A New York Times bestseller For millions of people, travel by air is a confounding, uncomfortable, and even fearful experience. Patrick Smith, airline pilot and author of the popular website www.askthepilot.com, separates fact from fallacy and tells you everything you need to know: • How planes fly, and a revealing look at the men and women who fly them • Straight talk on turbulence, pilot training, and safety. • The real story on delays, congestion, and the dysfunction of the modern airport • The myths and misconceptions of cabin air and cockpit automation • Terrorism in perspective, and a provocative look at security • Airfares, seating woes, and the pitfalls of airline customer service • The colors and cultures of the airlines we love to hate COCKPIT CONFIDENTIAL covers not only the nuts and bolts of flying, but the grand theater of air travel, from airport architecture to inflight service to the excitement of travel abroad. It's a thoughtful, funny, at times deeply personal look into the strange and misunderstood world of commercial flying. "Patrick Smith is extraordinarily knowledgeable about modern aviation...the ideal seatmate, a companion, writer and explorer." —Boston Globe "Anyone remotely afraid of flying should read this book, as should anyone who appreciates good writing and great information." —The New York Times, on ASK THE PILOT.

A New York Times bestseller For millions of people, travel by air is a confounding, uncomfortable, and even fearful experience. Patrick Smith, airline pilot and author of the web's popular Ask the Pilot feature, separates the fact from fallacy and tells you everything you need to know... •How planes fly, and a revealing look at the men and women who fly them •Straight talk on turbulence, pilot training, and safety •The real story on congestion, delays, and the dysfunction of the modern airport •The myths and misconceptions of cabin air and cockpit automation •Terrorism in perspective, and a provocative look at security •Airfares, seating woes, and the pitfalls of airline customer service •The colors and cultures of the airlines we love to hate Cockpit Confidential covers not only the nuts and bolts of flying, but also the grand theater of air travel, from airport architecture to inflight service to the excitement of travel abroad. It's a thoughtful, funny, at times deeply personal look into the strange and misunderstood world of commercial flying. It's the ideal book for frequent flyers, nervous passengers, and global travelers. Refreshed and vastly expanded from the original Ask the Pilot, with approximately 75 percent new material.

A New York Times bestseller For millions of people, travel by air is a confounding, uncomfortable, and even fearful experience. Patrick Smith, airline pilot and author of the web's popular Ask the Pilot feature, separates the fact from fallacy and tells you everything you need to know... •How planes fly, and a revealing look at the men and women who fly them •Straight talk on turbulence, pilot training, and safety •The real story on congestion, delays, and the dysfunction of the modern airport •The myths and misconceptions of cabin air and cockpit automation •Terrorism in perspective, and a provocative look at security •Airfares, seating woes, and the pitfalls of airline customer service •The colors and cultures of the airlines we love to hate Cockpit Confidential covers not only the nuts and bolts of flying, but also the grand theater of air travel, from airport architecture to inflight service to the excitement of travel abroad. It's a thoughtful, funny, at times deeply personal look into the strange and misunderstood world of commercial flying. It's the ideal book for frequent flyers, nervous passengers, and global travelers. Refreshed and vastly expanded from the original Ask the Pilot, with approximately 75 percent new material.

Though we routinely take to the air, for many of us flying remains a mystery. Few of us understand the how and why of jetting from New York to London in six hours. How does a plane stay in the air? Can turbulence bring it down? What is windshear? How good are the security checks? Patrick Smith, an airline pilot and author of Salon.com's popular column, "Ask the Pilot," unravels the secrets and tells you all there is to know about the strange and fascinating world of commercial flight. He offers: A nuts and bolts explanation of how planes fly Insights into safety and security Straight talk about turbulence, air traffic control, windshear, and crashes The history, color, and controversy of the world's airlines The awe and oddity of being a pilot The poetry and drama of airplanes, airports, and traveling abroad In a series of frank, often funny explanations and essays, Smith speaks eloquently to our fears and curiosities, incorporating anecdotes, memoir, and a life's passion for flight. He tackles our toughest concerns, debunks conspiracy theories and myths, and in a rarely heard voice dares to return a dash of romance and glamour to air travel.

This book will lift the lid on the airline industry and the world of aviation, highlighting the humorous and the sometimes downright alarming business of air travel. It avoids the question of fatal accidents and concentrates on stories, trivia, and salacious gossip that will make it an ideal read for the seasoned air traveler and an indispensable handbook for anyone working in the industry.

The author of the New York Times bestseller The Travel Detective brings you insider travel secrets only pilots and flight attendants know. Pilots are notoriously frugal, and flight attendants are underpaid and on a budget. They may hit one city four to six times a month, but they are there for only twenty-four hours (or even less) each time, so they always know where to go to get the best value for their money. In The Travel Detective Flight Crew Confidential you’ll find: • great shopping (furniture in Atlanta, silk in Bangkok, leather in São Paolo) • great services (medical care in Paris and inexpensive manicures in Tokyo) • great food and drink (hidden ethnic restaurants in London, and the bars with the best attitude and cheapest drinks in Key West) • secrets to navigating the world’s airports during layovers • what to do and what never to do, what to seek and what to avoid You get tips in crew members’ own words—good, bad, or ugly—that you won’t find anywhere else. Opinionated, often controversial, but always helpful, The Travel Detective Flight Crew Confidential is a resource no one who flies can afford to be without.

**Sunday Times Bestseller** **Book of the Week on Radio 4** 'A beautiful book about a part of the modern world which remains genuinely magical’ Mark Haddon 'One of the most constantly fascinating, but consistently under-appreciated aspects of modern life is the business of flying. Mark Vanhoenacker has written the ideal book on the subject: a description of what it’s like to fly by a commercial pilot who is also a master prose stylist and a deeply sensitive human being. This is a man who is at once a technical expert – he flies 747s across continents – and a poet of the skies. This couldn’t be more highly recommended.' Alain de Botton Think back to when you first flew. When you first left the Earth, and travelled high and fast above its turning arc. When you looked down on a new world, captured simply and perfectly through a window fringed with ice. When you descended towards a city, and arrived from the sky as effortlessly as daybreak. In Skyfaring, airline pilot and flight romantic Mark Vanhoenacker shares his irrepressible love of flying, on a journey from day to night, from new ways of mapmaking and the poetry of physics to the names of winds and the nature of clouds. Here, anew, is the simple wonder that remains at the heart of an experience which modern travellers, armchair and otherwise, all too easily take for granted: the transcendent joy of motion, and the remarkable new perspectives that height and distance bestow on everything we love. ‘A beautiful, contemplative book... What Skyfaring gives is something we need: elevation; another perspective... Normally when I find a volume where prose style and subject matter fuse so pleasingly, I tear through it in a day. Here, I found myself pausing on almost every page, as I absorbed its detail or phrasing.’ Nicholas Lezard, Guardian **A 2015 Book of the Year – The Economist, The New York Times, GQ and more**