During commercial aviation's pandemic downturn, countless veteran airline pilots are retiring to save the jobs of their younger cohorts

A wonderfully sweet story.  From Retiring Delta captain meets the air controller whose grandfather hired him by Pete Muntean.

During commercial aviation's pandemic downturn, countless veteran airline pilots are retiring to save the jobs of their younger cohorts. But it was during Captain Paul Holmes' final flight for Delta Air Lines that a chance conversation with an air traffic controller brought him back to his early days with the airline.

Tipped off to Holmes' retirement flight, Boston Center controller Ashleigh Goldberg keyed up her microphone and asked if he flew for Northwest Airlines before it merged with Delta in 2008. Goldberg said her grandfather, William Hochbrunn, was a Northwest pilot.

"Bill Hochbrunn was your grandfather?" asked a surprised Holmes.

"Affirmative," Goldberg replied.

A few seconds of stunned silence followed until Holmes explained that Hochbrunn, who died in 2018 at the age of 96, hired him at Northwest Airlines in 1981.