A good novel for its time, though not a genre I'd likely read again now in 2023. ( )

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I thought this book was hokey, over-done, and easily predictable, but I enjoyed reading it. It was definitely, well, an airport read. I have to say I appreciated how accurate the aviation information was, and enjoyed the Chicagoland references. And even though I predicted literally every major plot point in the book well in advance, I still enjoyed actually reading everything play out. ( )

I read this as a teenager and I remember thinking that it was OK, enjoyable enough and too long. ( )

Lincoln International Airport is in the third day of battling a major snowstorm. Flights are delayed, others are cancelled, the snow-removal crews are working overtime, and one of the runways is blocked by a stuck plane. Meanwhile, whiny NIMBYs who moved into homes built beside the airport are staging a demonstration about the noise, and then of course (of course!) there’s a bomb threat on one of the flagship planes. Alongside this aviation drama is the personal drama involving the airport manager, a prestigious pilot, a flight attendant, and an air traffic controller.

For most of this book I was practically bouncing up and down in my seat with glee. All of the nerdy details were FANTASTIC. I LOVED all of it—the snow removal, the aircraft maintenance, the control tower, the competing priorities, the churning foam of activity under the slick veneer of a then-modern airport waiting to join the jet age. I wished my pilot friends were around so I could read entire passages out to them and ask “Is this true? Do they really talk like this? This sounds really accurate.” Arthur Hailey obviously plotted the whole thing very carefully and did his research. It’s very well structured and holds up soundly. It is a LONG book, though, surprisingly for what I expected to be more like a cheap thriller, so you may require more patience than anticipated.

The only thing I wasn’t really crazy about was the storylines involving various sexual shenanigans. Pilot/flight attendant romance? Yawn. One female character being mostly remembered for having a bust visible from space? Come ON. What is this, Airplane!? Actually, the film of this movie and of a previous TV movie of Hailey’s, Flight into Danger, which was eventually adapted into Zero Hour!, were the inspiration for that much-beloved comedy masterpiece. So in a way it helped to roll my eyes at the naughty scenes and write it off as “well, that’s Airplane! for you.”

I’d recommend this if you like well-structured thrillers, or perhaps other air disaster novels with nerdy technical details, such as Michael Crichton’s Airframe. ( )

What a snoozer w/ lots of predictions on airline technology that just never came true ... ( )

This one was fun. Bought it for a quarter in Tontitown. Read it in a snowstorm in January 2010. I did think that the character's deep off-topic conversations during times of crisis was a little far-fetched, though. ( )

I was surprised to learn that Haily has really spent a lot of his time on figuring out all these many details of the airport life. For me this is a unique example of such a realistic description in the genre of fiction. Other than that it is nothing special in this book unless you like thrilling melodramas. ( )

Another Arthur Hailey Classic... Excellent ( )

Not bad, entertaining read, abit outdated but still realistic
in most parts

You know the story ( )

хор,мягкая,416 ( )

Quite a page-turner in its day. I found the behind-the-scenes action interesting. Very disappointed in the movie - except for Helen Hayes, God love her. ( )