FLYER Exhibitions
One day we were to fly a charter from Dublin with a group of racehorse owners, trainers and jockeys who were going to Paris for a bit of donkey walloping. The fellas were in high spirits on boarding for the return and made clear their intention to keep their fun meters topped up by complaining (with a smile) that the last time they'd been flown by an English crew they had run out of booze. It was a short flight so I doubted we would do the same but from the moment their bums hit the seats they had the flight attendant going full chat and I began to wonder.
The flight attendant was, shall we say, not much fer book lernin' and until then had led a bit of a sheltered life. Every few minutes she'd come forward and tell us which bottle they'd polished off and after about the fifth such comment I asked her if we had enough on board as the passengers were starting to shout, in a teasing way, about being thirsty. Now apologies if I'm teaching any of you to suck eggs but the Flight Management System (FMS) is controlled via a keyboard and screen a feature of which is the scratch pad. You can type anything in here you like but it won't be acted upon until you've hit 'Enter' and some form of confirmation. So I typed something out, called her forward and asked if she thought we needed to make a diversion to top up the bar.
She said yes
Login / Register