Athens Olympic Torch Relay "The Request"

My colleague had started a dialogue with the CEO of the “mobile events company” that had been tasked with taking the Athens Olympic Flame to every city that had held the Modern Olympics the candidate cities for the 2012 Olympics and a few of Athens’s Neighbours. The proposal seemed so outlandish that we had difficulty believing that it was not a scam and, if it was a real request, that it was “winnable”, Normally high profile events like this use the national carrier who offers their aircraft at a non commercial rate for the publicity. So it was decided by our CEO that we should go and see them in Athens to assess the seriousness of the request. So on the 8^th October 2003 I found myself at Heathrow Airport with my colleague for our flight to Athens. On arrival in Athens we took a taxi downtown. The journey from Athens Airport to the city allows a spectacular view of one of my favourite cities, as you come down from the mountains Athens is laid out in front of you as a huge white city. It seems that all the buildings are low rise and white. We arrived at the Hotel and set about finding a local restaurant. The one we found inspired the “Lost in Translation” feature of this blog. Amongst others it offered “chefs special sausage” as an appetiser and “grilled lamp”. “Leg of lamp” and “Lamp Chops”. The next morning we called our contact who told us he was busy in meetings and would not be able to see us at the agreed time due to meetings but had arranged for us to take a city tour with his driver until he could fit us in. This turned out to be a fantastic tour that took in the Plaka, the Acropolis and the Evzones. Then the phone call came and we were taken to the meeting in the ATHOC headquarters. It was clear from this meeting that the request was not a scam and that the national airline was not involved and in any case was not prepared to release its aircraft for the project. Having established this and following another lamp dinner we returned to London the next morning. I had no further involvement in the project whilst my colleague sourced the possible solutions for the provision of the aircraft. In late December the mobile events company confirmed we had been the successful bidder and invited us to their headquarters outside Denver Colorado early in the New Year. 

Athens 2004 Olympic Torch Relay

 

 

With all the Olympic fever about this year I thought I would do a “retrospective” on my own Olympic experience whilst I can still remember most of the details. In 2004 a colleague of mine in the aircraft brokering side of the business managed to win one of the biggest and highest profile contract ever taken on by my employer, to supply the aircraft that would take the Athens Olympic flame around the world. As the person in the business with the most experience on Aircraft operations I became a key player in the contract and accompanied the flame. My biggest regret on this contract was not keeping a journal as it was without a doubt the highlight of my working career so far. I would always advise someone in a similar position to write a journal as there were so many little things that I am sure I have forgotten. I will split the posts into manageable postings as it has taken me several months to write it and its 13,500 words long.

Munich Airport

I had occasion to pass through Munich Airport last week and had a few hours to kill. They spend a huge amount of time and money decorating the airport and it looks great, the first photo is of the cover for a escalator which has been transformed into a ski slope. the second of the Christmas Market. Munich Airport has an indoor outdoor Christmas market. It is indoors insomuch as there is an enormous covered square which I guess totals about 1000 SqM during late November and December it is transformed into a winter market with traditional shops and an ice skating rink. The shops are of a traditional log cabin construction and must have taken an age to build. All in all a very pleasant way to spend a few hours and I believe that a lot of people come out from the city to the airport just to visit the market!!

The Glamour STRESS of international business travel.

I write this posting at 10am on a Wednesday morning over the middle of the Atlantic on my 5^th flight of the week.  On Monday my work started at 6:30AM as I have clients in the Middle East and it was already 8AM on the second working day of the week for them. It was one of those unexpected busy days where the e-mail was spewing out incoming mail faster than I could deal with this. I was working at home and took the opportunity for a family lunch at the local pub. At 3:30PM my wife dropped me off at the airport and I caught a flight to Dublin arriving at 6PM. I met my client for the night (that just sounds sooooooo wrong on sooooooo many levels) at 7PM.  I was tasked to accompany a flight my company had chartered to ensure that there were no hiccups along the way. The flight departed at 1AM on Tuesday morning and I managed to sleep for most of the 4hours 40 minute duration, so far so good. Due to a minor clerical error by a subcontractor the return flight then took an hours delay in Beirut and everything started to go wrong with my week.

This meant that, as the flight time was also longer than planned, my connection for the flight back home was now 30 minutes and not the 1:45 planned. I knew I had to clear immigration, customs and security and that Ryanair are very prompt at closing the gate so I sprinted through Dublin airport and arrived at the gate 10 minutes before the departure time to find that the flight was delayed for 15 minutes. This had the knock on effect that I was 15 minutes late home and I had only allowed an hour to get to my sons school for his parents evening, the traffic was awful and we arrived 2 minutes before the start. The appointments overran by 40 minutes (being a very proud parent I can say it was because they all wanted to say nice things about him). I had to visit a supermarket on the way home to buy some porridge for a friend in Canada (which could be the subject of a posting all of its own about the weirdest thing you have carried onto an aircraft as hand baggage, although my mother would knock everyone else out of the park on that one as many years ago she had took a lawnmower into the cabin).  I arrived home at 8:10PM. Between 8 and 10PM I had to, in no particular order ….

1)      Eat
2)      Assist my son with his homework
3)      Assist my other son with formatting his work experience letters
4)      Shower
5)      Repack the bags
6)      Attend to some work e-mails and prepare for a conference call the next morning.
7)      Attend to the home e-mails
8)      Read the mail
9)      Check in for the next day’s flight
10)   Order a taxi.
11)   Spend some time with the family
12)   Sleep … bearing in mind I had not seen a bed for 38 hours at this point

At 3:45 AM I woke 15 minutes before the alarm clock was due to go off and the taxi arrived at 4:30AM my connecting bus left for the airport at 5AM and At 5:45 whilst still on the bus I started a complicated conference call with a customer, this call lasted for 45 minutes after which I passed through security and purchased my first coffee of the morning.  I am now on the way to Canada where I have two days of meetings and will leave on the overnight flight on Friday night arriving back at Heathrow at 7:30am on Saturday which means I should be home at about 9:30AM. the kids football training starts at 10AM and we have family friends for lunch the same day and dependant on how this all pans out I have to take my son to his swimming class at 5PM and I should be home about 6:30PM.

I love my job and achieving so much in a single week gives me a real buzz. I do however have to recognise the amazing job that my wife does keeping the house and family running whilst I am running abut like this. 

 

Lost in Translation

It is not clear here is a pair of boots is £7.99 or £15.00. if they really are £7.99 each what would you want with one boot anyway? Is this Ryanair style advertising coming to the high street?

Irony

The Easyjet magazine had an advert for personalised car registrations, I am assuming that the one of these is Ironic as you could not possibly want it on your car for any other reason. you would have a really good ability to laugh at yourself as well

The Stanley Cup

Passing through Hamburg airport recently I came across the Stanley cup ! As far as I can see it had just arrived and for reasons that I dont understand was out of its box in the arrivals area being escorted by a person dressed up as a stuffed animal