Fiction: Meet Your Pilot, A TSA Initiative (Humor)

If you don’t trust the pilot, don’t go.

— Denzel Washington

Airline travel is hours of boredom interrupted by moments of stark terror.

— Al Boliska

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From: AeJet Air

To: Passengers

The Government has approved a mandatory psychological crowd sourcing program entitled “Meet Your Pilot,” to be implemented April 1.

Your upcoming flight falls under these new TSA rules, so this email serves as an important reminder that you will be required to arrive at the airport 180 minutes before your flight and be present in the boarding area at least 90 minutes before takeoff.

Your crew – pilot, co-pilot, and flight attendants – will be available for a “Meet and Greet,” to answer questions from passengers.

All “Meet and Greets” will be recorded and subsequently analyzed by TSA psychologists, to be retained on file as dynamic psychological profiles of airline employees directly responsible for your flight.

Your crew’s résumés will be forwarded to you five days before departure. We strongly urge you to study these documents carefully and prepare some incisive questions in advance.

In the event of crew changes, a non-flight employee will summarize any replacement crew member résumé for you.

This new Government initiative offers you the opportunity to see for yourself how committed AeJet Air is to air safety; we applaud the Government’s intervention in these matters.

Be assured that our pilots are highly trained and psychologically responsible and fit for hurtling large tubes with wings through the air at 325 - 500 mph – and safely.

If five or five percent (whichever is larger) of passengers opt to delay their flight because of crew concerns, TSA rules require that the crew member in question be removed from a flight manifest, to be reassessed by TSA psychologists before being reassigned for future flights.

AeJet Air takes airline safety seriously and has always worked diligently toward Continuous Psychological Wellness Assessments (CPWA) of our employees.

For your convenience, we have included TSA’s “Meet Your Pilot Passenger/Crew Rights and Responsibilities” (MYP-PCRR):

Passenger rights:

– You have the right to know the identity of your pilot so that you may conduct an internet search on him/her, well before your flight.

– If, for any reason*, you are uneasy about a pilot’s qualifications or answers and/or demeanor, you may ask to be removed, at no extra charge, from your current flight and rebooked on another flight.

– You may ask the crew any questions having to do with how they are feeling (ill, happy, depressed, normal), whether they have imbibed alcohol or drugs within the last 24 hours, and if they have recently experienced any family trauma in recent months.

Crew rights:

– The crew has the right to an updated and accurate list of passengers.

– The crew has the right to decline answering highly personal questions, for example, the specifics of their sexual orientation and sex lives; religious beliefs, income, age, marital status, and political persuasion.

– While passengers may ask delicate questions, the crew has the right not to disclose highly personal details about their lives, such as specifics about a life event, such as divorce, childbirth, marital affairs, etc.

Passenger responsibilities:

– To ask important questions as they may pertain to the upcoming flight and rule out, as a crowd-sourcing group, any serious potential psychological issues or potential substance abuse (alcohol and/or drugs, both prescription and illegal).

– To treat AeJet Air employees with respect by restricting their questions to issues pertaining to performance and/or psychological and physical well-being.

Crew responsibilities:

– To report for work in top physical and psychological shape.

– To treat our passengers with respect by cheerfully answering questions related to flying fitness and respectfully declining to answer inappropriate personal questions.

Be assured that your crowd-sourcing profiles will make a difference, and your observations will be taken seriously.

Thank you for flying AeJet Air. We know that you have choices for your airline carrier, and we are privileged to be able to serve you.

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*Passengers may not discriminate against a crew member for religious, political, racial, sexual orientation, age, or ethnic reasons.

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“Meet Your Pilot, A TSA Initiative (Humor),” © copyright 2014 - present, by Jennifer Semple Siegel, may not be reprinted or reposted without the express permission of the author.