That's Roger Murdock. He's the co-pilot.
Incidentally, for anyone that didn’t know, the film Airplane was an almost shot for shot remake of a film called Zero Hour [1] and the copilot in the original film was a famous NFL player (Elroy ‘Crazy Legs’ Hirsch), hence why they’ve got Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to play the copilot in Airplane.
We have clearance Clarence. Roger, Roger. What's our vector Victor?
https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/the-rewatchables/2025/09/...
https://www.mlb.com/cut4/kareem-abdul-jabbars-role-in-airpla...
There is so many layers of jokes!
It looks like an ad-libbed scene to me: "Leon" was absolutely struck dumb by the move.
- and Leon's getting laaaaarger.
-- Stephen Stucker as Johnny
“Bad news, the fog is getting thicker”
“And Leon’s getting laaaarger!”