90 Years of Flying the Line

An Excerpt of “What’s a Pilot Worth?”

By Christopher Freeze, Senior Aviation Technical Writer

This year marks the 90th anniversary of ALPA’s founding, when 24 “Key Men” pledged themselves to a higher purpose, bettering the working conditions and compensation of their fellow airline pilots.

Flying the Line is the seminal text documenting the Association’s trailblazing history. Written by George Hopkins, ALPA’s unofficial biographer, Flying the Line has been abridged and converted into audio format, available on Spotify, Stitcher, Podbean, and Apple Podcasts.

Throughout the year, Air Line Pilot will be highlighting chapters from Flying the Line that chronicle the founding of ALPA and the early days of airline flying. Why? To remind or inform readers/members that hard-earned gains in safety didn’t happen by accident, that the “safest place on the earth” isn’t an empty motto, and that ALPA has paved the way for 90 years to advance the airline piloting profession to where it is today.

The story captured in Flying the Line details the struggles of line pilots who fought and died to form this union, and today’s pilot leaders continue to carry forth the Key Men’s mission of not only protecting the lives and careers of current airline pilots but also those of future generations of aviators.

The following is an excerpt from the book’s first chapter titled “What’s a Pilot Worth?”

What made Howard E. “Sonnyboy” Hall challenge Jack Frye’s company union on Transcontinental & Western Air (TWA) in 1933? Hall had been a loyal employee since the days when TWA was known as Transcontinental Air Transport and stopped flying at dusk to transfer passengers from Ford Trimotors to trains. He had helped organize ALPA on TWA during a frenetic burst of activity in 1932. Then he made the mistake of going on a two-week vacation. When he came back to work, everyone who declined to join the new “TWA Pilots Association” was in trouble. Some got fired. Others simply ducked, paid their ALPA dues quietly, and gave lip service to the company-approved “association.”

Hall did none of these things, and because he was so senior and respected by his fellow pilots, Jack Frye dared not fire him openly. There was a simpler solution. TWA transferred Hall to an unfamiliar route half a continent away, flying open-cockpit planes (he had been flying Fords), over terrain unfamiliar to him, at night! “They hoped I’d either quit, or worse yet, get killed,” Hall remembers. “My wife cried when I was transferred from Kansas City to Newark. She thought she was going to be a widow for sure.” They played hardball in those days, but Hall wouldn’t quit or get killed. He had some help by 1933. ALPA was flexing its muscles and beginning to have some influence in Washington. Hall survived; he retired from TWA, after a full career.

While some pilots hung tough, others folded, and it is a mistake to view ALPA’s early history as an uninterrupted success story. There was a lot of human wreckage in the beginning. Pilots who were out front serving as ALPA officers were really asking for trouble. Of the first three national officers, Dave Behncke of United Airlines, Homer Cole of Northwest Airlines, and John Huber of Thompson Aeronautical Corporation (later American), not one kept his airline job. And it wasn’t because they were incompetent.

Next time: How the crash of a Northwest Airlines Lockheed 10 just days before Christmas in 1936 highlighted a serious industry safety issue and propelled ALPA into the national consciousness.


Listen now

Flying the Line is also a podcast! Get your ALPA history on the go with Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.



This article was originally published in the January 2021 issue of Air Line Pilot.

Read the latest Air Line Pilot (PDF)