Indian Summer

The early morning sky is still dark and the air slightly brisk as we roll down runway 20L in Nashville. My captain and I are both worn out and bleary-eyed after a long day and much too short of an overnight.
Over the horizon, a thin sliver of red and gold spreads as we fly toward it on our way to Washington. We gain altitude rapidly in the morning air and within only moments the sun appears ahead of us, bright and comforting, to light up the whole sky.
It soon bathes the countryside below in its warm golden embrace and softly caresses my cheek like a familiar hand. Lost in the breathtaking beauty of the sunrise, I suddenly notice that the mountains have gone from green to bright red and orange. As far as the eye can see, the rolling hills of Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia appear to be ablaze.
In my side window, I catch a glimpse of my face smiling back at me. Those beautiful warm autumn days, those of the Indian summer, are upon us. And what better vantage point to admire their stunning beauty than my trusty jet-powered steed. I am truly one of the fortunate ones.
This is my very favorite time of year, pleasing to every sense. There are of course the stunning vistas of autumn, endless aerial palettes of hundreds of gradations of greens, yellows, oranges and reds, neighborhoods dotted with explosions of warm colors, placid lakes that seem to be on fire as their gentle waters mirror the magic surrounding them.
All these shades bring to mind the comforting foods of fall, the apples and squash, the warm pies and roasts that are so welcomed on those cooler days.
Autumn also carries in its gentle breeze the comforting smells that transport me back to my childhood. The distinct sweet scent of maple leaves remind me of Forli, the small town in northern Italy where my grandmother lives. I remember cycling through its streets with my mother and brothers amid a sea of dried leaves. The familiar aroma of fires brings back cherished memories of school days in Europe and weekends spent helping my parents in the back yard or playing with my brothers and friends.
To some the season is gloomy, spelling the end of summer and especially in the Northeast the beginning of the short, dark and frigid days of winter. A symbol of death.
But as I watched my son play in the leaves after a walk in the woods a few days ago, his curious eyes completely mesmerized by the unique beauty of each leaf he brought to me, I couldn't think of it as anything but a stunning season of renewal.
A few days after that crisp morning flight, we returned to Nashville. As we crossed into West Virginia, the red mountain tops were covered in a dusting of snow. It was early in the morning and I knew that once the rising sun had a chance to warm the hilltops, the white coat would retreat and allow the brilliant colors below to resplend. It did. On our way back to Washington a few hours later, the ground below us was once again an endless field of fiery colors.
The days of the Indian Summer are short-lived. And like every year they fill me with the urge to enjoy each day to its fullest, to cherish every warm second before winter rolls its cold blanket on us.
Warm moments. Just like that beautiful autumn walk with Ollie...

Another Band-Aid

Once again, fatigue rears its ugly head.
First, a Delta 767 mistakingly landed on a taxiway in Atlanta in the wee hours of the morning at the conclusion of a red eye flight from Brazil. Soon after, a Northwest Airlines (essentially Delta, now) overshot its destination by 150 miles. The Northwest crew told authorities they were distracted while arguing over airline policy but the National Transportation Safety Board is looking into whether or not the pilots might have fallen asleep at the controls.
Without attempting to draw conclusions on the Northwest incident, it would not be the first time an airliner missed its destination because the pilots were asleep. A simple Google search will bring up several such examples in recent years. It is very likely, also, that Delta's error was due to fatigue.
Both events were very timely, as the Federal Aviation Administration is now reportedly pushing to allow airline pilots to take controlled naps in the cockpit to curb the issue of fatigue, according to the Wall Street Journal. The article, which ran last week, noted that unions support this move, something that is unfathomable to me. Sleeping in the cockpit will simply not provide pilots meaningful rest and, most likely, will serve only to give airline management yet another tool the build impossibly long, inefficient and exhausting schedules. Whatever rest they will allow during a flight, they will take away from overnights and no doubt the Airline Transport Association and the Regional Airline Association are salivating over this possibility.
Once more, Washington is trying to slap a Band-Aid on what is a deep systemic problem that needs to be addressed seriously and reformed in a meaningful way. The Air Line Pilots Association lauded the recent passage of H.R. 3371, a bill calling among other things for higher entry requirements to the airlines and changes in duty and rest times, as "momentous."
The bill, a result of the crash of Colgan 3407 in February, may be a good first step as far as addressing qualifications but I could not find in its text anything concrete regarding what changes are proposed to curb pilot fatigue.
Instead, in my understanding, the bill gives the FAA 180 days to submit proposed rule changes, which are to be enacted no later than one year after the passage of the bill. In the context of this rulemaking, Congress is mandating the FAA to look into matters ranging from the number of take-offs and landing a day, number of time zones to be crossed to rest requirement and rest environment.
As an ALPA member, I would like to share my union's enthusiasm for the Airline Safety and Pilot Training Improvement Act but am also dispirited to hear of such idiotic initiatives as controlled naps, which sadly might just pass.
What truly needs to be done goes far beyond. Minimum rest should be raised to a firm 10 hours (i.e. a number the airlines can"t reduce), the legal duty day should be shortened from 16 to 14 hours (especially when the FAA limits a dispatcher's duty day to 10 hours) and airlines should be mandated to provide their pilots with two paid fatigue calls a year (any additional fatigue calls could remain unpaid).
Under the current system, it is said that we do not get disciplined or penalized for calling in fatigued, which is untrue. A first officer earning $20,000 a year cannot part with any amount of his pay and like it or not this is a serious deterrent to declaring oneself fatigued. I have also heard from colleagues who were told by crew scheduling when you can and cannot fatigue. For instance, a friend who has a very young baby at home was recently up all night with his child the day before a trip. Utterly drained, he called in fatigue only to be told that "you cannot fatigue from home."
We, the pilots, take fatigue seriously. Management simply does not. Their lobbies in Washington do not.
Like many others, I had hoped that Colgan 3407 would be a wake-up call for an industry that has hardly reformed itself in the past half-century. With every passing year benefits erode, schedules worsen and the relations between pilots and management grow increasingly bitter. As a result, many experienced colleagues have left the industry, never to come back, and fewer might be interested in joining our ranks, which will make it very hard to attract applicants with an Airline Transport Pilot certificate, as Congress now wants to mandate.
For a short while, Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger, captured the imagination of the general public and showed that airline pilots carry a tremendous amount of responsibility every time they step into that cockpit. He also showed what pilots can do when pitted against very unfavorable odds. What most of his non-pilot admirers do not know is that Sully lost his retirement and seniority when the overall more junior America West bought U.S. Airways and that after decades in the business he was tossed around by management like a rag doll.
I had wished for the death of those Colgan crewmembers and passengers to mean something and bring about badly-needed change to make our profession safer and fairer. But initiatives such as controlled naps only dash those hopes and make me worry that as long as the airlines and their lobbies are allowed to wield their influence inside the halls of Congress, the true scope of change will be very limited.
Perhaps the time for re-regulation has come.