Uniformed solidarity
Jon Jackson got one heck of a send-off – from an unlikely source.
Nothing to do with the government or military today, other than whether Captain Johnson was military (given he is a senior pilot – most probable at his age but nothing specifically says that.) What is confirmed that he was a senior pilot with Spirit Airlines, which just shut down ONE DAY before his retirement. In one sense, he got an extra day of retirement – but generally a retirement day for a pilot is a bit of a big deal. Friday Spirit announced their closure, so instead of said big deal Saturday, Johnson wound up flying as a passenger on a Southwest flight back to Baltimore (coincidentally along with his son, a right-seater (First Officer) with Southwest.)
To paraphrase Mr. MacArthur, seemingly this ‘old pilot’ would just fade away, right? But his son happened to mention to someone in the crew that it would have been his Dad’s last flight – and then things get pretty cool.
The pilots, with help from a dispatcher, arranged a surprise tribute upon arrival in Baltimore. Southwest described the gesture, which included a water cannon salute, champagne, and applause, as a powerful reminder of the aviation community’s solidarity.MSN
Southwest noted in its Facebook post that the crew threw together a “proper retirement party,” which included the Baltimore Airport Fire & Rescue meeting the aircraft with a traditional water cannon salute.
In addition to the warm welcome, the staff at the Baltimore airport greeted Jackson with a bottle of champagne to celebrate his milestone. The Independent
From Southwest’s own Facebook page:
Chris casually mentioned to the flight’s Pilots that this would have been his dad’s retirement flight. They seized the opportunity to change the course of the day for Capt. Jackson. They alerted Dylan, a Southwest Dispatcher, setting into motion a plan that resulted in a proper retirement party when the flight landed in Baltimore. The Baltimore Airport Fire & Rescue met the aircraft with a traditional water cannon salute, and the Baltimore Ground Operations Team was waiting at the gate to welcome him with cheers and bottle of bubbly.
It was a powerful reminder of the aviation community’s ability to show respect, compassion, and solidarity when it matters most. Above all, this moment was about honoring a fellow aviator. Congratulations, and thank you for your service in the skies, Capt. Jackson. OneMileAtATime
I know many pilots, especially older pilots, are ex-military, but the industry camaraderie seems to be aviation-industry wide, too. Maybe born of the heavy military influence? but they do seem to respect and take care of their own like few civilian industries do. I recall a wake I went to once where there were ex-Vietnam POW pilots, older 70s-80s industry pilots, and new pilots all intermixed, to honor a Vietnam “Naval aviator from the Marine Corps” mustang pilot – the groups were intermingled, their arms doing that pilot “and then I did this, and then that” arm waves – three generations of different eras – but all pilots. An amazing experience. Seems that spirit is still alive and well at Southwest and in the industry today.
Hope the rest of your retirement goes as well as the first day, Captain Johnson.
Category: Society
It is rumored that Liz Warren tweeted to chastise the waste of water, blame Trump, and call for a water tax on billionaires.
Pretty cool that a competitor (well, an ex-competitor anyway) would go through the trouble of honoring Captain Jackson’s service.
It’s a pity that the day before he retires, his pension from the airline went up in fuel vapors as the airline ceases to be.
I would think a lot of that is in IRAs. My current military industrial complex employer had a pension long ago but swapped that out for an IRA 20ish years ago. I don’t know about Spirit, but that seems the way of things.
Now that I’m thinking about it, tomorrow is 7 years with this employer meaning 7 and some change since retirement. Geez. . . Where does the time go?
Spirit pilots belong to the ALPA, The Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) is the largest pilot union in the world representing more than 80,000 pilots from 42 US and Canadian airlines, so his pension will come through the union. If you’re a union employee in private industry, your employer pays a percentage/dollar amount as bargained for in the CBA for all the hours you work into the Pension/Health & Welfare funds which are administrated by the union.
My aunt’s stepdaughter’s ex-husband is/was a Captain at Spirit. If he’s around my age, he’s close to the commercial pilot mandatory retirement at 65. I think older pilots like this senior will choose retirement instead catching on with another airline. The shortage pilots means CA/FO’s will be in demand at other airlines, but they’ll have maybe down grade for CA to FO or go to the bottom of the seniority lists for FO’s.
My old boss’s father-in-law retired from Delta with many years as wide-body Captain. He told me his pension/IR/401K was going to be worth 7-figures plus, plus…
I certainly hope he earned a decent pension.
Getting old sucks but a decent pension makes it suck less.
Being a pilot for Spirit Airlines he has plenty of combat experience.
With the demise of Spirit Airlines, YouTube and Facebook now face a dearth of passenger melee videos.
There’s always Carnival Cruise Lines to pick up the slack
Oh I’m sure the folks who made “Fights on Flights” a thing will move their shenanigans over to another low-cost carrier such as Southwest. Which would be a shame since the majority of flights I’ve taken have been with Southwest. Maybe Waffle House will diversify and purchase the assets of Spirit and start their own airline. 🤣
Waffle House Air, smothered, covered and bitch slapped on every flight.
Why? You’re forgetting that these idiots will now be flying Delta or United instead.
I’m glad to read good news.
From just the headline, I thought the pilot was going to get stiffed out of his retirement for being one day short, through no fault of his own.
It’s funny because it’s true.
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1EWyeXKfcx/
Looks like more antics of a certain demographic without impulse control when angry.
Kinda like any Friday or Saturday night at a bar/club/hang-out that caters to that certain demographic.
Spent 27 years breaking up those gatherings. My department went to 4-10 hour days shortly after I started my employment there, and we never got both a Friday and Saturday night off in their scheduling, unless we used PTO or vacation or a sick day.