The Last Frontier

Back in the Day

Long before my 10-year stint as a newspaper sports reporter and long before my six years of service as an employee for the state of Arizona, I worked for the best regional airline in the world -- the old Frontier Airlines.

The airline passed away in 1986.

I was 41 at the time. I had spent 20 years with the company and worked in different parts of the country, including Omaha, Nebraska; Sacramento, California as well as Tucson and Phoenix.

I was the guy at the gates -- running around with my head cut off. You'd find me at the departure and arrival gates, the ticket counter, on the ramp, or pulling the Jetway back. Believe it or not, I worked at a fast pace and handled stressful situations -- forced at times to think quickly and come up with a solution to a problem that at first glance seemed impossible to solve.

I pulled drunks off the airplane, handled oversold flights on Thanksgiving, dealt with irate customers, bad weather...well you name it, I did it.

I miss the airline business from time to time. I miss my teammates, as I like to call them...my fellow employees who all did what they had to do, on a daily basis, to get the job done. We were a family, over 4,000 dedicated people with one goal in mind: to be the best airline in the business. And, we were!

The airline business of today is a far cry from the "good old days" when Frontier roamed the skies.

Oh, we had our moments...mistakes were made. A lot of craziness went on.

I remember a time when I first started. I was what they called a "ramp rat" -- loading bags on a 737 in Tucson, Arizona. It was a windy day. You know, one of those days when the wind blew 50 miles an hour and dust rolled across town, heading' for the Midwest and looking to turn into a tornado or a powerful rainstorm along the way.

Luckily, in Tucson we are forced to deal with dust...and not much else. At any rate, the plane arrived and we proceeded to unload 200 bags out of the rear pit. Down the belt they came, one after another. Well, one of the bags -- a wig case, decided to take flight. The case fell off the belt, bounced on the hard cement, broke open...and the wig took off -- heading for the runway.

I jumped on the tug and gave chase. I caught up with the wig at the south end of the runway, but by that time the wig had picked up every cacti or pebble it could find along the way.

I returned to the ramp, cleaned the wig up the best I could, and stuck it back in the case.

As far as I know, there was never a claim made on the "elusive" wig.

One thing I was sure of at the time: The wig was faster than a jackrabbit.

The stories are endless. The job certainly had its moments.

I remember a crazy day in Phoenix. All our flights were running late -- due mainly to the weather in Denver, Colorado. That of course, made it tough on the customers -- especially the ones that had connections to Los Angeles.

Well to make a long story short, it was my job to get an "important person" off our plane, on to the tug, and run the person across the ramp to connect with his LA flight.

There was just moments to spare.

I quickly took the customer's carry-on bag and had the gentleman sit next to me as we sped off. The engines were roaring by the time I reached the Continental operations area. The ladder was still nestled around the front entrance to the plane and the flight attendant at the top of the stairs was waiting, patiently.

The gentleman looked back at me as he boarded the aircraft. "Thanks, Sonny," he said with a smile.

It was my favorite actor, Kirk Douglas.

Working for the old Frontier Airlines was fun and a privilege. Believe it or not, we had steak and eggs on our breakfast flights. Good luck on finding a bag of peanuts these days.

There are, of course, more stories to tell, but I'm running out of space.

If my readers want to hear more about the "good old days" let me know. I love those "remember when" stories.