“When I was in my plane watching the forest fires from above, I couldn't help but feel responsible.”
Anthony Viaux, a captain at Air France, was in the midst of an internal struggle between his passion and his ethics. Since he was a young boy, he’d dreamed of being a pilot and had worked hard to get his wings and rise through the ranks to become a captain.But he couldn’t ignore the impact his career was having on the planet.
Soaring over the French Alps, he would notice, year by year, the snow retreating from the peaks. On many occasions, his night flights across Europe would give him a bird’s eye view of raging wildfires below.
“I’d say to myself, I contributed to that,” he says. “People don't make the links between things like aviation and forest fires. But I did.”
Ultimately, Anthony’s eco-anxieties became too much, and he walked away from a career that spanned two decades and one that he loved very dearly.
Anthony Viaux: A long struggle to become a pilot
Anthony had long dreamed of flying aeroplanes, but having not particularly excelled at maths and physics in school, he put his dream on the back burner and went to business school instead.
To satiate his appetite for flying, he joined a local gliding club and met some like-minded people. It was through them that he realised there was another route to getting his wings.
Independently, Anthony studied and sat exams for the theoretical side of commercial piloting, and eventually enrolled himself in pilot school. In 2000, he was offered a job flying for Regional Airlines, a subsidiary of Air France that is today known as Hop!
Beginning on small turboprop planes like the Saab 2000, he built up his hours and experience and eventually graduated to being type-rated on his first jet - the Airbus A320 - flying for the mainline airline, Air France. More of this article (Euro News Green) - link - more like this (flying) - link - more like this (France) - link
No comments:
Post a Comment