Qatar Airways, Bobby Sands And A Decent Bomber.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here's a story.

Globe-spanning super-airline Qatar Airways started life as a 'labour flight' operator in 1994 with a couple of ageing planes - I would have sworn they were Lockheed TriStars, but aviation history tells me they were either A310s or a Boeing 767, running routes like Nepal and Khartoum. When the airline was relaunched in 1997, I was duly brought in to shape the relaunch of their inflight magazine, Oryx. This meant going to Doha and speaking to various people, including interviewing a chef who was going to introduce 'live cooking stations' in first class and new CEO Akbar Al Bakar, which was interesting.

Naturally, I was flown there on Qatar Airways. The airport, back then known to most in the UAE only as a destination for a 'visa hop' was a shabby little place with a single worn out luggage carousel (there may have been two). Never a happy flier, I was double unhappy in a plane that seemed to me, to say the least, held together with sealing wax and string. On the flight back, I settled down and buried myself in my book. After a while a swarthy gentleman of Iranian demeanour dumped down next to me, the doors closed and we started taxiing. My new companion was clearly taken with the various accoutrements of flight, exploring the safety card, inflight and puke bag with the joy of a wondering child. His arm was in a sling and after a while he settled, happily picking at the scab encrusting a huge burn on his forearm.

I stayed buried in my book, in the pose English Traveller Who Does Not Wish To Talk.

'Kallum Arabi?' (You speak Arabic?)

Oh noes. 'La. Ana mu kallum Arabi.' (No.)

Delight. 'Enta kallum Arabi queiss!' (You do, you devil! You just did it, see?)

Emphatic. 'Mafi Arabi.' (I really, really, really, really don't speak Arabic. And I don't want to talk to you. At all. Ever.)

I plunged back into my book and we took off. The seat belt lights went off. My neighbour, bored with exposing areas of newly-healed pink skin, tried again. I ignored him. He took to nudging me. This was too much. I rounded on him with a snapped 'Khalas!' (Stoppit or I'll fetch yer one on the nose).

A silence. Then, 'Enta Ingleez?' (Are you by any chance a gentleman of an English persuasion?)

'Na'am.' (I am deeply exasperated by you, but yes, as you ask.)

And then, triumphantly, furiously, it came. 'Bobby Sands GOOD!'

He must have been terribly disappointed at the reaction to The Mother Of All Insults. I was utterly bewildered. How the hell would this bloke even know who Bobby Sands was, let alone to throw the name of this dead IRA hunger striker at an Englishman? What did he expect, that I would wither like the Wicked Witch of the North? Quail at the name of this hero of the global revolution?

Having delivered himself of his Parthian shot, he went away to find someone he could chatter with and left me, blinking and trying to work out the whole Sands connection. Quite apart from anything else, Sands had died a full sixteen years before this, in 1981. It's not like this was current news or anything (current affairs have a funny way of affecting you when you travel around the Middle East. I was thrown out of a shop in Riyadh once because we had helped America to bomb Libya) but Sands was clearly still held in Iran as an example of one who had stood against British Imperialism and triumphed.

That enduring link between the IRA and the Middle East is a great deal less tenuous than this one to my new novel, A Decent Bomber, which publishes next week on the 5th November, to coincide with the anniversary of another man who flipped the digit at British Authority, one Guido Fawkes. You can, indeed should, pre-order the book using this here handy link!

Chaos Theory

Image by Ingy The Wingy via FlickrThe chaos in Europe's skies is continuing quite nicely, with irate passengers all asking the same question we asked under the ash cloud: why on earth aren't the airlines communicating with us? All we want is information and perhaps even access to rebooking facilities.

Having given up on Virgin Atlantic, whose failure to communicate extended to a Twitter account that tells you it can't do anything and directs you back to the call centre (and a GSA in Dubai that is as much use as a chocolate welding mask), we rebooked the inlaws onto Etihad (at almost twice the price, I have to say. Airlines, slow to help passengers rebook or endorse their tickets to another airline were nevertheless quick enough to ramp up their pre-Chrismas rates). The flight left just in time to be under the snow as it wended its merry way West from shamed Heathrow. They travelled to the airport down motoroways whitened with packed snow, getting to Dublin in perfect time to watch the airport close.

However, Etihad's handling of the situation was entirely a different story. They were met by meal vouches and, shortly after, a no-nonsense staffer who told them precisely what was going to happen. They were bussed to a hotel and put up awaiting the departure of the flight this morning following Dublin re-opening at 8am.

That's all it take, folks. A little respect for the customer and a little sensible decision making and communication. We all understand flights are delayed and cancelled - what's making everyone so riled up is being treated like mushrooms.

It seems to me that airlines can do some very simple things to ameliorate this type of incident:

1) Cut websites over to dedicated informational sites right away.

2) Suspend new ticket sales immediately, at least for the immediate future (say, 5 days).

3) Operate sensible Twitter accounts (Twitter has really come into its own through this whole incident, most major airports have accounts and airlines have started directing customers to Twitter too. As a real-time informational tool, it can hardly be bettered. But it's a TWO way street, people).

4) Open up rebooking facilities online to passengers. Build a rules based system for rebooking and, where necessary, endorsing tickets across to other airlines. This facility could be built on a 'dark site' basis, and brought into play only when there is major disruption. If your call centre people can deal with this screens, I think we can - don't you?

5) Now you've got the majority of people off your call centre's backs, you can dedicate it to handling the exceptional requirements of people in trouble, not just the everyday business of rebooking and finding out what's going on.

It seems so simple to me. Am I missing something? Or are the airlines?

Anyway, with the (fingers crossed) anticipated arrival of our belated guests and a million things to do before Christmas, it might go a little quiet around here so you'll just have to amuse yourselves...