2012 roundup

Well here we are again, the last posting of 2012, this time it was 123 flights totalling 279 hours visiting 45 different airports in 24 countries. Flying 199,550 Km’s and creating 27 tonnes on CO2 , 1.35Kg’s of Nitrous oxide and 1.35Kg’s of Methane which is always disappointing.    

Business wise I think it’s been my most difficult year ever the business has expanded rapidly and the expansion has gone well but it’s now a much bigger business that takes a lot more managing, it is also a disappointment to me that I can’t spend as much time with the frontline staff in the business as I used to . We did not make the profits I was predicting but this was entirely due to late cutover of the new customers and 2013 is looking really positive at the moment. The Euro seems to have settled down but economic conditions are still difficult.

Personal highlights for me were seeing the Olympics and feeling incredibly proud to be British getting to the Paralympics and having my attitudes changed. I also take huge pleasure in the voluntary work that I do with the school, the Air Training Corps and the Youth Football club. Of these the School is the most rewarding the primary education of the next generation is important to us all.

 

In 2013 I am hoping I might be able to reduce my travel a little and I am taking more direct flights than I used to. After 11 years of getting on an aircraft on average once every three days it is becoming a little wearing. That said I see no sign of this happening in the short term making it more of a desire than a realistic goal, in the first 15 days of 2013 I will be visiting Qatar the Czech Republic and Hong Kong.     

 

Happy New Year !!

Athens Olympic Torch Relay Epilogue....

 

 

This was the most complex project I have ever worked on and I believe will ever work on in my career. I had no idea when I got involved how complex it would be or how much it would take over my life. The events of the relay were tightly packed in my head and for several months afterwards they slowly unwrapped. Eight years on it is still the most amazing project and I still refer to it from time to time in sales presentations or when I am at airports or in countries where the relay took place. I have occasionally been asked would I do it again and the answer is without doubt..... No, at my age I don’t have the energy to get involved in something this big again even if such a project could be found. Beijing repeated the international Torch relay in 2008 and it was all set to become a regular feature of the Olympics but the adverse publicity generated by the human rights issues in China meant that any initial plans for 2012 were shelved.  Watching the magnificent London 2012 torch relay brought it all back to me and I recognised so many things that we did in 2004 and I am sure were also done in 2000 for the Sydney Olympics and I am immensely proud of what we all achieved with this event.   

Athens Olympic Torch Relay Days 33-37

The final push Moscow, Kiev...... Istanbul, Sofia, Cyprus and Greece

 

With the aircraft safely put to bed in Helsinki I caught a flight to Moscow via Stockholm, It took an age to clear customs and I was met in the arrivals hall by the Moscow relay staff and taken straight to the pre-meeting at SVO terminal 1, this took some time to complete and once it had been it was down to the hotel for the night. The next day turned out to be a little special with having put the aircraft to bed we went in search of the relay which we knew would be somewhere near the end of day celebration schedule for red square. We arrived at the square to find it closed and people trying to see what was happening, we showed our ID’s to the guards and were waved through the barriers, as the celebration was at the edge of the square the main area was totally empty and the five of us had the entire square to ourselves. It was an amazing experience to walk about this iconic area with no one else present.  The next day was a rest day and I had opted to fly to Kiev in the morning and spend the day there, this turned out to be a great decision.

The weather in Kiev was very pleasant and I decided to take a walk about. The entire city was out and about, the main street had some street vendors trying to earn a buck, amongst these vendors two stood out as remnants of a rapidly disappearing age. The first was a middle aged man sat on a chair reading a book, in front of him was a pair of bathroom scales that people were paying him to weight themselves on the scales. The second was an elderly man with a wind up gramophone. People would pay him and he would play them a record. I then attempted to walk to the Dynamo Kiev stadium just to say I had been there but got lost and ended up walking into a residential area. I sensed something was abnormal but could not put my finger on it, after a while I realised that there was a total lack of traffic and looking at the number of cars parked in the car parks of the flats it appeared that very few people owned a car. From time to time a black limo with tinted windows would drive past me. On one occasion the window was down and I was being filmed, I assume this was some sort of state security service, I also noticed that I attracted the attention of the locals, It would appear that I stood out as a foreigner and I assume they seldom got them wondering around the residential areas, that said I never felt threatened and just saw myself as being treated as an oddity.

As I walked down one road in a direction that I hoped would take me back to the city centre I saw what looked to be a large statue some distance in front of me. I decided to walk to it and see what it was. To my amazement it turned out to be what I now know to be the “mother Motherland” statue which is 62 metres tall and therefore 16 metres higher than the Statue of liberty. I had no idea this statue even existed and it took my breath away. It was the centrepiece of the “Museum of the great patriotic war” this is a stunning museum dedicated to what we would know as World War 2. After spending a great couple of hours in the museum I walked a little further and came across the Assumption cathedral a stunning building. I topped this off by sitting in the Park Slavi 6 overlooking the Dnieper River whilst the sun went down. After that I took the subway back to the Hotel, the station was a typically soviet style station that seemed to go down into the centre of the earth before we got to the platform. It’s not often I am surprised but Kiev was a revelation, it is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited and not what I expected at all. The next day was relay day and we ran into a bit of a crisis, I was advised that the crew did not have visas for the Ukraine and therefore they would be confined to the airport hotel for the duration of the stay. I had seen the airport hotel as we drove away and it did not look to be a high quality establishment. Based on the low standards of the western hotels in Kiev at the time I knew this would not be acceptable. There then started a game of telephone ping pong with ever increasing levels of bureaucracy I eventually ended up with the foreign ministers private secretary and I told them that the aircraft were being held in Moscow until this was resolved ( the support aircraft was in fact already airborne) eventually he begrudgingly caved in and allowed the crew downtown. Having got the aircraft sealed up I played tour guide for the day with those from the aircraft that had spent their day off in Moscow.

It had been decided that I would join the support aircraft for the last four days of the trip and I was away to the airport early for the trip to Istanbul. The support aircraft carried the same passengers every day and they had taken to decorating their own personal space with all sorts of trinkets we would never pass a CAA ramp inspection but being such a special flight we were unlikely to get one.  In Istanbul we opted to spend the day in town as we knew that the following day was going to be busy, again we went to find the relay and tagged along with them. I overslept the following morning through sheer exhaustion and was woken by the crew as they were ready to leave the lobby; it’s the first and only time I have done this. Arriving at the airport late my colleagues had done all the work and I just had to board. 45 minutes later we arrived in Sofia where we had decided that we would have a major sort out of the cargo as the following day it would all need to be loaded onto the primary aircraft which would be the only aircraft going forward to Greece on the final day. The temperature was well over 30C and even though I was wrapped up against the sun and regularly drank water I am sure I gave myself heat exhaustion in the five hours we were sorting everything out. This may not have been helped by going for a sauna after I got to the Hotel or having a couple of beers in the bar. The next day was to be the final live day of the relay and we had a 1:33 leg to Paphos where we dropped everyone off and then departed to Larnaca where we would be departing from the next day once in Larnaca we, and by that I mean everyone except me, transferred everything from the standby aircraft to the primary one. I sat in the primary aircraft lounge felling sorry for myself and a little sick. As this was the last night with the two crews together a party was thrown for everyone, fortunately I had recovered enough to take part. The final day was a late start as we were just returning the flame to the Greeks and we were scheduled for a midday departure. It had been arranged that the backup aircraft would remain on the ground in Larnaca for an hour after our departure just in case there was a technical issue on the primary aircraft.  At 11AM the relay arrived at the airport and we loaded everything onto the aircraft, for the relay staff this was the “end of term” as the relay was finished for them, we still had the last leg to complete though to get the aircraft back to Greece. It was an on time departure for the 1:12 leg to Heraklion in Crete.

 

 

As we touched down the largest Greek flag I have ever seen was flying from a building adjacent to the airport. The apron was crowded with airport officials and hangers on all of whom wanted to see the arrival of Greece’s Olympic flame, there was a real party atmosphere on the ramp and talking to some of the people a real sense of pride in the Olympics coming home. We offloaded the bikes which were being loaned to the domestic torch relay. With this complete and the flames handed over we were off again on the final 0:40 leg back to Athens where it all started 37 days earlier. Once we were on the ground we had to offload everything off the aircraft and had this included a lot of promotional material or “rubbish” as it was now, that needed to be discarded. It took us about 2 hours to get everything off the aircraft and with this job complete it was time to go to the Hotel where the final party was being held that evening. The primary crew were invited but were due to leave early the following morning so did not attend eventually after several fully clothed dips into the hotel pool we got to bed at about 2AM and needed to be up by 5AM for the flight. Bleary eyed we made it to the airport for the flight back to London and that was it. The train home a couple of days off and then back to the office to resume “normal life”.

Athens Olympic Torch Relay Days 15-32

Cape Town and London 

This was my one week break and my wife joined me for the first three days in Cape Town, we were staying at the Table Bay hotel a five star establishment within the Victoria and Alfred waterfront. The service was outstanding, the location was outstanding and I was back with my wife again things could not be better. After this it was back to the UK for four days with the children before setting of on the second leg of the trip.

Amsterdam, Geneva, London, Rome, Berlin, Stockholm and Helsinki

 

The long range flights ended as the aircraft arrived in Europe and the relay changed its pace. The days started early with the relay teams leaving the hotel by 6AM with the aircraft leaving at about 7AM before arriving in the relay city at about 8AM. The relay ran from about 10AM to 6PM and then they were back to the hotel for some food and sleep before starting the entire thing again the following day.

 

I left home again on the evening of day 20 and spent the night in a hotel at Amsterdam airport before sorting out the arrival. Unknown to us all the airport had planned a water cannon salute and as the aircraft turned onto stand with the emergency escape hatch open and the Dutch flag blowing in the wind the fire engines powered up and started to spray water. The flag disappeared and the hatch closed very quickly.  As soon as the aircraft was put to bed I was round to the terminal for my flight to Geneva where I had to finalise the arrangements for the arrival the next day. 

 

Day 22 started with the arrival of the aircraft in Geneva and having sorted out the aircraft I took the opportunity to go and see the relay in action running around Lausanne.

 

The format of the relay was very similar to the London 2012 relay; there is a briefing for all runners the night before where all the details are explained to the runners on the day the local police secured the road the sponsors vehicles preceded the relay by a few minutes the relay is preceded by a minibus with the runners on board this minibus dropped them at the prearranged spot ready for them to run. The torch relay comes through which is loosely surrounded by the Torch security team in our case runners and the motorcycle outriders, this is immediately preceded by the film truck that records every moment on the relay for later transmission or resale. As each runner approaches the next the runners come to a halt and the security team member running with them conducts the changeover, this involves starting the gas running on the new runners torch, kissing the two torches together until the flame transfers to the new runners torch and finally cutting the gas supply to the old Torch so that it goes out and thus the flame is symbolically transferred to the new runner who then sets off. The old runner waits a few moments and is then collected by the “broom wagon” and returned to the muster point where they are given the opportunity to purchase their torch for a not insubstantial sum of money. Once the relay has passed the road is reopened and normality returns. At the end of the day there is a relay “celebration” usually consisting of a concert of some sort. Shortly after this starts the fame is re-housed in its lantern and the cauldron turned off and the relay team leave to return to the hotel whilst leaving the local relay team to manage the remainder of the celebration.

 

 

Having seen the start of the celebration I also made my excuses and returned to Geneva and the hotel for some rest before the 5AM start the next morning.  With the aircraft dispatched to Paris I caught a flight back to Gatwick and then a bus to Heathrow for the final briefing for the London stop. With this complete it was a bus back home for the night. Day 29 started very early start for the drive to Heathrow and the royal suite. In 2004 permission to use the Royal Suite was only granted by the Foreign office and this was one of the first times that it had been used for a none state event. The entrance to the suite is deliberately not well signposted on the basis that if you need to ask where it is then you don’t need to be there. Once inside there are several rooms for waiting in, VIP rooms for VIP meters and greeters and less formal rooms for the Police, Military and other “operational” meters and greeters. London was one of the bidding cities for the 2012 Olympics and wanted to make a big show as the IOC was going to be watching.

 

 

 

It had been made clear that the Relay was an Athens 2004 event and was off limits for 2012 campaigning and it was a case of, to quote from Faulty Towers, “don’t mention the war” everything that could be done was done but no one was allowed to mention 2012 especially as Paris had got into trouble the day before for not removing signs saying Paris 2012 candidate city. With the aircraft put to bed I was straight home to sit in front of the TV and watch the London leg of the relay.

The next day was an early bus back to Heathrow where unusually the flame was leaving on a separate aircraft to Madrid which was a last minute insertion to the itinerary as it had been discovered it was the only 2012 candidate city that was not planned for a visit and it was important not to put them at any disadvantage. The main aircraft departed to Barcelona a couple of hours later where it was planned that the relay would start as soon as the flame had been extinguished in Madrid. With this done I caught a flight to Rome where I arrived before lunch.

The next day was Rome and with the aircraft all sorted out before 10AM several of us decided to do the tourist thing in Rome, it’s a fantastic city and everywhere you turn there is another world famous historical sight. It was hugely hot at about 40C but well worth the effort and hopefully I will return there in 2013 with the family. Another city another day.... The aircraft were dispatched to Munich and I caught a flight to Berlin, The following day was relay day in Berlin much the same as any other European Day but this time as soon as the aircraft were put to bed and the relay was away I flew on to Stockholm where the relay was due the next day. I had an airport hotel and being tired never left it, I have been to Stockholm numerous times but never been into the city, this is something I will have to correct one day. The next two days were Stockholm and Helsinki again standard European Relay days.

Athens Olympic Torch Relay Days 12-14

Delhi, Cairo and Cape Town

 

 

An easy escape from Beijing and a 5:48 flight over the Himalayas saw us arrive in Delhi early on day 12 the bikes were quickly off and received a blessing and garland of flowers before leaving to find the petrol station, the primary aircraft arrived and it was a race to get everyone off get the aircraft closed up and get to the Hotel,

 

we arrived just before 10:00 and managed to see the relay depart on the day’s activities before heading off to bed where I slept soundly until the alarm went off at 16:00. We left the hotel at 18:00 just as the relay staff members were arriving after at the end of the day we arrived at the airport by 19:00 and everything was looking good until about 90 minutes before departure we received a message saying that we had no valid overflight permission for Saudi Arabia. We knew that we did have a permit so we asked if we could visit the ATC unit t discuss it with them. We arrived in the ATC unit about 10 minutes later and we were advised that the flight plan had been rejected by the Saudi Arabian authorities as they did not accept our permit number as being valid. The experienced rep from the airline suggested that we should set off anyway and that it should be resolved once we were in the air, after all we had a valid permit number. I asked the Delhi ATC unit if they would let us leave as most units would not, they agreed we could set off so with everyone on board and totally unaware of the issue we departed on time.

 

 I spent most of the flight on the flight deck trying, and failing, to make the satellite phone work. The flight crew were communicating with their own operations trying to see if the issue had been resolved. As we started to fly down the Gulf and were transferred to Omani ATC we received our first request for our Saudi overflight permit number, we told them to standby, this continued as we were transferred to Bahrain ATC. The first couple of requests we played the standby trick before a final request from Bahrain telling us that we would be denied entry into Saudi Airspace and would have to divert if we did not provide a valid permit number, at this point we gave our “invalid” permit number, the Air Traffic controller asked us to standby and a few moments later cleared us to enter Saudi Airspace... when we were transferred to the Saudi controller he asked us if we were carrying the Olympic flame to which we replied that we were the support aircraft and the flame carrier was a couple of hours behind us. I remained in the flight deck for the rest of the flight and occupied myself by looking at the Jepperson arrival plates and to my horror they were showing Cairo as having a different local time than our documents. This would have been a critical issue as it would have meant the primary plane would be arriving an hour early and well before the arrival party, as we were transferred to Cairo ATC our first call was “what’s the time” and our second call was “where are the pyramids” (the passengers were hoping for a view of them on approach) I leaned across to the captain and said “tourist!!!”

On arrival everything went OK apart from the fact that we were parked in a totally different place than had been agreed. The main aircraft landed and after everyone had left the crew n the other aircraft told us the part of the over flight permit story that we were unaware of.  Our over flight permit number was issued for both transits of Saudi Arabia, the westbound from Athens to Colombo to Australia and the eastbound from Delhi to Cairo. It appears that the permit had been cancelled as used after the first transit and therefore not in the system for the second, I was told that they had continued to work behind the scenes to resolve this after we had departed. The Saudi Arabian authorities and confirmed they planned to deny us entry so the ambassador of the flame called the Greek Ambassador in Saudi Arabia who in turn called the Saudi Foreign ministry who in turn called the Saudi Aviation minister. They were told there was nothing that could be done. I understand a message was sent back down this channel to the effect of “if this plane gets diverted then the Saudi Arabian team will have to walk to the Olympics as they won’t get a permit to fly to Athens” this seemed to do the trick and all of the sudden our permit was OK again.... just as we were approaching Saudi airspace, this was the closest we came to the arrangements failing on the entire event.  The layover in Cairo was only going to be 12 hours long and, this being the first location since Korea where a visa was not required for entry, there were a number of technical teams on hand to service the aircraft including repairs to the decals. As a result we decided to stay with the aircraft for the day and not go to a hotel. To make sure that we did not have a delay we refuelled the aircraft for the leg to Cape Town this was later to prove an issue. By 15:00 we were, given the humidity, very sweaty and looking to get a shower five of us decided to go to the hotel on the airport and see if we could get a room. The immigration staff just waived us through and when we go to the hotel we asked for a room for an hour, given that we were five males with no baggage we received an odd look and were directed to the concierge desk. The man behind the desk there gave us a knowing look and told us what the price would be; “it must be in cash” we were told.  We agreed this so long as we could have some extra towels, “I will arrange it” he said giving us a room key for which it was quite apparent there would be no bill ever issued. On arrival the room turned out to be a smallish double and getting the five of us into it was a bit of a squeeze, when the towels arrived one of us had already showered the second person was just coming out of the shower and the third was just getting ready to go in. I have no idea what the porter thought about so many half naked men in the room but he did not linger for a tip! When we arrived back at the airport I had my first blow up of the trip and totally lost my cool with the immigration men, they demanded to see our passports and made it clear they were looking for a financial inducement to allow us back out to the aircraft, I was not going to give in on this. I told them they could not refuse to let us out because technically they had not let us in, at this point the other four people I was with sat down to observe as it was going to take a long time to fix, the resultant row lasted about 30 minutes and included me ringing the major general demanding that his officials let us out of the country, it was not pretty. In the end we were thrown out of the air conditioned immigration hall onto the ramp and the door was locked behind us. With the passengers and crew back to the airport we were ready for the departure and as part of the pre departure checks the flight engineer opened the fuel overflow valves at which point we realised that the fuel had expanded during the heat of the day. In the end 5 tonnes of fuel was discharged through the overflow valves onto the apron and the aircraft and passengers and me were sitting in a lake of aviation fuel, this was a big issue and the airport operations and fire brigade were all in attendance, there was lots of arm waiving going on when one of the passengers came up to me and asked if it would be OK to smoke during the delay, I felt it was best to decline. In the end we departed 90 minutes late and only 30 minutes in front of the primary aircraft, I was glad Cairo was behind me. The leg to from Cairo to Cape Town was seven and a half hours long and I did not get much sleep as I was wired from the day, my the time we touched down in Cape Town I had not seen a bed for 40 hours and had had about 4 hours sleep, I was a little tired. Cape Town was another quick stop this time it was planned for 12 hours. We managed to get everyone away from the airport thanks to the efficiencies of the airport authorities and handlers. We had just put the aircraft to bed and were in a taxi on the way to the hotel for some much needed rest when my phone rang I answered it be greeted to one of the most memorable lines I have ever had..... Do you want to meet Nelson Mandela? Did I ever!!!! I was told to be at the Robben Island ferry terminal in 20 minutes with full ID and relay uniform.

 

Having checked into the hotel and run to the ferry terminal in record time we made it by 2 minutes, it was quite obvious that we were interlopers as everyone else had a number of cameras and huge lenses, we had substantially smaller ones. After about 20 minutes we arrived on the island and a bus transported us to the prison yard where we joined the press pool.

 

 

After about 15 minutes he walked into the yard to be presented with the torch, it was clear that he was having difficulties walking but also, as he spoke, that his mind was a sharp as ever. The other thing that I noticed, for the first and only time in my life, I felt the charisma of an individual. There was a noticeable presence around Nelson Mandela that I cannot explain but speaking to others later they all felt the same. After the presentation several people posed for pictures with him but conscious that I was not supposed to be there I stood back. 30 minutes later we had to be back at the docks for the boat back and there I saw something for the first time that is now common place. One of the photographers had downloaded the pictures from his camera to the laptop cut the picture and e-mailed it to his picture editor, by the time I had got back to the hotel 15 minutes later the picture was on the BBC website. It seems less amazing now but at the time I could not believe what I was seeing, it seemed extraordinary. Once back in the Hotel I only had 3 hours until I needed to be back at the airport for the departure and having not seen a bed for the best part of 40 hours I passed out on the bed. I awoke later to a scream and opened my eyes to see a woman in my room my sleepy response was also to shout at which point she ran away. As far as I can make out she was the “turn down” woman and thought she had found a dead body which then proceeded to shout at her, anyway the room was not turned down for the rest of my stay.

Athens Olympic Torch Relay Days 6-11

Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing

It was an early morning arrival in Tokyo followed by bus trip to the Hotel, I was feeling a little isolated as the mobile network in Japan and Korea was (is) different to the rest of the world and my phone would not work again until we arrived in China in five days time. I had arranged through our agent to rent a mobile that worked in Japan but they were not able to deliver it until the afternoon so I was tied to the hotel until they called me in my room to say they were there. I took the opportunity to have an evening in Tokyo part of which was spent trying to find a reasonably priced meal. The exchange rates meant that everything in Japan is significantly more expensive than most other places in the world and significantly more than my per diem.  Day seven started with a call to the team that had taken the aircraft from Sydney to Melbourne, this was the first sector with all the passengers on board so it was essential to iron out the small difficulties that might have arisen. With all the details from this sector it was then off to the pre arrival meeting at the airport where all the details were run through, this meeting took a couple of hours followed by a phone call to the aircraft team to confirm everything to them, by mid afternoon it was all sorted and I was back to the hotel where I got an early night. I was up at 0300 on day seven for my first taste of the relay. The aircraft were due into Haneda at 0600 which was the opening time for the airport. I was out of the hotel at 03:30 and in a taxi to the airport where I arrived in the rain at 04:15. I arrived at the assigned security gate and found no one who spoke English but after a quick phone call I was soon rescued by our local agent and taken airside with the convoy of vehicles for the relay. There was then a final run through of the arrival process. At 05:55 5 minutes early the backup aircraft arrived,

it was all hands on deck to get the motorbikes offloaded; we were told that there would be no need to clear them through customs, result!! Within 20 minutes the bikes were off the aircraft and the riders were away with their local police escort to the petrol station for refuelling. Everyone else was on the to the convoy vehicles most of which left for the relay start point within 45 minutes of the arrival. We now had half an hour to get everything on the aircraft and get set up for the main aircraft arrival. At 07:20 the main aircraft arrived but being Japan everything needed to be precise and the “follow me” truck drove very slowly and the aircraft arrived on stand at precisely 07:30. I had a radio with me that allowed me to talk directly to the relay director on the aircraft whilst it taxied to the stand to brief them on the final details.

 

After arrival steps were put on the rear door so the travelling media could disembark and run around to join the local media pack, a separate set of steps were Placed on the front door which was then opened and the “Ambassador of the flame”, a Greek  diplomat, came out of the door to hold the flame aloft. It was then brought down the steps and greeted by local dignitaries; I cannot recall the specific details of the arrival ceremony in Japan but given that it was televised it will have involved local cultural figures. As soon as the ceremony was finished everyone left leaving us with to prepare the aircraft for the flight to Seoul the next day and also to look at the decals which following the decent through the rain storm were looking a little tatty. At 10:30 we were just about done and I got a lift to the international terminal for my flight to Seoul where the flame was due the following day. I Arrived in Seoul at 14:00 and went straight into the run through meeting for the following day, Korea was one of the more complicated setups and as a result the meeting did not finish until 4:30PM it was then across to the hotel room service a long bath and bed,

I was up at 5AM out of the hotel by 5:30 and back at the airport by 06:00, the arrivals were going to be very close together due to the fact that the airport in Tokyo did not open until 06:00, the flight was two hours long and the relay was starting by 10:00.

 

The first aircraft was due in at 08:00 and the second at 09:00 added to this the bikes were not being allowed to be driven off the ramp and would have to be taken to the cargo shed a mile away from the aircraft to be cleared. The first aircraft arrived on time at 08:00 and we had the bikes off and on the way to the shed by 08:20. I accompanied them and fortunately the customs agent was very efficient and they were being loaded onto the truck by 08:45, it was a mad dash across the airport to get back to the stand during which the second aircraft landed but we beat it by a few seconds, fortunately there was no arrival ceremony today.

At this point it was clear that some of the decals were beyond repair and something would have to be done. Having got the relay staff off we negotiated with Korean Air to provide a man lift at remove some of the decals. Four hours after the arrival I made my way back into the airport for the flight to Beijing. I arrived into Beijing at 15:30 and again went straight into a run through meeting for the arrival the following day. With Beijing being the host city for the 2008 Olympics, they were keen to make a show and the meeting was not finished until after 6PM.

Day 10 dawned with yet another early start this time as I was staying down town it was a half hour taxi ride out to the airport where we were operating in the VIP lounge which always makes things easier. As you would expect in China, a country controlled by the communist party and a country that was to host the next Olympics, the arrival was flawless although there was a small issue from the relay team,

 

 

It was after the arrival in Korea that we discovered that on the taxi in the primary aircraft was supposed to fly the flag of the country we were visiting from the escape hatch of the aircraft, we did not have a flag pole so the engineer was hanging out of the window holding the flag tightly. There was a spectacular bit of ambush marketing by McDonalds. Somehow they had discovered that we were to be using the VIP terminal and they had turned up with a McDonald’s breakfast for everyone that was gratefully accepted. Coke and Samsung were the sponsors of the torch relay and there was a bit of a fuss about the McDonald’s logo being everywhere ... even if the Coke and Samsung marketing teams were also guilty. The VIP lounge were very keen to get rid of us and only later did we find out that the President of China was due in the lounge 30 minutes after us to leave on a visit to Europe. It turns out that our primary aircraft was blocking in the presidents aircraft.... we had to move it quickly! With the aircraft put to bed we took the opportunity to go down and see the relay. Having done this we were back at the aircraft by 6PM to reload it, the bikes needed to be emptied of almost all the fuel in the tanks to comply with dangerous goods regulations and it proved quite difficult to get rid of it, initially we offered it to the cargo staff but they were very suspicious about it with no other options we finally persuaded one of them to add it to the tank of one of the company cars. With this was done by 22:00 and it was back to the Hotel. The plans called for me to go direct from China to Cairo however it was becoming apparent that we needed someone on the ground for the arrival of the primary aircraft to coordinate and it was decided that I should fly with the backup aircraft to India. This gave me an extra day in Beijing as day 11 was planned as a rest day.

It was on the morning of day 11 that I was witness to quite an emotional scene, Apart from the relay team the hotel was also being used by a group of Danish couples that were adopting Chinese babies. On the day I arrived they were all sitting in the lobby taking to each other and going through the paperwork, it seems that they had all “received” their babies on the day the relay took place and when I went down for breakfast on the rest day they were all in the lobby showing them off.  We spent the day looking around the sights of Beijing before heading out to the airport at 17:00 to set up for our evening departure to Delhi.

Athens 2004 Olympic Torch Relay Days 1-5

Athens to Sydney

 

On Sunday 30^th May 2004 I made my way to Heathrow for my flight to Athens The flight was overbooked but I made sure I got on. It was a quick 3 hours and 6 minutes arriving in the evening, my Hotel was a short walk from the terminal and that was that for the day. The next morning I had final meetings with the airport and our agents and early in the Afternoon the aircraft I was to spend most of the next few weeks on arrived. The airline had arranged for me to have a crew ID card which meant that I was able to come and go on the airport as I needed without the need for complicated temporary airport ID’s. We were scheduled to leave Athens for Australia at 03:00 local time on Tuesday 1^st June.

 

 

There are a lot of myths about the Olympic Flame, It is true that the flame is lit from the rays of the sun but not many people realise that it is split into daughter flames, in the case of the Athens one it was split into six flames with three travelling on each aircraft. Special permission is required to transport a flame on an aircraft for obvious reasons; in this case the permission required us to have the flames mounted on a bulkhead with a member of the crew with a fire extinguisher sat in the seat next to the flames just in case. The International Olympic committee required a member of their team to be sat next to the flames to make sure they did not go out because of changes to the pressure and the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. The paperwork was also complicated and interesting. Every piece of dangerous goods that has to travel on an aircraft is placed in one of nine categories category 1 being Explosives and Category 9 being miscellaneous. The flame has to be powered and in this case it was with oil which is a flammable liquid (category 3) the flame however had to be (category 9) because the oil would have been burnt in order to create the flame and therefore would no longer exist. The departure was low key as the primary aircraft which was following a couple of days behind us was to have all the media attention.  The first of many operational “problems” cropped up during the low key departure when the passengers turned up with the flames at 02:00, how to get them through security. Obviously it was not practical to put them through an X-ray so after some discussion a manual search of the lanterns was made. And we departed on time. The first leg was seven and a half hours to Colombo in Sri Lanka. Once again we were looking for a low key transit and no one knew we had the flames on board but the exemptions for carrying the flame required us to remove them from the aircraft whilst it was being refuelled. We started to attract some attention from the airport workers. After about 90 minutes we were on our way again and after nine and a quarter hours we landed in Sydney on the morning of the 2^nd June and for the first time ever I found myself in Australia. With the passengers away we cleared customs and sorted out a number of tasks on the aircraft before shutting it down, it was then off for a final briefing on with our ground agents for the arrival of the flame it was off to a local cargo warehouse where we spent the next five hours sorting and loading the cargo before finally going to the Hotel at about 6PM.

 

 

After a quick shower it was out for a meal with the crew. Exhausted after the best part of 48 hours without seeing a bed I slept like a baby. The next morning I had decided to take advantage of the few hours I had before the midday pick up for the airport and took the Manley ferry which allowed a trip round the harbour past the opera house and Bridge.

 

 

 

Time was so short that having arrived in Manley it was onto the same ferry back to the hotel. It was then off out to the airport to finalize the arrangements for the flame arriving the following day and to load the backup aircraft. Whilst I was at the airport I received a text message on my phone saying that I was approaching my credit limit, this was a worry as my phone did not have a credit limit. A quick call back to the office and an investigation with vodaphone revealed that they have to set a credit limit even for none limited phones and I was approaching the £1000 limit for my phone.... and it was only four days into the month! I also took the opportunity to load my own suitcase onto the aircraft as it had been arranged that we would keep our main bags on board and just carry hand baggage with us changing the contents over as we needed. At 4PM with everything complete and it was back to the hotel where messages were beginning to come through about a problem with the decals on the aircraft, when the primary aircraft arrived in Colombo some of them were beginning to peel off. I got my relay ID issued bought a few souvenirs from the hotel shop and then at 7PM it was back to the airport for an 11PM flight to Tokyo.

 

 

Athens Olympic Torch Relay "The Survey Part 3"

Three days after returning from the Far East I was back at Heathrow again this time it was Sofia and Istanbul. The meeting in Sofia was like I imagine an old fashioned communist meeting would be. It was clear we were the important guests and there were a number of senior airport managers present. Our main contact was the operations manager for the airport and he kept pointing out perfectly reasonable difficulties about what we were planning. After about 30 minutes the airport Director asked to suspend the meeting and both he and the operations director left the room. A short while later the Airport director returned and said the Operations manager had another meeting to attend. Thereafter everything we asked about “was possible” I later learned the operations manager had been sacked, given that all his objections were reasonable I do hope that it was not connected to the meeting. The next day I left for Istanbul where, before we had the meeting, I had to get my Ukrainian Visa. There had been a delay in getting the documentation from the Ukrainian Olympic Committee and there was no option but to make arrangements to get the visa during my visit to Istanbul. I was driven to the Ukrainian consulate which was in a basement in a residential area there was a queue of Turkish men outside waiting for documentation but I had been told to ring the bell and let them know who I was. I was let straight in and they took my passport and told me to return the next day, I pointed out that I was returning to London the following day, they said that there was nothing they could do. At this point I said that I would have to cancel my visit to the Ukraine and this could jeopardise the operation which prompted some discussion in Ukrainian followed by a “please wait for a few moments” from the consular officer. 15 minutes later I had my visa which stated I was an Olympic athlete. I left the building to some very dirty looks from the Turkish men who were still queuing up.

 

 

Four days after arriving back from Istanbul I left for Moscow and Kiev. This was to be my first time in the Russian Federation which at the time was only 12 years old and still well into its “wild west” phase. I arrived in the evening and was collected from the airport by a car from the Russian Olympic authority. The traffic on the journey from the airport to the hotel was really bad as were the potholes in the road. The next day we went out to Sheremetyevo Airport, Our operations were due to take place in Terminal 1 which was the domestic part of the airport and was obviously a product of the soviet era. Once again we were treated like VIP’s and the meeting was in a room with the old fashioned armchairs with white arm caps. Everything was going to be possible. At the end of the meeting we were given a tour of the airport including the VIP lounge. Our hosts offered us the use of this lounge before our flight that evening.  With the airport complete we then went back into town. Our hosts were good enough to arrange a stop at Red Square and St Basils cathedral which was really impressive.

 

 

The afternoon was spent with me as an observer whilst they arranged the route for the relay. It was fascinating to see how detailed the arrangements were, every runner was to have a leg of about 200 meters and the team that was marking the route would only arrive in the city four days before the relay. They would be expected to mark out the entire day’s route as well as logo all the vehicles supervise the branding of the route and set up all the media activities. This meant that the route had to be very clear and was achieved by the driver of the vehicle resetting the odometer on the car and then driving two hundred meters before looking for and obvious landmark such as a numbered street light or a piece of street furniture. Once this had been identified then the details were taken and the odometer reset to start the process over again.  It was then back to the Hotel for a meal before setting out again for the airport and the flight to Kiev. We arrived at the airport with the expectation of using the VIP terminal but our Russian guide was very keen that we did not use this; we said it had been offered but he was insistent that we used the main terminal so it was a normal check in and an hour in plastic bucket seats waiting for the flight. Speaking with the relay representative we reached the conclusion that the guide preferred not to be near the VIP’s and that it was better to be the “grey man” and not drawing attention to ourselves.

The arrival in Kiev lead to one of the strangest incidents in my life; I had been warned that the Ukrainians likes to “celebrate” the arrival of VIP’s with a drink but there was nothing as we arrived at half past midnight in temperatures well below zero. We were escorted to a ford transit van by the welcoming party of three and we set off for the town, after a short while and in the middle of nowhere we took a turn down a side road and down several other smaller roads before parking in a field. At this point events took a lurch into the bizarre. Our host turned to us and handed everyone a banana, unsure as to what to do I looked at my colleague for guidance and received a confused look in return. Next our host offered us a bar of chocolate each given that there were 5 of us in the van all male and that were in the middle of nowhere in a country I have never visited in temperatures well below zero I knew I my options were limited. At this point the Vodka came out and it all became clear. In the next five minutes during a series of toasts the bananas and chocolate were eaten and the litre of Vodka was collectively consumed by everyone including the driver. The Ukraine was not a rich country in 2004 and the Banana’s and chocolate represented expensive gifts for honoured guests, the Vodka is self explanatory!! With everything consumed we set off on the drive to the Hotel. After checking in I still felt sober and started to dismantle the phone in the room (remember wifi was not in widespread use in 2004) so I could hook the computer up to the phone and send my e-mails. The next morning I woke up surrounded by pieces of phone and my computer.... the Vodka was stronger than I thought.

I was back at the airport by 10AM with Vodka toasts for breakfast and meetings. After all this was complete I was checked in and tried to get through customs. There were strict export controls for currency at the time and whilst I was well within these I was carrying a Yen and Won from my recent Far Eastern visit. Both of these currencies have, like the Lira, involved a lot of Zero’s. The customs official did not speak much English and indicated that I should show him my wallet which I did. The Yen and Won caused made him agitated and I was invited to a separate room. Becoming concerned about missing my flight I then produced the business card for the Airport Director and this proved to be my get out of jail free card. He took this away with him and a few moments later I was on my way.

 

 

The evening after I returned from Kiev I was back at Heathrow for what was planned to be my final visit on the station survey this time to Cape Town. It had been suggested that I flew down on the overnight flight met during the day and then flew back the same night. I politely explained that Cape Town was one of my favourite cities in the world and I was going to be staying the night. The airport meeting was held about an hour after I arrived and given that the relay was only a month out and the airport was cooperative it only took a couple of hours, this gave me a few hours spare and after checking in to the Hotel I went to the Victoria and Alfred waterfront and managed to book a ticket for the Robben Island Museum http://www.robben-island.org.za/ .

 

 

In my own very personal view this is the most impressive museum I have ever visited, it is a real experience about the horrors that Man can inflict on his fellow man. There is a fast ferry crossing to the island and on arrival you gather in one of the rooms and your guide introduces himself “hello my name is X and I used to be a political prisoner on this island.  

 

Words cannot describe the tour but from there on in you are taken on very personal view on what it was like to be black in South Africa during the apartheid era and what it was like to be a prisoner on the island with Nelson Mandela amongst others. The tour takes a couple of hours and ends with a question and answer session and having listed to my guide and how positive he was about South Africa I felt compelled to ask how after everything that had happened to him he was not bitter his reply was inspirational and we could all learn something from him; quite simply he said “they took half my life, If I was bitter then they would have taken the other half as well”. Then after a short pause a smile and the words “and we won”.  I have returned to the museum twice since then and on every occasion have had a different tour because each prisoner had a different experience, it is a remarkable place and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

 

After that very sobering tour I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening on the waterfront. This is, in my opinion, the best dockyard conversion in the world and one that many others have tried to copy. The area has many shops bars restaurants as well as sunshine and, more often than not, the most amazing backdrop of the table mountain. I had the most amazing seafood meal with a lovely glass of wine, for a very reasonable price, those that know me will know that I have a soft spot for a glass of port. I happened upon the wine list and found a 1948 KWV port at only £20 for a glass, I have to say occasionally you have to say “that’s what expense’s are for” and what a superb way to top of such an amazing day.