Continental and Delta Merge

This is a fact. It is not a rumor. After a combined 53 years of airline service (28 for me and 25 for him) my Delta brother and I will layover in Las Vegas on the same day. We plan to have a light, quiet meal to celebrate this momentous occasion. Dion is a Delta B-757 Captain based in Los Angeles. He will be the first to arrive, from Atlanta of course, then I from Newark. He will be leaving at midnight for the redeye to Orlando and I the 6 a.m. rocket to Houston. What a wonderful l life! We’ve merged before. At the Naval Academy in 1968 and 1969, as Dion started his plebe year and I my first class year. He hung out in my room on weekends to minimize his exposure to push ups. He came down to Pensacola when I was going through advanced flight training. In return I visited him in VT-1 for his solo flight in the T-34. When Dion got his Navy wings of gold I flew an A-7E Corsair II cross country to see my Dad pin them on. Later that year, when Dion finished T-28 (Navy radial engine prop aircraft) training, he came out to Lemoore, Calif., where I was an instructor. I had access to a T-28 so we took it out. Over San Simeon and the Hearst Castle we soared. A few acrobatics later we squeaked it on one of Lemoore’s twin 13,000 foot runways and I invited Dion in for a beer at the O’Club. Dion got on with Delta in 1979, fresh out of the Navy, and I had been with Braniff since 1976. We celebrated our collective good fortune and talked of our bright futures. Our parents were ecstatic. With Braniff and Delta passes, what good sons they had. My Dad was retired from the Navy and ready to non-rev (now they prefer to pay full fare). Dion was based at DFW and lived just north of the airport. On May 12, 1982, I unknowingly flew my last Braniff trip NYC-DFW. We were to go on to Austin, Texas, but that was the day Braniff shut down. I was stuck at DFW with no job, no hotel and no ideas. One call to Dion got things rolling and the next day I was on Delta flying back to New York. Dion was on the panel of the B-727 for the first six years at Delta but was never furloughed. I started over from scratch with People Express and was working at our simulator center in Totowa, N.J., when Dion got the call to upgrade to the right seat. Up he came to New Jersey for a free hour in the B-727 simulator. Flying around New York and doing touch-and-goes at Newark International got him all warmed up for the Delta upgrade program. All other sightings until Las Vegas have been “I met a People Express pilot and he knows you;” “I had a Continental jumpseater and he had flown with you.” But today is the day. Scheduling from two different airlines and the aviation gods (or are they the self-appointed aviation gods?) have seen fit to put us together in the same city at the same time and give us both per diem. Who will pay for dinner? (I think one of the world’s highest paid pilots – Delta.) And should we gamble? I feel really, really lucky today.