Airport Quotes
"The airport was reeling—as was the entire Midwestern United States—from the meanest, roughest winter storm in half a dozen years."
"Air Traffic Control, hampered by the loss of runway three zero, had instituted flow control procedures, limiting the volume of incoming traffic."
"Storm or not, contracts decreed that air freight perishables must arrive at destination fresh, and swiftly."
"In the main passenger terminal, chaos predominated. Terminal waiting areas were jammed with thousands of passengers from delayed or canceled flights."
"The wonder was, Mel Bakersfeld reflected, that anything was continuing to operate at all."
"Mel, airport general manager—lean, rangy, and a powerhouse of disciplined energy—was standing by the Snow Control Desk, high in the control tower."
"But tonight only a faint blur of a few nearer lights penetrated the almost-opaque curtain of wind-driven snow."
"Removing snow from the airport’s operating area was equal to clearing seven hundred miles of highway."
"Roberta’s voice came coolly down the line. 'Yes, I know.'"
"The vast main concourse had the combined appearance of a football scrimmage and Christmas Eve at Macy’s."
"His marriage had another convenience. While it existed, the women he made love to could become as emotional and demanding as they liked, but he could never be expected to meet the ultimate demand of matrimony."
"The critical report had been solely Demerest’s idea."
"A revenge, Vernon Demerest thought pleasurably—small but satisfying—had been exacted."
"Despite the fact that captains checked each other, the tests, both regular and special, were usually serious, exacting sessions."
"Mel accelerated around the entourage and positioned his car alongside the assistant foreman’s."
"The airport’s deficiencies were serious and basic, yet, since they were mostly out of public view, only insiders were aware of them."
Cindy snapped, "Damn you, get down here fast!"
"Keith Bakersfeld knew how much alone a single human being could be."
"You won’t get it at this session, or others we may have later. I am not a purveyor of crying towels, so if you need them, I suggest you get your own, or supply each other."
"The noise frequently proved greater, the altitudes lower, than airlines and airport management admitted."
"It was remarkable what you could accomplish with audacity, particularly when people were white hot in pursuing their own interests."
"This advice will be a free sample, but—like toothpaste—any subsequent tubes will have to be paid for."
"It was a day for poets, lovers, and color photographers; the kind of day which people stored up in their minds, to open like a scrapbook when they wanted to remember, years later, all that was best of any time and place."
"A human brain could achieve soaring imagery, conceive poetry and radarscopes, create the Sistine Chapel and a supersonic Concordé."
"No one knew why controllers wore white shirts on duty; there was no rule about it, but, most of them did."
"Airlines, though, were notably easygoing about extending credit; also, if a debt went sour they were usually less tough in collection procedures than other agencies."
"The key factor was the presence or absence of wreckage. Wherever wreckage was recovered, trained investigators pieced it together in an attempt to learn its secrets. They usually succeeded."
"An airline pilot, receiving the Washington Center message, would have flung his aircraft instantly into a steep right turn."
"Airline pilots were conditioned, by training and usage, to swift, sure reflexes."
"Keith’s mouth was dry. 'I think we’ve had a midair.'"
"Keith’s hands were trembling as he tried again."
"Quick action could have insured survival."
"His first thought was to acknowledge the Washington Center message."
"Scarcely knowing what was happening—he had caught only the briefest glimpse of the other plane—Lieutenant Neel ejected and waited for his parachute to open."
"The National Guard T-33, swooping upward from the bottom of its loop, struck the Redfern’s Beech Bonanza on the left side."
"He was a precise, scholarly man, accustomed to think before acting, and to following correct procedures."
"Wherever we’re going, I hope it’s warm."
"An airline flight from any major terminal is, in effect, like a river joining the sea."
"When it comes to multimillion-dollar jets, airlines did not carry spares."
"All airlines employed staffs, at every major terminal, whose job was solely to trace missing baggage."
"The trick was to distribute weight correctly through the airplane so that its fulcrum point and center of gravity were at predetermined places."
"If I were him, I might feel the same way."
"We have to be parents unless we choose to be."
"The main thing was to keep this situation lively, he reasoned, for ten or eleven months—and he would do it."
"An airplane was ready; there was time to board, but no time to be tardy."
"As if flying an airplane, Mel thought, were something so damned extra-special compared with other occupations!"
"Tonight the surly bonds of earth seemed surlier than usual."
"The main thing was not just to sit here, but to do something."
"What she wanted was to give this child in a man’s uniform the slip."
"He felt himself trembling. His hands were clammy on the attaché case handle."
"Oh no, sir; you could buy a three hundred thousand dollar policy. Most people do, and for just ten dollars premium."
"The people who got nabbed, hit hard, and were sometimes prosecuted, were invariably the greedy ones."
"In theory, ticket agents were supposed to note damaged bags at check-in, but seldom did."
"I’ll only be a moment. Don’t take off with me aboard."
"Is there anything else you wish to declare?"
"For God’s sake! For your own reason, for Natalie’s sake, for mine—go on!"
"You have to tell someone; sooner or later you have to."
"You simply cannot tiptoe a three hundred thousand pound piece of high-powered machinery into any place."
"Each time civilization has stumbled into another age that's a little better, a bit more enlightened, than the one before it, it's because people cared more about other people and respected them as individuals."
"The thing is: trucks, trains, freeways, airplanes, and the rest are here. They're part of the way we live, and unless we change our way of life, then their noise is something we have to live with too."
"The adapting doesn't have to be one-sided."
"Once we have life, good or bad, we're entitled to keep it, and not many, however bad it is, would give it up."
"What the Meadowood folk should have done, of course, was get together and retain a lawyer as a group. But if people are gullible, and want to make lawyers rich, I guess it's their own affair."
"I don't think I'm a liar, or a fake. But maybe you have a point about my counting on something turning up, enough to keep me away from the social things, which you know I hate."
"Play a little hard-to-get, she told herself; see to it that Derek Eden went on wanting her as much as she wanted him."
"Nevertheless, for her, the theory had proved true."
"The condition was temporary, not permanent, yet while it remained Inez Guerrero had forgotten where she was, or why."
"Despite the initial slowness of her journey from downtown, she could have reached Flight Two before it left—but for the time spent waiting for the non-appearing change."
"It prompted her mind—like an overloaded circuit—to switch off."
"The policeman had gone then, returning in the direction from which he had come, and Inez did what she was told."
"It was when the agent had gone and Inez realized that despite the press of people around her in the terminal, she was utterly alone, that she began to cry."
"Her resilience—which is another word for strength of the human spirit, which all possess, however burdened or humble—brought her back to a realization."
"He always liked using them. But … if you knew how to handle them … they were safe."
"As it was, she arrived at the departure gate to see the airplane taxiing away."
"So Inez Guerrero stood up, still not sure where she was or how she had come there, but prepared to go."
"Professional decisions, the safety of the airplane and its complement, came first."
"The safety of the aircraft was paramount; however bad conditions might be in the passenger cabin, they would have to hope that most people could manage to hold on."
"Captain Demerest—even in utmost crisis—was behaving exactly as a check pilot should."
"The cold was still biting, even on the flight deck; back there it must be colder still."
"Lincoln International was home base for both pilots, and they knew the airport—as well as runways and surrounding airspace—intimately."
"The damn runway’s been blocked for hours, and all that’s in the way is a stuck Mexican jet."
"We’ll give ’em fifty more minutes to pry it loose."
"We have seen demonstrated the callous indifference of this airport’s management to my clients’ problems."
"In the courts—if necessary the highest court—we shall now seek closure of specific runways, even the entire airport during nighttime hours."
"A public lie! The general manager of this airport confessed to me tonight that even the paltry, so-called noise abatement measures are not being observed."
"You helped make this trouble, you bastard, by not listening to me about airport flight insurance."
"I’m not here for a debate, Mr. Freemantle. If you don’t do as I say, you’ll be arrested."
"We’ll take these airport people, and we’ll take them good!"
"Another dose of distorted law reports to delude people who don’t know any better."
"Airport managements knew that jet airplanes were coming, and knew what jet noise would be like, and we warned people."
"Another ruling, along the same lines, was 'Loma Portal Civic Club v. American Airlines'."
"You don’t have to take my word for what I’ve told you. Look it up. It’s all on record."
"I live with contracts! Every lessee in this airport operates under a contract approved by me."
"In aviation, progress in the air has been ahead of progress on the ground."
"Unfortunately, in a good many places. All our early airports were imitation railway stations because designers had to draw on experience from somewhere."
"If the owners and insurers were on that other flight coming in, they might be cheering."
"We build airports like an unimaginative, patchwork quilt."
"Those creative people, the ones you were talking about. Who are they?"
"It was like a parlor game while the house was burning."
"Once, not long ago, the statement would have been true; but he knew that on the national scene he had slipped from view."