The Skies Belong to Us

Journalist Brendan I. Koerner tells the history of the golden age of American air piracy, from the first incident in May 1961 to January 1973, when jets were seized as often as once a week, most often bound for Cuba. At its center is the longest-distance hijacking in American history: on June 2, 1972, Cathy Kerkow and her boyfriend Roger Holder, an Army veteran, commandeered Western Airlines Flight 701, a loose protest over Vietnam, and flew across the Atlantic to Algeria with half a million dollars in ransom. Koerner spent four years on the story, combing more than 4,000 declassified documents and finding one of the hijackers living in obscurity. It was a New York Times Notable Book.

Scott's Cheap Flights co-founder Scott Keyes said he had just started it and, working in travel, was eager to learn what flying was like decades ago.