June/July, 1973
PIEDMONITOR
page five
Among the summer sports trophies was this one for
skeet shooting. First Officer Sandy Cooper and Captain
Doug Johnson, both based in Atlanta, were the winners.
Some fares are changed
Piedmont, and all the other U. S. airlines,
has begun phasing out youth and family fare
discounts. In ordering the phase out the Civil
Aeronautics Board said the fares had served
their purpose and are “discriminatory.” The
board noted that discount fares, while attract
ing new business, had lowered the yield per
passenger mile by approximately eight per
cent. The discounts, as much as SSVs per cent
for youth stand-bys, will be removed in three
steps. They were reduced by one-third on June
1. A reduction of another third comes Decem
The home office's softball team has had a busy summer
but they took time to have an official portrait made.
In front is Johnny Barney. The first row includes, in
the usual order, Charlie Fulton, Reid Cook, Tommy
Snow, David Kiser, A. I. Beamon and Joe Fulk. On the
second row in the same order are Carl Parks, Jimmy
Allred, Gene Booze, Joe Lunsford, Steve Shore, Larry
Howell, S. E. Smith and John Barney. They're currently
the top contenders for the district championship.
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The latest group of stewardesses posed by the pool at their recent graduation. They are, from left, Joan Bently,
Rhonda Cumby, Janice Love, Debra Rufus, Pam Sykes, Suzanne Hammock, Linda Jones, Pat Craft, Jean Porter,
Lynda Walker, Sherry Boatright, Dianne Brown, Debbi Harrison, Pamela Lane, Debi Mathis, Jenny Ham, Vicky
Crutchfield, Debbie Terrell, Jo Weintrub, Karen Hall and Michele Chambers.
ber 1 and they will be eliminated altogether
by June 1, 1974.
New division chief named
Director of flight operations W. C. Kyle has
announced the promotion of Captain W. H.
Durbin to the position of division chief pilot
for Roanoke. Durbin joined the Company as a
utility serviceman at Louisville in 1962. He
became a First Oft'icer in 1964. Prior to assum
ing his new duties in mid-July Captain Durbin
was based in Norfolk.
PI praised in print
The following very kind words about Pied
mont recently appeared in a local Winston-
Salem newspaper. The column, “By Chance”
written by Leila Graham in the Suburbanite.
We enjoyed and appreciated her comments and
felt they should be shared.
Certain outviews and opinions of others an
noy me beyond belief, even though I am positive
that each must have the right to hold and ex
press his own views.
This paradox of personal thinking is going
to get me into dire trouble with complete
strangers some day. I say “complete strangers”
because they are the ones who most frequently
cause me to abandon my respect for the rights
of others.
The case in point is Piedmont Airlines . . .
the comments of travelers concerning Pied
mont. I never make a trip either into or out of
Winston-Salem that I don’t hear somebody
knocking our locally based airline or its facili
ties.
On a trip at Easter, I flew back to W. S. from
Washington with a planeload of men coming
here for a mental health clinic of some sort.
Those men needed to be inspected by their own
clinic.
Their chatter about the plane started in the
waiting room and continued after they boarded
the plane. They seemed totally oblivious to the
fact that employees of the airline were within
earshot and that most of the passengers could
be residents of Winston.
This was not the first such boorishness I
have heard on the same subject and it wasn’t
i
the last. On July 3, while waiting for a flight
at the local airport, I again heard a group of
men start the same type of foolishness. A lone
male traveler, who was all the way across the
waiting room, felt compelled' to prove his
“superiority” and jumped up to join the hilar
ity, which was aimed at the size and type of
craft on the runway.
“I thought ail planes like that were in mu
seums,” he sneered. This made him an instant
hit with the others and put him on my “enemy”
list for life.
I was horrified on returning home to find
this dude’s picture on my desk. He had just
accepted a position with a local community-
sponsored organization.
What an asset he will make!! With an at
titude like his and with his complete disregard
for the sensitivities of local residents, he should
go a long way in shrinking the number of
donors to his employer.
My experiences with Piedmont began in 1950
when I was making annual Christmas visits
from Kansas City. I would ride TWA to Louis
ville and there board a Piedmont DC-3 for the
remainder of the trip. The DC-3 was a far cry
from the huge TWA planes, but it represented
home to me. Each time I board a Piedmont for
the final leg of a journey, I feel as though I
have arrived in W. S.
In the 23 years since that first Piedmont
flight, I have boarded many of the company’s
planes for journeys going and coming to sun
dry places. In all that time, I have never failed
to reach my destination within a few minutes
(never more than an hour) of scheduled time
and I have always had the good fortune to re
trieve my luggage sooner or later, but usually
right on time.
Piedmont is a local business of considerable
proportions, but it is more vital in terms of
impact and prestige. That is why I fly Piedmont
whenever I get a chance and why I loathe those
who continue to laugh or deride the airline.
I am aware that Piedmont planes are not the
mammoth craft flown by TWA and its chief
competitors. But I also am aware that Winston-
Salem is not Kansas City or New York. Our
airline suits us and enhances us.
Let those who need 747’s to make them com
fortable stay where they can get that sei'vice.
And please let those who scoff learn to keep
their mouths shut or I am going to be indicted
for hitting one of them with my boarding pass
. . . and not By Chance.
Station managers and station chief mechanics recently attended a two day seminar on
Personnel Relations at Roanoke. The front row shows R. H. Klemt — TYS, R. H. DeKay
- ILM, T. F. Arnold - TYS, H. L. Cox - GSO, D. G. Sutphin — DCA and J. J. Archer -
CVG. On the second row are R. W. Tucker — MEM, B. F. Gibbs — LGA, M. D. Mahn
ILM, W. H. Kerr — ORF, S. B. Boykin — SDF and R. A. Beard — ILM. The third row
includes C. T. Crouch — EWR, P. R. Gustafson — CVG, A. M. Whittaker - ROA, M. R.
Sink - ORF, Ralph Smith of N. C. State, W. V. Foster - INT, J. E. Nelson - MDW, R. K.
Waugh — HTS, R. S. Macklin - INT, C. F. Franklin - MEM, W. W. Cook - ATL and
G. F. Hendrix — ROA.
The trophy winners from the Winston bowling teams included, from left, Ken Shelton,
Mary Nell Carson, Leonard Jackson, Nancy Thomas and Bill Sebastian. Jackson was
team captain.