Terry Liddiard, the former md of British Regional writes to tell us:
”The debate on the name for East Midlands Airport has been going on since the airport opened. At one time, even "Derby/Notts/Leics Airport" was proposed in deference to its then owners, and then there was a strong lobby for "Winston S. Churchill" at a time when British Midland were flying six times weekly Seattle ” EMA. There was confusion ” I remember being on a flight to the airport operated by Air France being welcomed aboard our flight 'to the Middle East', which caused a little concern to some. Any attempt to give it some more identifiable geographical identification, linking it to either Nottingham, Derby or Leicester, was always opposed by the other parties, and so nothing was ever going to be done whilst it was in local authority ownership. Now at least something has been done, but, as you say, it leaves the position of the 'real' Nottingham Airport at Tollerton in question. Why didn't they just call it 'Notts Landing'?”
For what it is worth EMA is 12 miles south of Derby, 14 miles across the M1 to Nottingham, and 20 miles due north of Leicester.
And since we are in the serious mood this one came in from British Airways!
It seems that the RAF scrambled two Tornado fighter jets to Heathrow when it was feared that an incoming service from Baltimore was being subjected to a hijack attempt.
The alert came after the captain reported to Air Traffic Control that a passenger had heard two agitated men on board have the following conversation:
First male: "Is this the right time?"
Second male: "We've been planning this for six months, let's do it."
First male: "Sure?"
Second male: "Let's do it now."
A nervous flyer, sitting behind the men overheard them, became alarmed, alerted the crew and the incident escalated.
In fact the two men were a father and son from the USA debating the merits of a family reunion with a long-lost aunt in England. The father thought it was a great idea, the son wasn't so convinced. Cue hijack alert. Some red faces ensued, but all ended well.
The moral of the story is, just like the silly girl who told check-in that she was carrying a bomb; you have to be careful what you say these days.