During the negotiation for the
station survey my colleague had cheekily inserted a clause that all flights we
needed to take that were over 4 hours should be booked in business class. The
event organiser offered us flights over 6 hours and we gladly accepted. In the
event this was to be a godsend and I don’t think I could have achieved it if we
were booked in economy class because of the sheer amount of travelling we had
to do. We were also fortunate that BA decided to run a promotion that offered
double points and mileage for business class travel which allowed me to build
up 250,000 air miles in just three months. Our first stop was Athens on the 30th
January for a meeting with the project team to flesh out the details and put
some meat on the bones. The sort of things that needed to be decided were
·
Who and what would be on each aircraft, · How the flame would be secured
· The desired airport arrival and departure process.
· The customs process for all the equipment.
· The configuration of the aircraft.
This was a very intense project
in a very compressed timescale and there was more than a few funny stories to
be had as we worked our way round the world. The first of these stories was to
be had on the flight back from Athens. It started out in the taxi from the
Hotel to the Airport, we had a 7AM flight so had to leave the Hotel at 4AM. The
taxi achieved a speed of 220KM/H (135MPH) on the motorway and used the hard
shoulder to overtake when there was other traffic in the way. It became a bit
scary when the driver turned around to talk to us during the overtaking
manoeuvre somehow we did not die on the journey. At check in we were upgraded
to Business class as I knew the Ground services manager and were allocated
seats 1 A and B which were leather seats and separated by a small table which
is reality was a wide arm rest. After takeoff we were offered a glass of orange
juice which was placed on the table between us. We both fell asleep because
with the time difference we were up at 1AM on our body clocks and had only had
2 hours sleep. Shortly after I woke up to a commotion beside me which cause me
to burst out laughing. My colleague had whilst sleeping knocked the orange
juice over his lap and work up suddenly sitting in a pool of orange juice, his
instinctive reaction was to stand up and in doing so he smashed his head into
the overhead lockers which caused him to sit down again in the pool of orange
juice. The leggy blond female crew member from the galley saw what had happened
and rushed over to him with a pile of tissues. At the point I woke up she was
on her knees in front of him with a pile of tissues and I was left thinking
“now this is business class service”
14 days after returning from
Athens the station survey started in earnest and on 8th February I
was at Heathrow Airport for our flight to Cairo. It was supposed to be our
first business class flight but it was sold out at the time of booking so we
found ourselves in Economy class. We arrived in Cairo and were met at the top
of the Jetway by our agent at Immigration my colleague I passed through without
difficulty but my colleague who had not travelled much had only the one stamp
in his passport which was from the US visit. The Egyptian immigration officer
put the Egyptian visa stamp directly on his US stamp completely obliterating it
and obviously wanting to make a point. The next morning we met with the Olympic
official and customs agent who escorted us to our meeting with the General in
charge of the Cairo sector. The meeting was typically Middle Eastern (I know
Egypt is in Africa) and took place in a large room with all the participants
sitting around the edge. The general offered us tea, my colleague refused and I
kicked him, he said he did not like tea to which my response under my breath
was “drink the bloody tea”. We discussed the requirements we had with him. These
involved the first aircraft arriving at about 7AM with the travelling Coca Cola
and Samsung team as well as the Torch security team. The Torch security team
had 8 BMW motor bikes that they needed throughout the day. I said we needed to
get these bikes customs cleared and our customs agent replied “that will take 5
days” I carried on. Once the bikes were cleared they needed to be driven to a
local fuel station as the fuel tanks could not be more than a third full on the
aircraft, then they needed to be returned to the airport for the arrival of the
second aircraft. This aircraft would arrive at about 9AM with the flame on
board and there would be some sort of arrival ceremony on the ramp before it
departed for the day’s activities. At 18:00 the bikes would need to return to
the airport and be defueled before being exported again and loaded on the
aircraft. Our customs agent piped up “this will take another 5 days” I carried
on. At 19:00 the flame party would arrive and need to be loaded onto the
aircraft with both aircraft leaving by 20:00 local time. After this I pointed
out that there would be a considerable amount of camera equipment from the
travelling media team that would need to be imported and exported, our customs
agents eyes rolled.
As part of the survey we wanted
to see the parking locations for the aircraft and also the route the passengers
and bikes would take to get out of and back into the airport. The general took
us down to the ramp and waited for his driver to pick us up. When the car
arrived the General ordered hi driver out and proceeded to drive us around
personally, we must have been honoured guests.
After the meeting broke up our
customs agent asked if we wanted to see the pyramids and our answer was
obviously yes. He said get a taxi from your hotel and I will see you at the
entrance at 2PM. We were quickly changed jumping into a taxi at the hotel, “how
much to the pyramids we ask” and were given a figure far in excess of what the
concierge had advised we should pay. After some negotiation we arrived at an
acceptable fare and the journey started. “I will give you a tour” our driver
says, “We don’t want a tour” we reply “we are meeting someone at the pyramids”.
“A quick tour” our driver says. “We don’t want a tour” we reply “we are meeting
someone at the pyramids”. This went on for a while and then the driver says “I
will take you to my brother’s shop” “We don’t want to go to the shop” we reply
“we are meeting someone at the pyramids”. “It is not out of the way” he says.
We decline again but he is persistent. Clearly he is on some sort of commission
deal with the shop so we offer to pay the driver more to take us directly to
the pyramids. “I will take you to my brother’s shop” the driver replies. When
we arrived at the shop they wanted to show us the entire papyrus making process
but we were aware the area around the pyramids closed at 5PM and we were short
of time. We quickly bought some cheap examples of the papyrus and were out of
the shop in 5 minutes much to the surprise of our taxi driver. We then received
a call from our customs agent asking where we were as by this time we were 30
minutes late. After a further drive we arrived one and a quarter hours late. The
pyramids are magnificent but not as most people believe located in the desert
they are in fact in a Cairo suburb and if your photos are taken in the opposite
direction they have a backdrop of blocks of flats. The other surprise is the
Sphinx which I had believed was going to be huge; it is in fact really
relatively small. Unfortunately due to our detour on the way there our time is
limited and we were too late to go inside them.
With our brief visit complete its back to the
Hotel as we are at the airport early for our flight back to London.
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