Still, American maintained skeleton operations out of Love Field—a couple of gates for regional flights at the end of Braniff’s now-defunct Terminal of the Future and a handful of offices. It was a rubber room for a slew of HR challenges—from senior management with pending litigation against the company, to reservationists who were deaf or had customer Tourette’s, to mechanics suspected of workman’s comp fraud—and Pat Malone was the lucky AMR executive who made the semiannual visit to this island of misfit toys.

Sitting in Gene Petzinger’s office, Pat looked down at the operations roster and shook his head. How has it escaped this long? The cuts are coming. One more downturn and good night. Pat smiled at Gene, who did not smile back.

“What’s the news out of Irving?” Gene asked.

“You’re not missing any Disney parades. Our fearless leader continues to march us forward.”

Picking at a dust mote on the desk blotter, Gene tried not to grimace at the mention of Bob Crandall, the man who had exiled him to this post. Gene was officially the Love Field operations manager, but Pat noticed the calendar hadn’t been turned since September. It was a Potemkin office, they both knew, and both didn’t really care. Why does the Pharaoh Crandall keep all of this on life support? Pat shivered. There but for the grace of God go I . . .

“You guys geared up for the holidays?” Gene asked.

Pat flicked at the garnet in his Fordham class ring and stretched out his stiff left leg. “They say they are. Fuel is cheap. Ridership up. But when is it enough?”

“Never enough.”

“What’s the latest news on Love Airline?”

“Southwest’s still running cattle cars to Lubbock and the like. Nineteen-dollar weekend fares. No seat assignments.”

“No class.”

“Exactly. Like a Greyhound bus.”

“They’re a knockoff. Loehmann’s; we’re Macy’s.”

“Come again?”

Pat blinked and realized Gene was a native. “Sorry, we’re Dillard’s. They’re . . . uh . . . whatever the hell . . . Kmart.”

“Roger that. They put butts in those seats though. Every flight to Hobby goes full.”

Pat nodded. “True, but their whole plane goes for what we get out of two seats in first class. And they make their pilots clean the cabin.”

“Ten-minute turnarounds. They squeeze every penny out of those 737s.”