page ten
fJteamaiJirae
Long lines
Since Piedmont’s long lines were one of, if not the
most successful of our modes of communication, we
thought a column by the same name might he a good
way of mentioning some of the small, but netvsy things
of interest that go on around the system. Any contri
butions you might have will be more than welcome.
Address them to the Editor, Piedmonitor, INT-A213
If the uniform manufacturer for Piedmont
Airlines and the Beckley, West Virginia Police
Department were the same, he could fit six
customers with just three sets of measure
ments. Piedmont has three part-time agents at
BKW who are also full-time policemen. Steve
Brooks, Marvin Robinson and Don Freeland
work the full range of agent positions, from
counter to ramp, to operations and freight. At
the police department they all work in the
patrol division.
Brooks has the most seniority with Pied
mont, a year and a half. Freeland has been
with the police department the longest, four
years. He and Robinson have been with Pied
mont about a year. Brooks and Robinson have
been on the police force for six months.
Freeland, who is a training officer for the
police department, was one of ten men nom
inated last year for the International Chiefs
of Police Association service award. He was
recently given the Beckley Police Department’s
Humanitarian Award for saving a child’s life.
Only six days after completing a course in
C a r d i 0 Pulmonary Resuscitation, Policeman
Freeland stopped a speeding driver. The inci
dent was not what he expected.
“When we stopped him, the man started
screaming that his baby was dying.” Freeland
recalls. “We told them we’d get an ambulance
and about that time the mother jumped out
the other side of the truck and screamed ‘my
baby’s dying,’ and she just pitched it into my
arms,” he said. “It was dark blue.”
Luckily for 13-month-old Amy Creighton,
Freeland’s CPR training was current.
He examined the child, cleared her air pas
sages of foreign matter and gave her mouth-
to - mouth resuscitation while another officer
radioed for an ambulance.
When the ambulance arrived, no attendant
was aboard, so Freeland climbed into the emer
gency vehicle and continued mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation and chest massage on the way to
the hospital. The child survived.
In addition to being a part-time Piedmont
agent and a full-time patrolman, Freeland is
a criminal justice major at Bluefield State Col
lege.
When someone says to Freeland, “How was
your day at work?” He has to ask, “Which
job?”
Vi/e were back on top
The Civil Aeronautics Board’s consumer
complaint reports for the first two months of
1979 showed Piedmont was number one, with
the fewest complaints, among the local service
carriers in January. We came in second to Delta
in the industry in the first report of this year.
The February report was as frightful as
that month’s weather. Piedmont placed fifth
7-
s
w
If
Beckley agents, from left, Steve Brooks, Marvin Robinson and Don Freeland are shovfn here in
their Piedmont uniforms. They have another set of uniforms for the other job they have in com
mon. See story below.
among the locals and tenth in the industry.
Letters to the Board are categorized ac
cording to complaints involving delays, reserva
tions, baggage, fares, refunds, cargo, customer
treatment and charters. The monthly reports
are compiled based on letters per 100,000 pas
sengers enplaned.
CHS has TOPS winner
The TOPS (Total Outstanding Passenger
Service) award winner for March/April, 1979
was Charleston, South Carolina Station Manag
er Wayne Rankin.
Another airline made an unscheduled land
ing at CHS because of the illness of a passen
ger on board. The wife of the passenger wrote,
“(Rankin) had the foresight to get our bag
gage off the plane, carry it in his own car, and
then he and his wife gave up their evening to
stay with me in the emergency room. When
my husband was released, the Rankins drove
us to the motel, got our train reservations and
saw to it that we got to the station the follow
ing morning.”
Rankin has received a number of other high
ly complimentary letters for service to our pas
sengers above and beyond the call of duty.
Honorable mention for the March/April pe
riod went to Flight Attendants Bobbie Davis
and Lina Trent of Roanoke.
Rankin received five shares of Piedmont
stock and the TOPS plaque.
New facts and figures out
The Air Transport Association’s latest edi
tion of Facts & Figures is out. The annual re
port on the U. S. airline industry is presented
in a new format this year. It is a convenient
pocket-size publication. Department heads, sta
tion and sales managers will receive a copy
soon. The Piedmonitor office has a limited sup
ply and will be glad to send them to interested
employees on a first-come, first-served basis.
In covering 1978 highlights, the ATA re
ported: nearly half of all passengers traveled
on discount fares last year, and the average
cost per mile declined from 1977. Chicago’s
O’Hare Airport remained the nation’s busiest,
handling 49 million departing and arriving pas
sengers with 777,000 aircraft movements. The
top airline market was the New York-Washing-
ton route, between which 1.9 million passengers
traveled.
The report also lists the top 25 airports in
the country. Piedmont serves 11 out of the top
25 and six out of the top ten. Piedmont has
added six, in bold type, of the top 25 airports
to its route system during the past twelve
months. The airports rank in order, Chicago’s
O’Hare, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York’s Ken
nedy, San Francisco, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Denver,
LaGuardia, Miami, Honolulu, Washington’s Na
tional, Boston, Detroit, Houston, Pittsburgh,
Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Minneapolis-St. Paul,
Newark, Seattle-Tacoma, St. Louis, Cleveland,
Tampa, San Diego and New Orleans.
Promotions cause moves
Recent personnel promotions include Cap
tain F. R. Womack to the newly-established po
sition of assistant director of flight operations.
He had been a YS-11 check airman. Captains
0. E. Vining and G. B. Gibson have been named
YS-11 check airmen. Vining will be based in
Roanoke. Gibson will be in Winston-Salem.
In the marketing department, Don Holliday
has been promoted from city sales manager-
Roanoke to district sales manager there. For
mer Newark Agent Charles Allen has been
named sales representative - New York City.
Winston-Salem - based Flight Attendant Cliff
Grey has been promoted to sales representative-
Washington. Richard Glaspell, who- was super
visor at Charleston, West Virginia, will become
a sales representative in Atlanta. Bob Meason
is moving from supervisor at Fayetteville to
sales representative in Chicago. Jose Morales
has been promoted from Washington sales rep
resentative to city sales manager based in Co
lumbia. He will cover Columbia, Charleston,
Myrtle Beach and Florence, South Carolina.
Bill E. Lee has been appointed to the newly-
April flight attendant graduates included, from left, Harriet Griffis, Cathey
McDougal, Maureen O’Toole, Sharon Barlow, Kimberly Simser, Kay Che-
nault, Brenda Garrison, Gwendolyn Stinson, Laurie Ogle, Ruth Coburn,
Daniel Alman, Linda Crysler, Kim Wolf, Terri Cromer, Robert Brough,
Connie Essick, Joseph Maval, Suzanne Patsch, Betty Rice and Rose
Kalenian.
The May flight attendant graduates were: in the usual order, Jody Davis,
Cindy Joyce, Carolyn Balilles, Donna McAnge, Nancy Blankinship, Va
nessa Scales, Susan Sanford, Sherry Matway, Steve Sekadio, Jacki Mor
ris, Debra Pooree, Janet Butler, Tracy Handy, Cindi Edwards, Mary Swar-
ingen, Frances Paget, LuAnn Mills, Elizabeth Rhodes, Karen Smith, and
Pam Patrick.