Read Online Blue Skies by Robyn Carr - Free Book Online Page B

do it the way I—”
    â€œIt was your landing that got us that rubber jungle back there, so don’t push me,” she snapped. “I mean it.”
    Exercising rare intelligence, he held his tongue. While Nikki worked on her log, she heard a couple of the comments, and they gave her perverse pleasure.
    â€œDid we land or were we shot down?”
    â€œFifteen midgets in the back would like to compliment your landing, sir.”
    By the time she left the cockpit, all the passengers had deplaned, the cleaners were aboard and the food-service truck was already at the galley bay. Then she heard something she really didn’t want to hear—Bob’s low, seductive voice. “If you go out, you know we’ll go out with you.”
    â€œWe’re counting on that.” It was their senior flight attendant.
    Nikki waited. She didn’t want to get into it with the flight attendant, but she couldn’t just let this go. Instead, she followed Bob through dispatch and upstairs. He was headed toward the airport doors, where he would probably pick up the crew bus to the employee parking lot. “Bob?” she called.
    He stopped and turned, obviously unhappy to see her. He probably thought she was going to chew him out for that landing.
    â€œDid I hear you right?” she asked. “Were you telling Stephanie you’d support them in a strike?”
    He shrugged. “They’re talking about a strike vote next month…or the month after.”
    â€œBob, have you lost your mind? A strike now could be a death knell for this company!”
    â€œThat’s what they’d like you to think. The flight attendants haven’t had a raise in four years.”
    â€œAries lost more than a hundred million dollars last quarter! Where do you think they’re going to get the money for a raise?”
    â€œThat’s what they’d like you to think,” he repeated. “It’s all smoke and mirrors—they’re indinuated with money.”
    That took her a second. Inundated? Indinuated? “You sure about that?” she finally asked. “Do you read Business Week and Aviation Week? It’s a pretty bleak world for airlines, Bob. All of them. Since 9/11 and the war, the industry has lost three times what it earned since Wilbur and Orville took off.”
    He looked at her as though he was very tired of her idiocy. “Look, the employees made pay concessions with 9/11, the government has given the company millions of dollars, and it’s time the management of this company got the message that they’ll have to cut costs somewhere else—their big fat paychecks, perhaps? Or deal with the consequences.”
    â€œBob…”
    â€œNot all airlines are losing money, which tells me that the Aries management should take a look at profitable companies and learn from them.”
    â€œBob, two airlines didn’t lose money. One is a low-fare carrier that has a legislative monopoly out of Texas, and the other is a start-up that hasn’t made a single airplane lease payment yet.”
    He sighed heavily. “Drastic measures for drastic times.”
    No matter how many times she heard this rhetoric, Nikki couldn’t believe it. “Look, I’m not saying management is right or the union is right, but there is a basic tenet of logic that it just doesn’t make sense to draw a line in the sand now, when the entire industry is struggling. Why not just hunker down and wait until there are signs of a recovery, and then turn the screws? That’s when getting tough has a chance of actually paying off. A strike now could shut the company down.”
    â€œExactly!” he said, as though finally getting through to her. “With that kind of threat, you think the company would let us stay out long?”
    â€œOh, man. You could end up in the unemployment line.”
    He smiled at her, turned and started walking again. “I’ve