Customer Reviews

Airport

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

You won't believe so much action can be packed into five hours.

Hailey's Airport strips away the facade of the aviation emporium and gives a little glimpse of the industry.

His skill in using flashbacks, as well as the credible characters in the plot, make this book an excellent choice for those who have been yearning for something good to read.

As an avid reader I like to alternate classics and popular fiction. This is pop at its best! Mr.Hailey mixes suspense with a journalistic approach to his subject in this case, the airline industry of the early 1970's. The "you are there" feeling puts you right into the middle of the action.

When a terrifying crisis erupts--stranding a snowbound airport in a blizzard of pressure, passion and peril--the key to life and death rests in the hands of one of four people: a tough troubleshooter, an arrogant pilot, a beautiful stewardess, or a brilliant airport manager. Airport is a great book. Arthur Hailey knows how to get things going! This is one to look up!

When I first started reading this book given by a friend, I thought it would be very boring, But after the first 100 pages, the story picks up and it was very hard to put the book down! A lot of the back end work in airports is normally ignored and this book throws light on such stuff. Every character is unique in her/his own way, but they share one common characteristic - discontentment with life and marriage.

This book is SCARY! Every fear you have about flying becomes a reality. I don't recommend that the weak-hearted read it. Definetely, don't read it on a plane! Not only is it scary, but it is also a great story with a wonderful and involving plot. You can't put it down! But, you'll want to. .

This book is excellent, worth going out and finding a used copy. Hailey combines the real life excitement of an airport with believable characters. Best of all, it's an accurate, behind the scenes view of what really goes on at an airport in a disaster situation. (at least it was in 1970)

This is the book that got me interested in reading as a youth. It is action packed and believable. It is informative, providing much factual information concerning the nations air travel system while telling a very human and compelling story.

Called a potboiler in its time: Sex, sin, stowaways and a mad bomber, all crammed into one long night at a 1970s snowbound airport stands the test of time. Hailey's meticulous attention to detail with regard to every aspect of the story including the inner workings of an international airport under stress in that decade demand the reader's attention. The plot revolves around a beleaguered airport manager juggling a failing marriage and a crisis on location, his arrogant and philandering pilot brother in law, an out of work man teetering over into desperation and how their paths cross on one dangerous night. Absorbing and thrilling, even after all this time.

First published in 1968, Arthur Hailey's Airport is one of the original disaster thrillers. Compared to others of its ilk (Hurricane, The Glass Inferno, etc), it has dated poorly but is well-composed enough to still be entertaining.

Even to the layman's eyes, airports have changed substantially in the past 35 years - and even more dramatically in the last 5. The center of the thriller's 'disaster' plot relies on a passenger being able to walk onto a plane clutching a bag of dynamite. In the post-9/11 era, this is pure science fiction.

On a character level, Airport is also a relic of a bygone era. The book's reliance on the 'shocking' sexual precocity of captains and stewardesses to create character drama isn't nearly as pearl-clutching as it was forty years ago. Although Hailey earns a lot of credit for featuring abortion and divorce-related storylines, the years have been unkind to the traditional depiction of sex kitten stewardesses.

Still, Hailey spends enough time discussing the minute detail of an airport's function that escapism is possible. The operation of a snow-clearing 'Conga Line' or the arguments over insurance machines are still oddly interesting, despite being sadly outmoded. (Interestingly, given the row over Heathrow expansion, Airport's depiction of a local citizen's group is still very relevant).

Forty years on, Airport is less an example of high-tension disaster fiction than it is of well-researched world-building. It is still an entertaining read - just not for the reasons originally intended.

If you've seen the movie you know the story. The writing is very similar to John D. MacDonald's non-Travis McGee works with an almost Tom Clancy-ish attention to detail and realism. Hailey definitely was trying for something more here than just a tidy little soap opera. Quite a number of issues plagueing airports and airline travel, some of which continue to today, are discussed in great detail with both sides of each arguement dutifully laid out. All of this around a convincing story, some of the highlights of which include a snowstorm, protesters, divorce, husbands and wives cheating on each other, a desperate bomber and a crippled jet.

Who could ask for more?!