When Brisbane pilot Chris Smith flew his final Jetstar flight from Townsville to Brisbane in September 2023, it was an emotional trip. More so because his daughter Lauren was sitting next to him in the cockpit.
Which sounds nice but it does beg the question: What was she doing there? Not to worry.
“She’s a trainee captain with Jetstar,” Smith explains. “I had other family aboard that flight too. It’s pretty hard to do a good landing, though, when you have tears in your eyes.”
Air traffic control in Brisbane also knew it was his last flight and that added to the emotion.
At 64, Smith has decades behind him as a pilot flying in Australia and overseas. Now he intends to concentrate on teaching and writing. He has just published his first book, Leadership at 43000 Feet, and the publicity blurb describes the book as “part aviation adventure, part leadership masterclass” – and that’s a very accurate summation of a book that is as entertaining as it is practical.
Smith holds a masters degree in aviation management, a diploma in counselling and he lectures at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba. He has decades of senior managerial experience in aviation and now champions leadership, engagement and mental health programs with organisations globally. He spearheads peer support programs across Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam and consults in Ireland and Germany. He’s a sought-after speaker at corporate, psychology, mental health and aviation conferences worldwide.
Reading his book and chatting to him, he sounds exactly like the type of person you would want up front in your next flight. That won’t happen now but it’s entirely possible that you have been on a flight with him at some stage.
His experiences from flight deck to head office give him a unique perspective and he applies the lessons he learnt as an airline captain to any sort of work, industry or situation in life. His career is, he says, a blessing.
“It was either architecture or flying for me,” Smith says. “I started architecture and lasted six months.”
He flew with Ansett back in the heady days of the 1980s and still stays in touch with friends from that time. Those friends and others are far flung, as is the case with the aviation community.
“The unique thing about this sort of work is that my work cohort is everywhere,” Smith says. “They are scattered all over the world.”
He writes lovingly of the camaraderie in aviation and the life lessons learn from teamwork and leadership. And there’s nowhere leadership counts more than in the air when you are responsible not just for your colleagues but also for planes full of passengers.
Smith says he wrote Leadership at 43000 Feet for his three children. In the book, he writes about passing knowledge and experience on to them.
“I said to each of my children when they were around 20 years old, ‘How about I not give you advice any more, but give of my experience’. I remember their smiles. I think (I hope) they felt respected, trusted, acknowledged as individuals, and loved just as they are.”
Smith invites readers to … “Join me. Sit and talk with me. On the way, tell me about you. I really want to know. Let’s start.” And with that he launches into his entertaining masterclass on leadership that is also a rather spiffing adventure story about a life up in the wild blue yonder.
Smith says he has had some beautiful experiences as a pilot witnessing sunsets, skies full of stars and flying into some beautiful places. The most beautiful?
“Queenstown in New Zealand,” Smith says. “I have flown in there with Jetstar on an Airbus A320. It’s a short runway and it can get rough flying in but it’s absolutely beautiful with these towering cliffs around you. It’s just unbelievable.”
Every flight has moments of calm and beauty far above the troubles of the world below. In his final chapter he describes a typical experience with “the lights dimmed for night flight”: “Turn, look up. Soak up the stars, simply by virtue of the angle at which our planet sits, fewer in number we see in the northern hemisphere than the southern, still there are just so, so many. The tiniest of lights, yet each so bright, looking at us as we them.”
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Yes, there’s something of the poet in Chris Smith too. Of course, there are moments when things go wrong, such as that flight from Townsville on a freighter when one engine failed and then caught on fire. What to do? The answer is surprising at first but it makes sense and can be applied in all walks of life.
“The first thing: do nothing. Get it right. Understand what is really going on. Agree on it. Be in control. Now act.”
There’s something in this book for all of us.
Leadership at 43000 Feet by Chris Smith, Publish Central, $39.95; aculturalleadership.com
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