Über den Wolken

Regula Eichenberger wanted to fly. Absolutely. Always has. When her two years older sister obtained her private pilot's license, she simply learned alongside her. Thus, she passed the theoretical exam at not even seventeen years old – without ever having taken a course. Eight years later, the daughter of a flight instructor began teaching others how to take to the skies and stay there. In 1983, Moritz Suter, the founder of Crossair, showcased his marketing talent by appointing Regula Eichenberger as the first Swiss airline pilot. She started her first flight – as a co-pilot – in Bern-Belp with the destination of Lugano-Agno. The media interest was enormous – far beyond the country's borders. In this way, Regula Eichenberger opened the door for women into a world that had previously been dominated by men. In her autobiography, we read about demigods in uniform and cold feet in the cockpit, about falling in love with an airplane, and about situations that can become so critical that it takes nerves of steel. The author recounts wonderful, but sometimes very challenging teamwork and how, already retired, she faced a severe personal crisis that pulled her into a downward spiral from which she would have struggled to escape without the emergency strategies learned and internalized in aviation.