WEEK AFTER WEEK pilot Michael Blackburn takes to the skies transporting Caribbean people around the region – a job he confesses he loves.
He could have been a doctor or lawyer, professions which were both open to the Grenadian over 30 years ago when he was deciding on a career.
He told Easy Magazine: “I had the academic ability and the financial resources to choose either one, but by virtue of the family background I chose flying. I went to school in Canada, came back and qualified in 1974 . . . joined LIAT in 1977 and I have been with them ever since.”
Though Blackburn was aware that “you are not going to make as much money as you would if you are a doctor or lawyer”, he also recognised “life for a pilot is reasonably rewarding when you are young”. He opted to remain with the regional carrier over three decades while classmates who went to flying school with him sought their fortunes farther afield “flying big jets all over the world for a lot of money”.
But for this Caribbean man “money is not everything.
“If you are like me and very patriotic and very politically-orientated, you want to make a commitment to the Caribbean and the people” he says, though he readily admits living in the Caribbean “is not as rewarding as it would have been.
“What I have done with my contribution to the Caribbean, lubricating integration as a pilot, that is very rewarding to me both as a pilot and on the labour front.”
For the past 30 years Blackburn, sitting on the executive council of the LIAT Pilots Association as chairman, has championed the causes of LIAT pilots.
“Part of my accomplishments as the head of the pilots union was to integrate the pilots union with the mainstream workers throughout the Caribbean. So we are now, under my watch, full-fledged members of the Antigua Trade Union, we are affiliated with the International Labour Organisation and are part of the International Pilots Association.”
His has become the recognisable face and the voice of the pilots and when Blackburn speaks, regional leaders associated with LIAT listen.
“I take the trade union movement very seriously.”
His interest in trade unionism was first sparked by the exploits of former Grenadian Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy whom Blackburn is not ashamed to say he admired.
He claims to have fallen under Gairy’s influence from young. He explained: “When I was quite a young man I fell under the influence and philosophy of Eric Gairy in Grenada. I became quite acquainted with him personally, I admired him tremendously and his total commitment to the labour movement and to the working class.
“Sir Eric was the leader of the Grenada Manual and Mental Workers’ Trade Union and I became very attached to him and I made a commitment then to always fight and defend the rights of the workers.”
He attacks this mission with zeal in the same way he approaches his work. Blackburn defends LIAT pilots because he is convinced they do an “excellent, responsible job” for which he fervently believes they ought to be recognised and valued.
“LIAT pilots are among the best if not the best in the world. The LIAT pilot will have a lot more arrival and departure practice than the ordinary average pilot .We do so many take-offs and landings.”
Blackburn knows first-hand the peculiarities of flying an aircraft in the Caribbean, the landings and take-offs in intra-Caribbean flying.
“The cycles are a lot more, you do a lot more take-offs than if you flying in North America . . . an intra-Caribbean pilot is flying usually at low levels, the majority of weather is low, so for a pilot based down here, the weather workload is a lot more than for an international pilot. The demand for pilot skills is a lot more for a pilot flying in the Caribbean and there is a lot more direct handling of the aircraft, rather than depending on instruments.”
By his reckoning, a LIAT pilot may do as many as 20 take-offs and landings in a day traversing the complex string of airports across the region and Blackburn insists his team of pilots know better than others, the conditions of the region which they have been extensively trained to navigate.
Given that skill and collective expertise, he boldly declares “you can feel very safe when you are flying and see a LIAT uniform”.
Today he is a senior pilot flying the airline’s Dash 8 aircraft, stepping up from the original AVRO 748 on which he chalked up 10 000 flying hours while that aircraft was in service. Over 30 years he has flown about 20 000 hours in all.
He wants to see a decision taken to upgrade LIAT and he complains “the drawbacks of my career have been the management. We should have been flying international jets years ago”.
But while his job and trade union activities may appear to consume his life, Blackburn makes it clear that he is a family man who sets aside time to be with his wife and children. He said that his wife was “a stay-at-home wife for the majority of the time”.
Balancing family life with working for LIAT, sometimes overnighting, has however not been as intense as it would be for other pilots flying international carriers.?His seniority affords him choices, leaving a lot more time to remain at his
West Coast Barbados home where he has lived for many years.
His seniority allows him to choose his work days, a typical one of which might see him checking in at the Grantley Adams International Airport at seven in the morning to take an aircraft to Trinidad, on to Guyana and back to Barbados, to St Vincent and St Lucia.
And he values the support of a wife who “knows what I am, what I stand for, the principles that I believe in”.
“That was all cleared before we even started. She knew I was a political person”, says Blackburn with a chuckle.
He has had his memorable moments as a pilot. As he told Easy Magazine: “You will always have emergencies. You can train as much as you want but when an engine actually quits it is something you will never forget.”
Blackburn had that unforgettable experience way back, flying the old LIAT AVRO 748.