Altitude Adjustment: How Life’s Turbulence Made This Delta Captain Soar
Despite the hurdles and challenges that come your way, never lose sight of your goals and objectives.
John Geeting, a 2001 graduate of the WMU College of Aviation and an airline pilot for two decades, exemplifies that philosophy because he has faced that career dilemma at least three times. In other words, things don't always work out as planned.
Now a captain for Delta Air Lines, Geeting was not only something of a "Johnny Come Lately" in looking skyward for a career, he wasn't exactly a Rhodes Scholar when he first burst onto the collegiate scene.
He grew up in rural Lenawee County southwest of Detroit near the Ohio border and was a member of the Addison High School senior class of 1997. "The University of Michigan wouldn't take me," Geeting says. If he had attended Michigan State, he would have started on academic probation, which brought him to the Western campus where in his sophomore year, he decided to focus on being a pilot.
"That greatly improved my study habits," he says. "Once I was doing something that I enjoyed, the work became interesting, if not necessarily easy." And he was on his way to a degree in aviation flight science.
There was another stimulus that gave him some bearings. Between his freshman and sophomore years, he worked in construction. "I learned what it was like to work hard," he says. "Early mornings, hot days and lots of physical labor gave me some perspective. My grades improved dramatically, and college became easier."
Why aviation, and not geology or accounting? "My dad was a pilot and had a Piper Tri-Pacer," Geeting says. "He took me to the EAA AirVenture show in Oshkosh when I was a kid. Three uncles were also pilots. He sold the plane after a friend was killed in an aircraft accident when I was about 12.
"It never occurred to me that I could be an airline pilot until I was trying to decide on a major to pursue after I arrived at Western," he says. "Up to that point, I associated flying with being a hobby and that airline pilots were former military aviators. I was incredibly lucky to choose WMU for college. If I had chosen another school, I don't think I would be where I am today."
He is where he is today because of excellent courses, such as those taught by Professor Willem Homan. "Took four or five and try as I might, always earned a 3.5. Never a four-point." Also high on his list is the guidance and counsel he received from Tom Grossman, executive director of flight operations at the College of Aviation.
"He gave me my first job as a flight instructor (from 2001 to 2004) at WMU," Geeting says. "That's where I learned to be a professional. He always had good advice when dealing with a student issue. It seemed like he has seen it all. Maybe he has."
In the fall of 2002, Geeting took an unpaid internship with Atlantic Coast Airlines in Dulles, Va., where "I learned what it's like to be really poor in a really expensive area" near Washington. Seemed like a good idea at the time because it netted him a conditional job offer as a pilot. But the enterprise eventually went out of business and Geeting never got the chance to fly for them. "This was my first lesson that things don't always work out as planned," he says.
Next came a year's stint with Skyway Airlines based in Milwaukee. "It was my first airline-pilot job," Geeting says, "and I learned what an airline-training program was all about. Turns out WMU prepared me well and it was a fun job, but I didn't fly much because they were overstaffed, preparing for a relationship with Delta that never materialized. When it appeared that I would be furloughed, I explored other options. That was lesson No. 2."
From 2005 to 2007, Geeting sported the uniform of Comair Airlines in Cincinnati. Well, kind of. All but one of his 30 months at Comair was spent in a training phase, in a reserve status or furloughed. During the furloughed stage, he was back at the College of Aviation as a flight instructor and Lesson 3 in how things don't go as planned. "Sitting reserve while commuting wasn't a whole lot of fun," he recalls.
When a friend suggested he make a contact with Compass Airlines because it was preparing to begin operations at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, he did so and began a seven-year connection. "For the first time in my career," he says, "I didn't have to commute. I moved up in seniority because Compass was a growing company and I was a captain within six months."
During that time, he also became involved with the Air Line Pilots Association International and, when the opportunity presented itself, he took part in the “flow program” between Compass and Delta where Delta would take Compass pilots as new hires without an interview. Joining the ranks of Delta in 2014, almost immediately, he was piloting 757s and 767s, which allowed him to check flights to Alaska and Hawaii from his 50-state bucket list. There were also European and South America destinations as well.
Geeting survived the Covid pandemic and its impact on Delta operations, which included transitioning from Boeing to Airbus in the A320 after the 757/767 pilot base closed in Detroit. For about six months, he held first-officer status on the Airbus until he was able to upgrade to captain for the first time at Delta. "Flying picked up very quickly," he says, "and I have continued to move up the seniority list." Despite the lessons, he says, "my career has been far better than I ever imagined it could be."
Reflecting on his collegiate days at Western, Geeting has fond memories of Saturday football games at Waldo Stadium, flying the college's Mooney, and the informal, impromptu chats with faculty and peers when the weather kept the aircraft fleet on the ground.
Then there was his experiences as a referee for WMU intramural sports. Compared to Geeting's way of thinking, instrument flying and severe weather are like a walk in the park verses his time in a black and white striped shirt. "This might have been the most dangerous job I've ever had," he says. "To this day, it remains the only job I've ever had in which I was threatened with violence."
While he "never takes his job home with him" to his wife Elyse and their three daughters in Ann Arbor, he will share such captivating experiences as watching the sunset while flying through Hurricane Katrina, coming into Hawaii's Maui on a picture-perfect day, and a 757 takeoff just before sunset near the desert. Being close to his Delta hub gives Geeting plenty of chances to spend time with his family.
"WMU prepared me for my career," he says. "Based on the number of first officers I fly with who attended Western, the college continues to prepare well the next generation of pilots. Many of my own Bronco classmates are with me at Delta." Following in his footsteps is a nephew, Carson Berry, a freshman in the College of Aviation.
Geeting's father, who died from cancer shortly after his son joined the captain ranks at Delta, still retains hero status. He supported his family as a butcher and grocery-store manager, but the senior Geeting was so much more. "He was able to own an airplane because he bought a 'basket case' and restored it himself," Geeting says. "He and my mom used the money from the sale of the airplane to dabble in spec houses and real estate, allowing them to send me and my sister to college debt-free. That remains the best gift anyone has ever given me."
That's another lesson that Captain Geeting will never forget.