“Flying teaches you to be focused. In an emergency you have no time for feelings and irrational concepts – you have to be dead-on focused and rational. If someone has the aptitude to be a pilot, those decision-making skills would also be wonderful in a dozen other professions. Half the problems in the corporate world are that no one knows how to make decisions. A pilot has to make cut and dry decisions all the time – you're decisive by the nature of the work.”
As for low entry-level pilot salaries that affect certain areas of the professional pilot industry, Travolta draws parallels to the world of acting.
“There are a handful of professions – show business, sports, aviation and a few others that are beyond your normal professions. They're desired because they have a kind of flair to them that makes them more attractive than other endeavors. You always pay the piper to some degree early in your career in a profession with an art aspect to it. Actors starve, pilots starve but they're in desirable professions that have a bit of a spin to them. The upside is high enough to make it worth paying the piper a bit.”
The secret to managing a flight department is organization, checklists and clearly delineated communication lines, says Travolta, who uses checklists even in his cars. “There should be no move you make without checklists – it's a savior to operations more than most people realize, it gives you a paper trail and everything soon begins to work like clockwork.”