Why another book on the history of ALPA and pilot unionization? Weren’t my two previous books enough? What has happened since 1970? The short answer is “history.” Over the last three decades, change in the airline industry has been remorseless and revolutionary. Ask any former Braniff, Eastern, or Pan American pilot about that “change.”

When Hank Duffy approached me about writing a sequel to Flying the Line, I was skeptical. I wasn’t sure ALPA (or airline flying as a “profession,” for that matter) would survive long enough for anybody to care! That’s how bad things were in the 1980s, a decade dominated by Frank Lorenzo and the decertification of ALPA after a lost strike at Continental Airlines. Pilots flying the line today, most of whom began their careers after the trauma described in this book occurred, need to know their history, or they run the risk of repeating it.

But why should I write it? How did the study of airline pilot unionization become my life’s work? Thereby hangs a tale.

In 1964, after five years as a naval aviator, I opted for an academic career. It was a tough choice, for I became a Navy pilot because I saw it as the best way to become an airline pilot. I even requested multiengine training because I had heard that airlines preferred pilots with that background.

In 1966, after two years of graduate studies in history at the University of Texas at Austin, I faced the Ph.D. “comprehensive” exams. If I passed, I would go on to write a dissertation, receive my doctorate, and then become a college professor. If I flunked, I would have to find a new career (while presumably taking up history as a hobby!). I had a wife and child, I was nearly 30 years old, and I was feeling uneasy about the future.

At just this time, Dick Russell, an old Navy friend then flying for Braniff, phoned. “If you ever want to fly again, now’s the time,” Dick said. Braniff needed pilots—needed career insurance. So I interviewed with Braniff, got hired, and was assigned a class date.

Career insurance safely in hand, I passed the comprehensive doctoral exams and reluctantly wrote to Braniff declining employment. But to this day, I keep that framed Braniff job offer on my office wall, a constant reminder that I could have chosen another career.

I then had to write a “dissertation.” A dissertation is supposed to be a “significant contribution” to the field of history. Selecting a dissertation topic takes months—researching and writing one often takes years. An old joke holds that there are two kinds of dissertations: good ones—and those that get finished!

My dissertation adviser, Robert A. Divine, suggested that because I had a background in aviation, and because as a graduate student I had already published an article on American bombing policy in World War II, I ought to continue in this vein. My Navy experience, combined with an aviation specialty, would make me an unusual academician, Divine believed.

My first thought was to write the history of an airline. With the help of Professor Joe B. Frantz, a business historian who knew the president of Braniff, Harding L. Lawrence, I got an interview with Lawrence in his opulent office atop “One Braniff Place” in Dallas. I needed access to Braniff’s records. Lawrence was cordial, but he insisted that Braniff would have to retain control over my work. That was quite impossible for a dissertation.

After several more blind alleys that lasted into 1967, I remembered Dick Russell saying: “You won’t believe this, Hopkins, but I’m now a card-carrying union member. “Dick, a Naval Academy graduate and staunch Republican, gave me an idea.

I discovered that no history of ALPA was listed in any bibliography. So I wrote to ALPA, still located in Chicago, asking permission to use any records the union might have. Almost immediately I received a phone call from W.W. (“Wally”) Anderson, ALPA’s executive administrator under Charley Ruby. Wally’s first comment was: “We’ve been wanting somebody to write our history for a long time. How much would you charge?”

I explained that my services would be free, but that I needed unrestricted access to ALPA’s records. So I came to Chicago in the summer of 1967, and after a brief interview with Charley Ruby, I got his approval—no strings attached. “He seems all right to me “was all Ruby said to Wally Anderson after the interview. In 1971, Harvard University Press published The Airline Pilots: A Study in Elite Unionization, the book that resulted from my dissertation. It took four years to write and covered only the first seven years of ALPA’s history, from its formation in 1931 to passage of the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938. I guess ALPA liked what I wrote, for in 1978, J.J. O’Donnell asked me to write another history commemorating the union’s 50th anniversary. With the understanding that I would give ALPA its history “warts and all,” I agreed.

The result was Flying the Line: the First Half-Century of the Air Line Pilots Association, published in 1982. My interpretation of ALPA’s history was not censored. I work for Western Illinois University specifically and for an abstraction called “history” generally. Although frankly nervous about the book, O’Donnell understood that prettified “court history” praising the King (so to speak) would be worthless. If pilots were to derive insight from my book, it had to be free to go wherever truth took it.

Insiders understood that Hank Duffy’s interest in a sequel to Flying the Line signaled his decision not to seek reelection as ALPA’s president in 1990. Duffy never quibbled about my independence.

And so I plunged anew into the thicket of the profession’s history, and into its crucible—ALPA. This book offers my best judgment of events spanning two decades, from 1970 to 1990. It is written primarily for contemporary airline pilots, but I believe anybody interested in the history of the airline industry can benefit from it.

My interpretation of significant events that have made the profession what it is today is leavened by my experience as an academic observer since the 1960s—a time when many of the Old Guys, ALPA’s founders, were still alive. In some cases, I got to them with my tape recorder near the ends of their lives. I was fortunate to know them, and I am still honored that the Old Guys, men like Homer Cole and John Huber (who served alongside Dave Behncke as ALPA’s first national officers) found me a worthy vehicle to pass on to posterity their stories. Had they not trusted me, I doubt that contemporary pilots, many of whom appear as principal figures in this book, would have been as candid with me.

This book is dedicated not only to the Old Guys who built ALPA, and in the process transformed a mere “job” into a “profession,” but also to their successors who have kept ALPA alive through some difficult years. Without their help, this book could not have been written. Without their perseverance, ALPA would not exist. My special thanks goes to the Air Line Pilot magazine staff who have worked to prepare this manuscript for publication. When I began this project, Esperison Martinez, Jr. was the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, and he served as book editor for Volume II. Gary DiNunno, the current magazine editor, served as publisher, editor, and production manager. William A. Ford created the page and cover design and photo layouts. Jody McPherson and Susan Fager provided their editing and proofreading expertise. In addition, Cathy Sobel indexed the final manuscript. Chris Sorensen photographed the cover image.

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