“Right now we’re holding ten flights for taxi clearance, another dozen waiting to start engines.”

It was a demonstration, Mel reflected, of how urgently the airport needed additional runways and taxiways. For three years he had been urging construction of a new runway to parallel three zero, as well as other operational improvements. But the Board of Airport Commissioners, under political pressure from downtown, refused to approve.

“The other thing,” the tower watch chief said, “is that with three zero out of use, we’re having to route takeoffs over Meadowood. The complaints have started coming in already.”

Mel groaned. Though the airport had been established long before the community, Meadowood’s residents complained bitterly about noise from aircraft. Eventually, after long negotiations involving politics and publicity, the airport had conceded that jet takeoffs and landings directly over Meadowood would be made only when essential in special circumstances.

Moreover, it was also agreed that aircraft taking off toward Meadowood would— almost at once after becoming airborne—follow noise abatement procedures. This produced protests from pilots, who considered the procedures dangerous. The airlines, however, had ordered the pilots to conform. Yet Meadowood residents were still protesting, organizing, and planning legal harassment of the airport.

“How many calls have there been?”

“Fifty at least, we’ve answered; and there’ve been others we haven’t.”

“I suppose you’ve told the people who’ve called that we’ve a special situation—the storm, a runway out of use.”

“We explain. But nobody’s interested. Some of ‘em say that problems or not, pilots are still supposed to use noise abatement procedures.”

“If I were a pilot, neither would I.”

“I guess it depends on your point of view. If I lived in Meadowood, maybe I’d feel the way they do.”

“You wouldn’t live in Meadowood. You’d have listened to the warnings we gave people, years ago, not to build houses there.”

“I guess so. By the way, one of my people told me there’s another community meeting over there tonight.”

“Whatever they are planning,” Mel predicted, “we’ll hear about it soon.” Changing the subject, Mel inquired, “Is my brother on duty tonight?”

“Affirmative. Keith’s on radar watch—west arrival.”

West arrival, Mel knew, was one of the tough, tense positions in the tower. It involved supervising all incoming flights in the west quadrant. “Is Keith all right?”

There was a slight pause before the answer. “Yes, he is. I wish I could let him take things easier. But we’re short-staffed and everybody is under the gun.” He added, “Including me.”

“I know you are, and I appreciate your watching out for Keith the way you have.”

“Well, in this job most of us have combat fatigue at one time or another. When it happens we try to help each other.”

“Thanks.” The conversation had not eased Mel’s anxiety. “I may drop in later.”

“Right, sir.” The tower chief hung up.

The “sir” was strictly a courtesy. Mel had no authority over ATC. But relationships between controllers and airport management were good, and Mel saw to it they stayed that way.

Any airport was an odd complexity of overlapping authority. No single individual had supreme command, yet no segment was entirely independent. As airport general manager, Mel was closest to an over-all authority, but there were areas where he knew better than to intrude. Air Traffic Control was one, airline internal management another.

Mel remembered about the note delivered to him fifteen minutes before.

The “t” was for Tanya—Tanya Livingston, passenger relations agent for Trans America, and a special friend of Mel’s. Mel read the note again, as he usually did messages from Tanya, which became clearer the second time around.

The Demerest in the note was Captain Vernon Demerest, also of Trans America. As well as being one of the airline’s more senior captains, Demerest was a campaigner for the Air Line Pilots Association, and, this season, a member of the Airlines Snow Committee at Lincoln International.