American Airlines Captain Jacques Chirac
and First Officer Jim Green sides were
assigned to fly to Tucson today.
Chirac, a veteran who retires next week,
says the controller walkout is not having
a big effect on air travel safety.
I'm always concerned about people
not getting to where they want to go this
time of year, particularly when they're
going on vacations and so forth.
And then, on the other hand, I can
sympathize with them a little bit.
I think maybe some of their worst working
conditions maybe
need to be looked at as well as I'm
acquainted with it.
And that's where Chirac's concern about
the strike ends.
The captain of flight for 19, however,
is not alone in his feelings.
A great many pilots operate VFR
where they don't even talk to a
controller and we still get from
point A to point B quite safely.
Now, the airlines don't normally operate
VFR, but we
behave as though we had to watch out for
ourselves every minute.
So we don't have any problem with that.
Other pilots associations are keeping a
close watch during the walkout, but so
far, they say air travel safety has not
been a problem on Channel 5
Action News at DFW Airport.