Safety in the Air

I have just read with disgust and horror the article by Sylvie Drake (“Understudies Get A’s From Flying Critic,” Other Views, March 14). She portrays the professional flight attendant as a waitress in the sky.

Thank God her flight from Boston did not end in a tragedy in which an evacuation was necessary. Would these Clipped Wings retirees be able to evacuate that aircraft before the plastic interior burned and choked all aboard? About 90 seconds are all they would have.

Her description of the most important part of the service, the safety briefing, would have been enough for me to demand to be let off the plane. One thousand, nine hundred people were killed in 1985. How many more before we realize that the financiers are running the airlines strictly on a cost-saving method, with complete disregard for the safety we have enjoyed in the past? I am a pilot for a major airline. I have seen the standards decrease. It must stop.

ED MORRISON

Riverside