Flight of Fantasy

Yesterday when I got on a plane in Seattle we sat for a very long time at the gate. I asked one of the cabin attendants what the delay was.

She said, "Oh the pilot is having some difficulty figuring out the right control settings for the plane. He says the pilot who flew the plane into Seattle messed everything up, and he has to straighten out everything again. But don't worry, Dan will get us going soon. In fact we just voted him Pilot of the Year!"

"Well that's encouraging", I said. "He must be a very experienced pilot with a superb service record."

"Actually," said the flight attendant, "he's one of the more junior pilots, has one of the worst on-time records in the company, and burns off more fuel per passenger mile than anyone. He's had a couple near misses in the air, and one time he taxied the plane into a fuel truck."

"What?" I said. "How on earth did he get voted Pilot of the Year?"

"Oh," replied the attendant, "that's easy. He's really cool, and we all think he's somebody who really cares about people like us."

Okay, most of that is not true. The pilot's name was John. He was in his late 50s. Looked sort of nerdy. We had an smooth flight to Tucson and arrived 10 minutes ahead of schedule. But I could tell the flight attendants didn't love him. He'll never be Pilot of the Year.