March 9th, 2016, fifty former World Airways employees and family members joined with Captain Kenneth Healy to celebrate his 100th birthday. Captain Healy who retired from World Airways as Vice President of Flight Operations in 1983 shared this celebration with scores of employees that had each served between forty and fifty years with World Airways. Guests came from Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho and Texas to honor this beloved leader. A large number of the attendees were members of the Flight Operation Department which Ken headed up. We also had a great number of our lovely lady Flight Attendants and Bill Addy from the Inflight Service Department. Flight Attendant Atsuko “Kubo” Schlesinger who was a member of Captain Healy’s crew on the famous “Last Flight out of Da Nang” came from Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho, in order to help celebrate Ken’s birthday. Additionally, we had individuals from Administration, Executive, Finance, Maintenance & Engineering and Sales & Marketing there to celebrate this occasion and honor Ken’s service and leadership to our company.
Captain Healy joined World in the early part of the 1960s and was one of the pioneers who ushered our company into the jet age with the new long range Boeing 707. He went on to lead us in the introduction of the B-727, DC-8, 747 and the DC-10-30. Each of these introductions were milestones in the history of our company but passed into history as each airplane type was retired from the fleet. The one thing that was never retired from our company was the “Standard of Excellence” Captain Healy demanded of each and every cockpit crewmember. He instilled that quality into the people he chose to teach and train the future generations that kept World Airways alive for more than three decades after his retirement. Many of the younger crewmembers that joined World after 1983 never had the opportunity to meet Captain Healy but they continued to be exposed to the high standard he set before some of them were even born. Fortunately, this younger generation adopted these standards and kept World Airways alive until the greed of a few individuals and venture capitalists overcame the standard of professionalism the employees continued to the very end in their effort to keep the company alive.
The standards that were set by Captain Healy more than 50 years ago made it possible for a large number of our crewmembers, upon the demise of World in 2014, to be hired as Captains directly into several of today’s leading world airlines.
Therefore, a tribute to the “Standard of
Excellence” that Captain Healy demanded and the employees of
World Airways strived for, lives on around the globe as he
turns 100 years young. Our thanks and appreciation go out to
him on this day. It was great that Ken was able to attend
the birthday party in his honor. Everyone had a
great time celebrating with him and we are so very proud of
him and his accomplishments. He is truly
an inspiration to us all.
To Healy Part 2
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