Here, we’ve compiled a list of the best Chesley Sullenberger Quotes. Let’s look at these pieces of wisdom. We definitely have something to learn from them!
1
I’ve missed half or two-thirds of my children’s lives.
2
Each generation of pilots hopes that they will leave their profession better off than they found it.
3
For years, I tried to resist the hero label.
4
When I testified before Congress after the Hudson River landing, Congressman James Oberstar of Minnesota said, ‘Safety begins in the boardroom.’ That’s as true in medicine as it is in aviation. It always boils down to leadership.
5
Medical professionals are as skilled and as dedicated as any, but they operate within a fragmented system that has not progressed as far as we have in aviation.
6
People really are our most important resource, and people who don’t realize that and choose not to live that way, choose not to lead that way, are paying a price for that in many of our companies, many of our organizations.
7
Bigger airplanes, with two aisles instead of one, provide a better experience overall, and I think it’s more comfortable.
8
After high school in 1969, I was appointed to the Air Force Academy. In ’73, I studied for my postgraduate degree and became a USAF pilot in 1974. After my discharge in 1980, I became a commercial pilot and flew my first airline flight at Pacific Southwest Airlines in 1980.
9
I went from living my life anonymously for 58 years to being a public figure known globally in a matter of minutes.
10
I try to work out, time permitting, wherever I am.
11
You know, I think when people are in important positions in big organizations, they often get tied up with the minutia of managing money, managing things. They often forget that people deserve to be led.
12
There’s simply no substitute for experience in terms of aviation safety.
13
In the bad old days, captains were not good leaders. They didn’t build teams; they were arrogant and autocratic.
14
One of the things I teach my children is that I have always invested in myself, and I have never stopped learning, never stopped growing.
15
It’s almost an out of body experience to see things that First Officer Jeff Skiles and I said in the cockpit together, played by actors.
16
If you take one of the first flights out in the morning, typically the airplane and the crew have arrived the night before. When you’re not waiting on an inbound flight, there are fewer delays.
17
Every day we wake up, we have an opportunity to do some good, but there’s so much bad that you have to navigate to get to the good.
18
It’s an important job to be the public face of something that gives people hope, and I take that seriously.
19
I took my first flying lesson in 1967, when I was 16. By October 1968, I had 70 hours in the air and got my pilot’s license.
20
It’s amazing what you can learn to get used to.
21
I had never been so challenged in an airplane that I doubted the outcome.
22
The economic tsunami has hit all airline employees. With the 2001 terror attacks, airline bankruptcies, pension terminations, loss of pay, changes in work rules – we’re all working harder and longer than we used to.
