To the traveling public, I suspect that airline pilots are all essentially one and the same. We roam the terminals in the same weathered polyester uniforms, towing the same beat-up flight kits festooned with the airplane stickers of our pasts. We're all pretty clean-shaven and tend to sport the same close-cropped haircut - only some a bit grayer than others. We assume the same practiced air of watchful nonchalance in the public eye, delivering our in-flight announcements in the standard Yeager drawl. I presume that airline management, too, sees us as essentially interchangeable cogs in its well-oiled travel machine. If airplanes are merely marginal costs with wings, as Alfred Kahn famously claimed, I suppose airline pilots are just marginal costs with funny hats.
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