Federal Aviation Administrator Randy Babbitt resigned Tuesday, three days after he was arrested on a drunk driving charge near his suburban Washington home.The beef wasn't that he was driving drunk. No, the problem was that he didn't inform his boss, the Secretary of Transportation about the arrest. So his boss read about it in the paper. Which is never good for a political job.
I don't have any beef with Babbitt's performance. He was light-years better than two of the previous Administrators who wouldn't have known a pitot tube from a relief tube.
8 comments:
"He was light-years better than two of the previous Administrators…"
I'll give you that almost anything would be better compared to Blakey and that scum who couldn't even get confirmed. But Babbit was no choir boy, either. He was a scab at Eastern, and he was pretty much a Quisling as ALPA president. The only hope I had for him when he was selected was that he wasn't Blakey and he wasn't that scum who couldn't even get confirmed.
Incidentally, I was long gone before any of them came on line, so I didn't suffer personally, but they fucked up the institution that was my life for 30 years. I won't forgive that.
LRod
ZJX, ORD, ZAU retired
Hey, how about Sully?
draftsully.wordpress.com
Why would Sully want to put up with that political mishegoss?
Two things if I may.
Randy's big f-up was flying the company airplane on Monday after a Saturday DUI. That hasn't been explored yet.
Nothing against Capt. Sully, but here's a quote about putting airline pilots in charge of ATC:
Hiring airline people (Russ Chew, Hank Krakowski, Randy Bobbitt) to run an ANSP is like hiring hostesses to run a restaurant, or a photo developer to run a drug store; they have an informed view of some parts of it, but they suffer from deeply ingrained misconceptions about the high value, essential activities (kitchen, pharmacy, ATC). Unfortunately, The Public tends to over-estimate the expertise of airline pilots and believes they make excellent FAA executives. The results are predictable and consistent.
Cheers, V.
Not only that, but any comment stream that includes the words "Quisling" and "mishegoss" should be required reading. My compliments.
Bobby Sturgell was the scum who couldn't even get confirmed.
Just popped into my head as I was talking with my bride.
(and thank you, Vannevar, for the compliment)
LRod
ZJX, ORD, ZAU retired
I must eat some crow and apologize. I checked the Master Scab List and with a friend who's a retired Eastern pilot and Babbit did not scab. As my friend wrote: "Randy was not a scab but took care of himself first after the Lorenzo episode."
My friend confirms, however, my analysis of his stint as ALPA president, and suggests that Babbit Sr. (also an EAL pilot) must have been rolling over in his grave at Jr.'s tenure.
LRod
ZJX, ORD, ZAU retired
P.S. E-B (if I may call you by your first name), I will not complain one bit if, given my not-wholly-accurate description, you see fit to delete my original post, although I'll miss revisiting Vanevar's kind thoughts above.
LRod, I'll let it stand. No real harm done.
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