It was no longer working. Every Wednesday, Heather Cannon would catch an airline flight to Dallas, where she spent two days buying cars at auction and shipping them back to her dealership in Ponca City, OK. But more and more the flight was delayed or canceled, and she would miss the Wednesday auction.
“I started driving to Oklahoma City [with more airline connections], and if that flight was canceled, now I’ve wasted the hour-and-a-half drive each way, and I still didn’t get to the auction,” recalled Cannon, the president of Heather Cannon Honda. “I was sitting there, waiting for another delayed flight, and I thought, ‘I should just get my pilot’s license!’’’
She was 26 years old, had worked in car dealerships since she was 15, and had no aviation background, no pilots in her family. It just seemed the best way to get from northern Oklahoma to major city auctions.
