Pilot Prejudice

Kansas City

I’m not normally prejudice. As a rule, I treat everybody as equal as possible and though in reality it never happens, I try to have identical expectations from everyone I meet (even gingers). However, there is one arena where I recently found I do have a little prejudice and I don’t think I’m alone. It happened when boarding a flight from Phoenix to St. Louis. When I passed by the cockpit (or the flight deck, as they instructed us to call it at Boeing) I glanced at the pilot and I actually flinched when I saw how young he was. He must have been in his late twenties, but looked to be about 19. He had peach fuzz on his chin and I’m sure he must have just graduated college where at his frat he was probably named after some large saltwater fish. I feel like I’m a pretty good flyer. I’ve flown in and out of some small airports on desolate peaks in developing countries with airlines of dubious record, but this dude made me feel nervous before we even took off. He had this high-pitched voice that would’ve been more appropriate offering a bong, than reading flight coordinates.

So yes, I’m ageist when it comes to my airplane pilots. I want my pilot to be if not old, at least properly grizzled. He should have a limp or even a false leg preferably from being shot down over Hanoi. Nothing’s going to faze this guy. I want him to have a gravelly voice with slow soothing grunts. If, for example, we lose the right wing, I want him to be able to come on over the speaker and say in that voice, “Ahhhh, well folks… it looks like we might have lost our starboard flipper there… but ahhh, you shouldn’t worry too much. We were only planning on… ahhhh turning left from here on out anyway. We should be on the ground in about oohhhh… 27 minutes or so. So folks just sit back and enjoy the extended view from the right.”

And just so you don’t think I’m sexist as well, I’m perfectly fine with women pilots, I just happen to be talking about male pilots at the moment. Strangely enough, now that I’m thinking about it, I want my female pilots to be younger, prim, no-nonsense women with a healthy belief in God. I don’t know why.

What I learned today: If you lose your cel phone charger, ask a hotel. They more than likely will have a huge basket of them and they’ll give you one