycatcher. They will operate the airplane at their school and prepare ground school courses for both Sport Pilot and Private Pilot training in the Skycatcher.

I like the idea of Cessna getting into LSA. They are, after all, the aviation version of the 600 pound gorilla. When they do something they do it right, so LSA will get a fighting chance. Cessna is known for spotting trends in the marketplace, and I hope they are right again.

I am delighted to know that there will be ground school courses for both sport and private pilots. From all I can gather, Cessna sees the Skycatcher—and LSA in general—as the trainer of the future, rather than a new class of aircraft that can be flown without a medical. I think they’re right, but I have reservations.

I am convinced there is a growing market for purely recreational flight, rather than transitional flight in preparation for a “real” airplane that goes faster, higher and farther.

One group—it seems to me—to which aviation has not marketed is seniors. Yet I know seniors who fly often just for the simple pleasure of it. Some of them are high time pilots who don’t want to quit flying. Other seniors are low time pilots or pilots who never got their certificate. They would kinda, sorta, maybe scratch that itch again without the pressure of higher, faster, bigger and more expensive.

Yes, let’s use LSA for training pilots who will move up. But let’s also use it to train those citizens who just want to fly for the sheer joy of it.

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The guvmint is moving in more and more on its citizens. Used to be that I had to show a picture ID only at the airport. Today, danged if I didn’t have to show one at my doctor’s office. My doctor buddy tells me that this is now the law, that physicians are required to put a copy in your file.

Why? I see no real reason except that the guvmint wants more and more control of all of us.

Aviation, of course, is more inconvenienced than most industries, and it costs. Years ago—decades ago, to be honest—the Piper dealer in Montgomery, Alabama sold a new airplane to a guy who paid for it in hard funds. That was a bit unusual, but pretty nice. The next week the sheriff from the buyer’s county showed up wanting to know if the salesman—who was honest as the day is long, by the way—had checked the buyer’s background. “Hell no,” he told them, “I didn’t need to. He had the money.” The sheriff said, “Would you sell an airplane to just anyone who showed up with the money?” “Yep,” the salesman answered, “in a skinny minute.”

Do you suppose a salesman could get away with that today? Seems to me that today the businessperson is responsible for most everything, particularly in aviation.  We collect taxes for the guvmint, we go by their rules, we collect information for them, and it just gets worse and worse. Now we are required to screen our customers to some extent.

I still remember from way back in the ’70s when I first learned that if we had customers who participated in a leaseback agreement, we had to notify the guvmint. That was more’n three decades ago, and I swear it has gotten worse ever since. There was also the day that the property tax people called me to see what Dr. Whathisname’s airplane was worth. I told the lady that was not my job, but I soon found out that it was. Within two hours we received a thinly disguised threat. They reminded us that they could come check our inventory every week.

It is my belief that the guvmint is incapable of not using information they have to bully people. Anyone who doubts this is invited to read his history on J. Edgar Hoover.

Somebody should run for office on one campaign promise—I promise to vote against anything that gives guvmint more power.

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Like most people I know who have flown airlines a lot, I usually arrive early (I have a daughter who is exactly the opposite. She believes that if you don’t have to run to get to the gate before the flight leaves, you should have slept longer.)

It is not unusual for me to finish up business in a city long before my flight departure. I head straight for the airport, frequently arriving hours early (In the old days, I often caught an earlier flight. That’s impossible today.) So, my daughter asks, why do you go so early? Well, where else would I rather spend a few hours?

The typical airport has everything I need to get work done or to just flat relax. I can get food of a sort (and it is getting better), books, magazines and newspapers, watch TV and hook up the computer (That’s another thing that gets better every year.). I can get my shoes shined, exercise in climate-controlled comfort or recharge my cell phone.

I have even spent the night at airports a few times, though I really don’t recommend it.

The airport is a great place to people watch. Just the way people dress provides a great source of entertainment. It ranges from bare midriffs and low necklines to the most rigid of dress codes for business. Some women dress as if they were going straight to a night club to dance on stage. Some people would be underdressed for mowing the yard. I can’t figure it all out. Why in the world would fat folks display a midriff?

It seems to me that airports are getting even better at providing a place for people to wait, and that’s a good thing. Most of our time at airports is, after all, spent waiting.

I’ll see you at the airport.

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You can see it at www.airportbusiness.com. The House has voted (it must still get by the Senate) to spend some quarter of a billion dollars to buy business jets.

The temptation is to jump on the guvmint for hypocrisy. This is the same guvmint that chastised corporations for operating jet aircraft. Now they want to buy a fleet of them to meet the “growing travel demand by congressional officials.”

The temptation is to scream that they should not have any jets, much less a fleet of them.

But think a minute…

For once the guvmint agrees with us. They, too, realize that business jets fill a need that cannot be met any other way—that they can be a very efficient business tool. The guvmint seems to understand that a business jet is not bought just so executives won’t have to ride airlines, but is bought to get work done that can’t be done any other way.

Our argument should be more that we understand and agree with the House, and that this does point out that these same jets are a profitable way for businesses to operate.

Like many of you, I wonder if the guvmint will abuse the use of their jets in a thousand different ways, but that is a different argument. We should agree that business jets often make sense. Then if they use them in a wasteful way we can jump on them for that.

But we don’t want to attack their obviously firm belief that business jets can be a smart purchase.

At least that’s the way I see it. How about you?

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Seems to me that we are, one more time, forgetting how we became the country to which so many people want to come. I still think that the best way to measure the success of a country is the answer to a simple question—do they have borders to keep people from leaving (that’s why East Berlin built the Wall), or do they have borders because so many people want to get in?

Many would have us believe that a free market economy exploits poor people. But, oddly enough, poor people flock and fight to get into this country. Too many people think that the free market is great because it lets some people get rich. Actually it is great because it is best for everyone.

History has shown over and over again that the free market is best. Yet we tend to forget that every few decades. Are we doing it again?

We all know that this country’s founders were greatly influenced by John Locke’s writings. We seem to forget that they were also greatly influenced by The Wealth of Nations, the great book of economics written by Adam Smith and published in 1776, the year of our Declaration of Independence. Our government was set up politically as a democracy, and economically as a free market. We seem to remember only the democracy.

We think of ourselves as a relatively new country, but we are the oldest country that has been governed by one tool, our Constitution. We have lasted because of our democracy and our economy. The free market is economically as basic to a free people as is democracy.

I only wish that we were as dedicated to our free economy as to our democratic government.

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The NTSB prelim report said the “probable” cause of Steve Fossett’s fatal accident was that he encountered downdrafts. Now the question people ask—particularly nonflying people—is “How could a man so experienced, the holder of many records, have made such an error?

How many times have we heard these questions?

Remember when famed pilot Bevo Howard went down during an air show? Pilots were confused by that one. The great Bevo Howard killed in an airplane? Surely there must be a reason. It couldn’t have been his fault. Not Bevo Howard. Some people even claimed that Bevo had been bitten by a black widow spider while in flight. Finally, Bob Hudgens, high-time pilot, aviation businessperson and great admirer of Bevo Howard, told me, “I guess I just have to accept the fact that Bevo Howard probably made a mistake.”

Remember when Scott Crossfield—one of the world’s most respected pilots—died in an encounter with bad weather? Many people stated flat out that something went wrong with the airplane. Scott Crossfield couldn’t possibly have gotten himself trapped in bad weather.

My theory is…

After every fatal accident many of us (all of us?) set out quickly to find something, anything, that could have caused this accident. We are comforted when it was a pilot with little experience doing something that WE would never have done. We would never get killed that way.

Ah, but the situation is different when it is a truly great pilot. That worries us. We can’t live with the idea that this pilot, who was more experienced and, as one pilot put it, “A helluva lot better pilot than I will ever be,” made a mistake. That implies the unthinkable—we might even die in an airplane ourselves, and, perhaps worse yet, it might be our fault.

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When I was a low-time pilot with a still-damp private certificate, I sat at an airport in Georgia and listened to the old-timers talk about airplanes. One fellow said the Cessna rep had come through recently with a new Skylane. That Skylane, he said, had a price tag of some $36,000,

Now who, this fellow asked, would pay $36,000 for a Skylane?Another fellow opined that Cessna didn’t care if anyone bought one or not. “Cessna,” he said, “would love to get rid of the Skylane.” Why? Because everyone could remember when the Skylane cost about $15,000. The new models never had such a low price, so Cessna could raise the price and make more money.

Well, to tell you the truth, that line of reasoning didn’t make much sense to me then and doesn’t now. As we all know, many people did pay $36,000 and, as inflation rose over the decades and modest improvements were made in the Skylane, many more people paid a lot more for the airplane.

Now hear this: The June issue of Flying magazine has a story on a brand-new Turbo Skylane with an “approximate price” (whatever that means) of $427,400!

I’m one of those old-timers myself, now, and can remember when a new twin propjet cost less than that!

Of course the new Skylane is a lot different airplane now. It included a G1000 system, Synthetic Vision Technology, GFC 700 autopilot and WAAS, all by Garmin. If you measure capability, this airplane is vastly different from the old Skylane I flew for a while back in the early 1970s.

I wonder if somewhere, at some airport, old codgers like me are wondering who would buy such an airplane for $427,400. Probably so, I reckon.

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This is a true story.

My friend Bryan Townsend, a top-drawer professional public speaker/writer, travels almost constantly. Last week he had the trip from hell.

Without belaboring the points, Bryan’s trip included one late flight that caused him to miss his connection, one night spent lying on the floor of the Atlanta airport (I’ve done the same myself), baggage that didn’t arrive at his destination, ironing the clothes that he had worn since the day before, and making such a good speech that the audience bought every book he had with him.

His trip home was a little—but not much—better. One main complaint was that Delta personnel treated him rudely at every opportunity. There was also a discrepancy of $30 in the price. When he finally got home, he emailed Delta about that $30. They emailed back instructing him to fill out a form and return it so they could evaluate his claim.

Bryan then sent them an email and it was a scorcher. He listed all of his troubles in detail, then concluded with…

“…Now, you want me to look up all this information. Forget it! If you can’t find it with my name and Skymiles number, keep the $30 you owe me. By the way, for awhile, I used to be a (Delta) Platinum member. It’s funny, no one at Delta has ever asked why I have moved most of my business to Southwest, who, by the way, has never charged me for checking a bag, and has never lost my bag. No one at Southwest has ever sternly corrected me for pushing the wrong button, or for asking for anything. And I have never stood in any line for over 15 minutes (except of course for the TSA security line) while traveling on Southwest. Come to think of it, I’ve never sat on a Southwest plane for over 15 minutes waiting to take off or to taxi to a gate. I’ve never been charged a dollar to change a Southwest ticket. I’ve never been denied my luggage by Southwest like I was by you all in Atlanta last year when my flight back to Birmingham was cancelled and I decided to drive home and your people laughed at me when I asked for my bag, and I have never had to spend a night on the floor at the airport because of Southwest.”

“It’s really funny. Once upon a time, I was really a loyal Delta customer. I haven’t changed, but Delta sure has. Just keep the $30. You’re probably going to need it.”

Perhaps I should mention that Bryan is one of the most easy going people that I have ever known. But he does have his limits. As do we all.

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