Change is constant. You must stay ready because when it arrives, you’ll need to take action: Fight, Freeze, or take Flight. I chose the latter and ended up in the fight of my life.

[October 1, 2010, Merger Day]

• Four years after a reduction in force lay-off from one the cushiest high-profile jobs of a lifetime.
• Three years after launching a struggling communication business,
• Two years after publishing my first novel, which was creeping up Amazon’s bestseller list – the last check, it was hovering around the 2,000,000 mark.
• One year after my best friend’s wedding (I thought I’d be his bride.)

I was down for the count.

I could’ve thrown in the towel and stayed face down on the mat in defeat. Or I could pull myself up, a testament to the resilience we all possess.

I flipped the bird to the former and did the latter.

I wouldn’t quit my life; I just wanted a break from it. Unlike the Gwyneth Paltrow film “View from the Top,” or maybe it was just like the film, I needed to escape my present. Thirty-five thousand feet in the air seemed like a great hiding place.

I got my wish. In 2009, I was standing in the lobby of a decades-old hotel in Narita, Japan, waiting for the rest of the flight attendant crew. Why was I in the land of the rising sun, more than 5,000 miles away from my Illinois home?

“Opportunity doesn’t knock, it answers.”

In 2006, United Airlines put out a nationwide call for Flight Attendants. It was the same year the company emerged from bankruptcy. I answered in 2008, the last year before a hiring freeze. It would be nearly six years before the next wave of new hires joined the ranks.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

After filing an online application, I sailed through the phone, in-person group, and final interviews. After seven weeks of Initial Flight Attendant Training, aka “Barbie Boot Camp,” I got my wings.

Crew scheduling hurled the token, and I’d hopscotch around the world.

Five continents, 20 countries, and too many cities to count revealed a new part of me with every landing. The exotic places I found myself in satisfied my intention to get lost but also led me to find parts of myself I never knew existed.

Then, without warning, that familiar yet destabilizing feeling returned.

This time, it landed me in the emergency room, and I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.

As I returned from family leave, talks of furloughs once again peppered the F.A.R.M (flight attendant rumor mill).

Not every rumor is a lie.

Continental and United Airlines CEOs announced a merger in May 2010. A smaller workforce is easier to manage. Jobs were on the line.

Our domiciles and sanctuaries became battlefields.

Day after the merger was complete, maybe even a little before, management turned the frontline of unionized employees into enemy combatants. We didn’t even know we enlisted in a war, but we prepared and fought back.

I fought back.

Business Class Insights will help you use the same weapons I did in any fight you face—weapons like the three “Cs”: Change, Crisis, and Crew Resource Management. You’ll say no to the corporate Kool-Aid, and you’ll use leadership skills to flip the script on attempts of corporate manipulation.

Five years after the merger was complete, the CEO/Chairman stepped down amidst a federal investigation. Then, just one month on the job, the newly named CEO was hospitalized, reportedly for symptoms of a heart attack. Ten months later, Flight Attendants from both airlines signed a joint collective bargaining agreement.

By the seventh year, the Friendly Skies brand had morphed into a passenger-dragging airline. The infamous doctor and the airline’s reputation were casualties of the multi-billion-dollar merger.

“Business Class Insights” reveals what happens when two airline industry heavyweights attempt to become one while crews and passengers caught in the middle fight for relevancy.

Hint: Golden parachutes are in short supply.