Review of Cockpit Confidential, the latest book from Partrick Smith

Cockpit Confidential, the latest book from Patrick Smith, is very much an insider's guide to the airline business in general and the life of an airline pilot in particular. This book is about the airline business and about airline careers, but perhaps more importantly it is a story about a love affair. Not the kind that is short, passionate, and comes to a dramatic end at the first sign of trouble, but a love that runs deep, the kind that evolves and matures over decades, and that is strong enough to survive more than a few trials and tribulations.

Patrick shares his lifelong love affair in ways that can be appreciated by current and aspiring aviation professionals, as well as by the average passenger. He addresses a variety of questions about aviation, including questions about how airplanes work, how pilots work their way up the ranks, and why airlines behave in they way they do toward customers and employees. Will it answer every question a passenger or future pilot would have? Certainly not. However, for anyone who has a deep interest in the world of airlines, this book is a real treat.

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Do you have questions about how airliners can fly? You'll have some of your basic questions answered. want to know about the funny noises your plane makes? Patrick can give you a heads up. How about all those questions you have about the mysterious and glamourous life of an airline pilot. Surprisingly, Patrick does have tales of pleasant five star luxury suites, but also not so romantic stories of cooking ramen in the hotel coffee pot.

Are you ticked off about the state of airlines today? So is Patrick. Any reader who has spent a significant amount of time in an airplane, either in the cockpit or the cabin, will certainly recognize some of the situations that Patrick has seen or experienced.

Want to be an airline pilot? If so, definitely read this book. Patrick's career as a professional pilot has spanned several decades, several airlines, several setbacks, and several radical changes in the airline business. His descriptions of the high and low points of his career, as well as the positive and negative aspects of the typical airline pilot's career, aren't sugar-coated at all, and in my opinion should be required reading for anyone considering a flying career.

As Patrick explains, becoming a pilot takes years of sacrifice and determination, and different challenges will have to be overcome once a pilot puts on that uniform for the first time.

Ask Patrick Smith a question
This week, Todd Curtis of AirSafe.com will interview Patrick Smith about his book and about the airline business. Do you have a question for Patrick? If so, send your question to feedback.airsafe.com.

Resources
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Recent positive TSA survey may be misleading

Earlier this month, the polling organization Gallup released the results of a random survey of US adults from July 2012 that concluded Americans' views of TSA were more positive than negative. Specifically, 54% of those surveyed thought that the organization was doing a good or excellent job.

Would these results be a surprise to most travelers?
The TSA certainly welcomed this result, featuring a link to the Gallup survey on their home page. While this was certainly good news to TSA management, it may come as a surprise to passengers who have to experience the TSA's procedures on a regular basis.

Most surveyed were not frequent flyers
The positive results could have been a result of who was polled. According to Gallup, only about 12% of those surveyed had flown on a commercial airline flight five or more times in the previous year, and 48% had not flown on a commercial airliner at all in the previous year.

Could the questions have been different?
While there is no reason to doubt the results, one has to wonder what the response would have been to a different set of questions. For example, the survey asked for opinions about the TSA as a whole, and not about the behavior, quality, or performance of the TSA security officers who screen passengers.

Not clear who paid for the poll
Another unknown is who sponsored the survey. Gallup did not state if the survey was paid for by an outside organization or by Gallup. If it were funded by an organization that would benefit from a positive perception of TSA, that would not make the poll invalid, but it could explain why the poll results were released to the public.

Poll results may be out of context
Perhaps the biggest reasons to question the usefulness of the results is that the results were not put in a context of how those perceptions may have changed over time, or more importantly how those results compare with those of comparable organizations.

Since the TSA was established in the wake of 9/11, the public's perception of the organization has gone up and down. The positive results that were reported in the recent Gallup poll would be much more useful to the public if they could be compared with earlier results from similar poll questions. While it is possible that Gallup or the organization that paid for this recent poll may have this kind of comparative data, none were offered in Gallup's report.

Police viewed much more positively than TSA
TSA is not a law enforcement agency, and TSA screeners do not have the power to arrest anyone or use deadly force, it may be quite fair to compare the public's view of police and the TSA. This is especially true because of the steps that TSA has taken to have uniforms that look very much like police uniforms.

In October 2005, Gallup conducted a national poll that revealed that confidence in local police had dropped to a 10-year low, with 53% of those surveyed having either "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the ability of police to protect them from violent crime. In 2011, this figure was 56%.

Police viewed more positively than TSA
While the two polls did not ask the same questions, it may be quite fair to use the TSA and police polls to compare the public's perception of the ability of the police and the TSA to accomplish their core missions. One could conclude that while the public's perception of the TSA in 2012 is good, police had a better public perception in 2011 and in every year from 1996 to 2005.