Upstart

Owen Swift had reached the pinnacle of his profession. As a Boeing 757 Captain flying for a major US airline he was well paid and appreciated for his skill and experience. Then, depending on whose story you want to believe, as a result of airline deregulation, management ineptitude, union intransigence or some combination of the three, the airline had gone into
bankruptcy and disappeared. For Owen it was more a precipitous financial tumble than a step down: back to flying night freight to pay the rent, while searching for a way to resume his airline career. Then, in a nearly identical repeat of the serendipitous events that landed Owen in an Eastern Airline cockpit thirty years earlier, he spotted an advertisement in the Sunday Salt Lake Tribune: "Airline Captains wanted." Times had changed, however. In 1964 there were more pilot jobs than pilots. In 1994 that was no longer the case.
Owen would have to get lucky...again.