March 21, 2002
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, many people wondered if things could ever be the same, especially in aviation. Layoffs hit the airlines, except for Southwest, and pilots suddenly became superfluous.
While airlines called in some political debts to land a federal buyout, they fired pilots, flight attendants and other workers en masse without severance or benefits, and our local flight school also had to lay people off.
It looked like flying was going the way of the dodo bird, and all that would be left would be the long, concrete strips and airplanes permanently tied to the ground, their engines silent, their wings never to bite into the air again and lift their payloads above the land.
But many people still have the flying bug, that intense desire to sit in the left seat of an airplane, a drive that can only be treated, not cured. And passengers are slowly returning to the airports and airlines to get to their destinations.
Like the flu, the flying bug has shown a resilience and adaptability. You might say, based on a recent Press Journal story, that our area is the Mayo Clinic of the flying bug.
Flying, to me and many others, has always been a romantic adventure, and seeing what happened to those planes and thinking about the innocent lives lost in the air and on the ground made me wonder if most future flying would be done on the computer.
But there are some people who believe that there is a future for commercial aviation, and they're betting their own educational and financial futures on it.
Like many businesses, flight schools took a major hit after Sept. 11. Restrictions on flights, which are the lifeblood of any such school, plus the massive airline layoffs, made flight training appear to be a bad investment.
But that was in the short term. As the article noted, many pilots will retire soon, and the demand for those who can fly airliners is expected to rise, meaning those licenses flight students in our area are now pursuing will be tickets to the wild blue yonder, not the unemployment line.
I've noticed the pickup in flight activity in our area, and the drone of small planes is music to my ears. We are fortunate to have good weather and lots of small airports where flight training can take place.
Of course, some don't see it that way. The noise is an irritant, they say; the planes raise fears of crashes, though there are probably more car crashes in a single day than small-plane crashes or emergency landings in a year.
The economic benefit of all this flight training can't be ignored, either. We keep hearing about economic development, and while flight instruction itself requires no small amount of training, those who teach tomorrow's jet pilots live in the community and spend money to keep our economy going.
Maybe the Dodgers of the future are playing in Dodgertown, but let's not forget that the flight schools can produce a lot more pilots than the Vero Beach Dodgers produce major leaguers. We can never forget the tragedy of Sept. 11, but thanks to the flight schools and the optimism of their students, we can rise above it.
Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.
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