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combined with a promise not to do the same "unprofessional activity again," one would get off with a slap on the wrist for mere unprofessionalism.

On one occasion, we parked at the gate at LAX and after an inordinate amount of time waiting for the gate agent to open the forward passenger door of an L-10LL, we three pilots caught a ride down to the ground through the forward galley door and on an elevated food delivery truck, jumped on the crew bus to the employee parking lot and went home. The cabin attendants were not amused as they were left with angry passengers waiting for an agent to open the door so they turned us in to management who were even less amused so the next morning we were all fired. None of us did anything but wait and sure enough, five days later before our next scheduled flight we were individually called by a supervisor who handed the phone over to the chief pilot who reminded us of our duty to the safety of the passengers and flight attendants whether in the air or at the gate, notwithstanding that under company policy the gate agents were in charge of boarding and deplaning and without an emergency, the flight attendants were in charge of the passengers when on the ground at the gate. After promising not to undertake such an exit strategy again, we were each told to report for our scheduled flight the next day. The next day none of us said a word about the incident until after take-off, climbing out and reaching our initial cruise altitude of 31000' when the captain looked across at me, tried to put on a serious face, started to wag his finger at me and the three of us just erupted in uncontrollable laughter. Luckily, we had a different cabin crew so we got the usual first class meals.
In those days all of the junior pilots had flown combat missions in Vietnam so many of us with the exception of safety, had a G.A.S. attitude about many things.