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By Amber Hanneken
Staff Writer
Five nights a week Samantha Wilson doesn’t work. Well, technically she does, but she would never call it that.
“People say, ‘I have to get up and go to work.’ I never go to work I just have such a good time,” she said.
Wilson began working for Martinaire in February. She flies a Cessna Caravan from Hugo to McAlester to Tulsa and then back, hauling freight for UPS.
“This is the most fun I’ve had flying an airplane and getting paid for it. It’s not a job, that’s the best part about it,” Wilson said.
On a typical night, Wilson arrives at the Stan Stamper Municipal Airport at 6:23 p.m. — an hour before her scheduled departure — and waits for the UPS driver to bring the freight. If the driver is early, she leaves early too. In McAlester she picks up more packages and then flies to Tulsa, where she is scheduled to arrive by 8:40 p.m.
Ultimately, her night ends at the Radisson in Tulsa where she has a room all her own, courtesy of the airline. Her day begins again at 5:30 a.m. when she calls the airport to see if the UPS jet has arrived so she can load up packages for Hugo and McAlester. On Saturday morning, her route also goes to Ardmore.
Her days are spent in Hugo where she has enjoyed the Choctaw County Library, visited The Frisco Depot Museum, the Endangered Ark, Hugo Lake and even taken in a circus performance. On the weekends she often finds herself in Dallas but also sometimes flies home to her primary residence in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Wilson was born in London but she grew up in Westchester County, N.Y., a suburb of New York City. She moved to Washington, D.C. at 16 to attend Georgetown University and lived there for 18 years.
After college, Wilson became a flight attendant for Delta Airlines where the travel bug hit her. Read the full story, subscribe to the online edition: http://www.hugonews.com/transitionHDN.html
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