Ask the pilot
Is it ever appropriate to praise the Lord over an airplane's P.A. system?
By Patrick Smith
Feb. 20, 2004 | The answer is no. I did not receive free tickets, a bouquet of Asian orchids or a complimentary backrub from a flight attendant in exchange for last week's mouthwatering portrayal of Singapore Airlines' in-flight pampering. Much as I deserve all of those, of course. I'll have you know my queries to Singapore requesting a media invite for the inaugural LAX-SIN nonstop went unanswered. I'll be trying again next fall when those megahauls to New York are launched.
Try to kindle a little appreciation for the chance to fly in undue comfort halfway around the world, and 50 different e-mails are calling me an airline apologist and asking whose payroll I'm on. Don't I wish.
Speaking of apologies ...
As most of you are probably aware, an American Airlines captain faces disciplinary action after evangelizing to passengers on a flight between Los Angeles and New York on Feb. 6. Roger Findiesen, pilot of American's Flight 34, who had recently returned from a missionary trip to Central America, asked Christian fliers to identify themselves by raising their hands, then urged them to engage their non-Christian seatmates, whom some witnesses say he referred to as "crazy," in a discussion about faith.
The nightmarish visions invoked by an us-vs.-them religious provocation by a crewmember need no elaboration, and reportedly several passengers were in the midst of making mobile phone farewells before things settled down. The mood was apparently so tense that when the captain asked non-Christians to identify themselves, very few souls (sorry) raised their hands.
This is easily the most curious -- some would say disturbing -- story to emerge from a cockpit since those two Southwest pilots went au naturel aboard a 737 last April. Southwest eventually terminated the offenders, while American says the antics of its proselytizing pilot are under investigation.
The airline flatly denies having implemented any faith-based initiatives to help entertain passengers, and let's go ahead and stave off the jokes and cartoons before they happen, assuming it's not too late: Flight attendants will not be coming around with collection baskets; seats will not be replaced by pews; a copy of the New Testament will not be found in your seat pocket; a tablet-style recreation of the Ten Commandments will not be posted on the first-class bulkhead. Yes, an aft lavatory is about the correct size and shape of a confessional, but no, there is no need to address the captain as Father, Pastor, Reverend, or His Holiness (though you are free to speak at will of his all-knowingness, and for $4 he will turn your Diet Pepsi into a small bottle of wine.) The separation of church and sky is well assured, if not by the Constitution, then at least by good sense.
You would think.
Will the hapless Captain Findiesen be seeing a little fire and brimstone from his bosses? Assignment to some unpaid purgatory? Probably, as it should be. He shattered decorum and made a lousy decision. "Whether you're promoting Christianity, Islam, or Amway," says one Evangelical airline pilot, who asks that his name be withheld, "I don't think it's appropriate for an airline pilot to proselytize on the P.A. system."
Imagine, for a second, if the captain of a Pakistan International or Royal Jordanian flight had done the same thing, swapping "Christian" for "Muslim," somewhere over the Atlantic en route to New York. That plane, surrounded by a phalanx of scrambled fighter jets within minutes, would not have been allowed within 500 miles of U.S. airspace. Granted that's not entirely fair, since nobody has been threatening to skyjack airliners in the name of Jesus, and we have to figure that most of Flight 34's occupants were Christian, at least nominally. But the parallel is an obvious and discomforting one.
Still, the reports don't vouch for the tone or inflection of his broadcast -- important factors when it comes to deciding his penance. Was he speaking good-naturedly, ominously, apocalyptically? For now, and having shared cockpits with activist Christians in the past, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and ask that you not equate this man's attempts at transcontinental soul-saving with anything more than a little spiritual enthusiasm, albeit horribly ill-timed and, yes, a violation of the rules (we'll get to that in a minute). For what it's worth, reports claim that he eventually broadcast an apology, and appeared, well, repentant, as passengers disembarked.