16 Souls

CHAPTER FIVE

Seven Months before — January 21st

Mountaineer 2612

At the same moment Captain Mitchell was settling into the left seat of Regal Flight 12, the captain of Mountaineer Airlines Flight 2612 stood crammed into Mountaineer’s tiny operations office two concourses distant, wondering why the Durango, Colorado, airport wasn’t on the list of snowed-in airfields. Apparently, the huge storm was moving more to the north and east than to the south, but the blizzard was so all encompassing it was hard to imagine anywhere in the western U.S. being spared the rapidly developing snowdrifts.

Michelle Whittier finished studying her paperwork and signed the release form. If they could actually get out of Denver, there was no reason they couldn’t get their passengers to Durango — and God knew the struggling little regional airline she flew for needed every dollar that each of those passengers represented.

Not that many of those dollars were going to Mountaineer’s pilots. Then again, she appreciated the fact that she was still employed and sitting in the captain’s seat. Too many captains — even those with major airlines like Delta and American — had watched their salaries slashed in massive give-backs or otherwise been forced over the years by layoffs to return to the copilot ranks flying for half their previous paychecks. The airline industry seemed determined to destroy itself insidiously by giving away its product in an endless, lemming-like march to lower and lower fares, while killing off any remaining passenger loyalty with nickel-and-dime charges for bags, food, and soon probably even seat belts and emergency oxygen masks.

In fact, Michelle thought, she was plain lucky little Mountaineer was still in business. Too many regionals weren’t, and too many regional airline copilots were making less than twenty-five thousand a year — some getting by with food stamps. More than a few regional pilots were moonlighting at other jobs just to make ends meet, and even though the long-predicted pilot shortage was already upon them, the owners of too many regional carriers were still paying their pilots the lowest wages they could get by with while trying to stay profitable flying as surrogates for major airlines that were very accomplished at playing one regional off against another.

In the pilot ranks, it was a shared agony, and there was a stoic tendency to adopt workarounds in support of each other, workarounds borne of sympathy for exhausted moonlighters when they showed up all but brain dead and the other pilot quietly flew solo in order to let the fatigued airman doze most of the way to destination.

Tonight, Michelle had a green copilot still on probation, but the young man was wide awake, sharp and enthusiastic. That was a relief! They were going to need all the coordination and alertness they could manage.

“Michelle, good to see you,” one of the ramp guys said, brushing past her to move behind the counter. She waved and was jostled again as another ramp agent came through the door tromping snow from his shoes and complaining with a big smile. The copilot, whose name she had momentarily forgotten, was already outside in the teeth of the storm preflighting the small twin engine turboprop. Michelle checked the paperwork to locate his name, embarrassed she couldn’t retain it for five minutes.

Luke! Luke Marshall. Okay.

She had to greet him by name when he reached the cockpit. That was important. There was nothing worse than forgetting a crewmember’s name if you wanted to form a real team.

The desire for coffee suggested itself, but the thought of pushing through the crowded and anxious energy of the concourse again to reach Starbucks squelched the idea. Better to get to the aircraft and get ready. Provided her little airline could afford another round of deicing fluid and get the attention of the contractor who took care of their deicing needs at the gate, she had a chance of getting out on time.