the CAA ... a healthy workplace

This was the counter display at the UK Civil Aviation Authority cafe. clearly they are keen to ensure that there staff have access to as much over the counter medication as is humanly possible

Barra

I took the opportunity to tick an item off my bucket list this summer and took the flight from Glasgow to Barra Beach in the Outer Hebrides with a colleague. It’s the only place in world where a commercial aircraft lands on a beach. I was incredibly lucky insomuch as the weather was good for the flight and the Captain decided to take a decidedly none standard route. after take-off, we flew down Loch Lomond through the national park before turning left down the Great Glen over Arrochar, Tobermory and Oban before crossing the sea to Barra, all at only a 1000 fleet altitude. We had three hours on the island so had arranged for a tour with a local who originated in Birmingham. On the way, back we took a more direct route past Fingal’s cave Oban and down the Holy Loch. It was a fantastic day out and is now up there as my all time number one flight ever having displaced the Singapore Airlines flight where I had an amazing view of Kazakhstan whilst listening to 101 hits from the 1980’s on the IFE to second place.

Free WiFi

on the way back to the airport from the conference I passed this person waiting in a car park on the airport approach,

Lost in translation

I was at an industry conference in Thailand recently. the description on the salad bar possibly has one to many words .... despite a large search of the buffet I was unable to locate the unheathy salad bar. this reminded me of my time with the IATA Standard ground handling contract working group. we had a clause to contrcat suitable equipment until someone pointed out that it was unlikely you would contrcat unsuitable equipment.

Offiice move

We have just moved offcies in Prague, this was a picture taken during the IT fit out. Every desk needed 4 connections,  I have no idea how the IT guys knew what to connect where

Long Haul Flying

I seem to have done a lot of long haul flying so far this year and June is looking like a month with less flying and I am really looking forward to it. I enjoy the traveling and seeing the different cultures on the companies dollar, even with economy class flying we still tend to use reasonable hotels. I see a lot of things that most people don’t get to see and I think that it gives me a different perspective

This trip was fairly typical albeit a bit longer than normal. I started off on Friday evening with a BA flight direct to Bangkok the only noticeable thing about the flight was flying over “the Stan’s” and India at night it was dark and looking out of the window I had a really good view of the stars and could clearly see the milky way, I tried to take a photograph but the camera was not up to it. After arrival in Bangkok I grabbed a cab across to the domestic airport and watched the aircraft for the day.  There was a small kid of maybe about 4 or 5 sleeping on a blanket on the floor of the observation deck, his mother appeared to be a cleaner and came over to play with him during her break. I was there for 5 hours and the kid was there before I was there and still there after I left. Bangkok is a city I have been to many times before so I tend not to do the tourist stuff anymore but I do love my aircraft.

The conference hotel was a new one and the reception was on the 23^rd floor, I am not sure what was on the first 21 floors because it was not in the same entrance and the lift went directly to floor 23. The conference was on the 22^nd floor and I was staying on the 45^th floor. Apart from one visit into the shopping mall on Sunday I did not come down below the 22^nd floor until Wednesday lunchtime.  From my window on the 45^th floor I could see a small shanty town with families living in huts made form corrugated iron.  They did seem to have electricity from somewhere I have no idea about running water. I live a very privileged life.   

When I left, With a 24 hour pass from my wife, I had planned a brief visit to Jakarta as there were a lot of aircraft there I had not seen before. I had slightly misjudged the distance and Jakarta is three hours flying south of Bangkok and more or less equidistant between Thailand and Australia. Being at the Eastern edge of the time zone it went dark earlier than I had anticipated and at 6PM the shuttle bus ride to the Hotel was in darkness. Every junction had a traffic policeman on it standing in the middle waving there arms around, there were no street lights and they were wearing no high visibility clothing. I could barely see them and I have no idea how they did not get run down. The hotel was nice and deliberately near the airport. The next morning I was back to the airport early as they apparently had a good viewing deck. The whole of humanity was at the airport, lots of people and lots of cases it was fascinating to watch. Indonesia is a huge country with a very spread out population. Aviation has taken off massively on the last couple of years and many people are flying for the first time. you could see this with many of them stopping and taking selfies at the aircraft side. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world but there did not on the face of it seem to be the same restrictions on women that you so often see in the gulf. Heads were covered but there were no veils or Burkas.

With my 24 hours up it was back to Bangkok for the last night and another airport hotel before the long 12 and a half hour flight back to the UK arriving week and two hours after I left.                      

I am Daniel Blake

I have just watched a very powerful film, Daniel Blake, It is directed by Ken Loach and 30 years ago this film would have made headlines in a  “Cathay come home way” but in today’s self cantered world it has not even reached a level of comment in British society. An incredibly powerful way is shows how hard it is for the people at the bottom of the pile and how uncaring the system is. I was almost in tears watching it and it should have been put on a 9PM slot on one of the main TV channels. But the world does not work like that anymore.

Incredibly sad and I don’t know what we can do to change the system.                  

Having googled it a bit more I discover that it won the Palme D'or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and it did make the UK press. rather predictably the right wing press said it was not a true representation and the left wing press said look at how bad things are, what can be done.