Free Airport by Arthur Hailey Page A

Mel Bakersfeld. Copies were now being Xeroxed and would be sent to regional vice-presidents of all airlines, as well as airline headquarters, in New York and elsewhere. Knowing how everyone enjoyed finding a scapegoat for operational delays, Captain Demerest was confident that telephones and teletypes would be busy after its receipt.
    A revenge, Vernon Demerest thought pleasurably–small but satisfying–had been exacted. Now, perhaps, his limping, quarter-cripple brother-in-law would think twice before antagonizing Captain Demerest and the Air Line Pilots Association, as Mel Bakersfeld had presumed to do–in public–two weeks ago.
    Captain Demerest swung the Mercedes into an apartment building parking lot. He stopped the car smoothly and got out. He was a little early, he noticed–a quarter of an hour before the time he had said he would collect Gwen and drive her to the airport. He decided to go up, anyway.
    As he entered the building, using the passkey Gwen had given him, he hummed softly to himself, then smiled, realizing the tune was 0 Sole Mio. Well, why not? It was appropriate. Naples… a warm night instead of snow, the view above the bay in starlight, soft music from mandolins, Chianti with dinner, and Gwen Meighen beside him…. all were less than twenty-four hours away. Yes, indeed!– O Sole Mio. He continued humming it.
    In the elevator going up, he remembered another good thing. The flight to Rome would be an easy one.
    Tonight, though Captain Demerest was in command of Flight Two– The Golden Argosy –he would do little of the work which the flight entailed. The reason was that he was flying as a line check captain. Another four-striper captain–Anson Harris, almost as senior as Demerest himself–had been assigned to the flight and would occupy the command pilot’s left seat. Demerest would use the right seat–normally the first officer’s position–from where he would observe and report on Captain Harris’s performance.
    The check flight arrangement had come up because Captain Harris had elected to transfer from Trans America domestic operations to international. However, before flying as a full-fledged international captain, he was required to make two flights over an overseas route with a regular line captain who also held instructor’s qualifications. Vernon Demerest did.
    After Captain Harris’s two flights, of which tonight’s would be the second, he would be given a final check by a senior supervisory captain before being accepted for international command.
    Such checks–as well as regular six-monthly check flights, which all pilots of all airlines were required to undergo–entailed an aerial scrutiny of ability and flying habits. The checks took place on ordinary scheduled flights, and the only indication a passenger might have that one was in progress would be the presence of two four-striper captains on the flight deck up front.
    Despite the fact that captains checked each other, the tests, both regular and special, were usually serious, exacting sessions. The pilots wanted them that way. Too much was at stake–public safety and high professional standards–for any mutual back-scratching, or for weaknesses to be overlooked. A captain being checked was aware that he must measure up to required standards in all respects. Failure to do so would mean an automatic adverse report which, if serious enough, could lead to an even tougher session with the airline’s chief pilot, with the testee’s job in jeopardy.
    Yet, while performance standards were not relaxed, senior captains undergoing flight checks were treated by their colleagues with meticulous courtesy. Except by Vernon Demerest.
    Demerest treated any pilot he was assigned to test, junior or senior to himself, in precisely the same way–like an errant schoolboy summoned to the headmaster’s presence. Moreover, in the headmaster’s role, Demerest was officious, arrogant, condescending, and tough. He made no secret of his