Flying the Line

Flying the Line takes a completely different approach from every other podcast on this list. Rather than covering current aviation news or interviewing active pilots, it's an audio adaptation of George E. Hopkins' book of the same name, which chronicles the founding and growth of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) -- the world's largest pilot union and nongovernmental air safety organization. Narrated by Corey Kuhn (Volume 1) and Gina Leahy (Volume 2), the 87 episodes unfold like a serialized audiobook, tracing the early struggles of airline pilots to organize, establish safety standards, and gain a collective voice in an industry that was, in its earliest decades, genuinely dangerous and unregulated. Episodes run 11 to 24 minutes each, making them digestible chapters rather than marathon listens. Volume 1 covers the formative years and is consistently praised by listeners as gripping storytelling about pilots who risked their careers to fight for basic safety protections. The stakes were real -- early aviators faced pressure to fly in dangerous conditions with no recourse, and the organizing efforts that followed changed commercial aviation forever. Volume 2 shifts into the more complex territory of industry politics and labor relations, which some listeners find less engaging but others appreciate for the historical completeness. The 4.9 rating from 108 reviews reflects a niche but dedicated audience. This is aviation history for people who want to understand how the industry's safety culture was actually built, one labor fight at a time. It's not flashy, but the story it tells is foundational to everything modern airline pilots take for granted.