I N C I D E N T A L L Y:
I (nearly) lost a great friend last week.
He ran up the stairs of an aircraft at Helsinki and disappeared into fin air.
Which reminds me of the joke concerning an elderly retired airline pilot who invited this old flight engineer home for dinner one evening.
He was impressed by the way his buddy preceded every request to his wife with endearing terms - Honey, My Love, Darling, Sweetheart, Pumpkin.
The couple had been married almost 70 years and, clearly, they were still very much in love.
While the wife was in the kitchen, the man leaned over and said to his host, "I think it's wonderful that, after all these years, you still call your wife those loving pet names."
The old fellow hung his head. "I have to tell you the truth," he said, "I forgot her name about 10 years ago. In the glory days I had a flight manual. Never forgot a thing!”
And on a more serious note one of the timetable experts at OAG was trawling through an input from a major carrier last week which just did not seem to work out.
Eventually he phoned his opposite number at the airline.
”Whoops!” was the response. ”I am very sorry but I”ve sent you the November 2002 timetable, not the November 2004 I was supposed to let you have. Thanks very much.”
These things do happen!