WINGS
-7-
The Italian flag carrier ALITALIA had been looking for a while for a company able to provide wet leased with a wide body to fly cargo from Milan to New York. If we had a station in Milan, with qualified personnel to handle regular B.747 transits, it was not the same as far as Rome was concerned and I was asked to take over the Rome transits, which included preparing a load plan, or supervising the preparation, signing of the weight and balance, having been fully trained, dispatching the relevant flight information and filing the flight plans. I was provided with an office in Leonardo da Vinci International airport and was working along with the ALITALIA cargo personnel. Having graduated in Spanish and Italian as I was leaving high school, and before going for a while to law school, I felt like I could be the right person to fulfil the mission, even if I was still fairly junior in the company, this being 1976. The agreement between ALITALIA and SEABOARD WORLD AIRLINES called for free positioning and de-positioning of our cockpit crew and operational personnel necessary to run the operation. ALITALIA provided positive space booking for travel in first class, when first class was indeed first class and stewards would serve a meal clad in a spotless white jacket and tie. The positioning flight I always selected left Paris around lunch time. The flight time between Paris and Rome was of 1H40, hardly enough to go through a four courses first class meal, washed with Italian Chianti. On many occasions, when arriving in Fiumicino, where the airport was located, I felt more like going for siesta than getting to my office to prepare the day’s flight. My vernacular Italian was far from good, but from rusty, it became fairly acceptable. I had to learn the Italian expression used for the job, and it was really a big challenge. My home away from home was a Victorian palace located in the city of Rome on the famous Via Veneto (1). The hotel was a vast building with over 300 rooms. There captains of the industry, international stars, jet setters, crossed path. They were the same people that one would meet in winter in Switzerland, around Gstaad or St Moritz and in summer in Cannes or in Monte-Carlo. It was always a pleasant distraction to see them at the bar of the Excelsior hotel, discussing their plans for the evening which would include dinner in a posh restaurant or going to the opera. The company had provided me with the possibility of using a limousine company for transport to and from the airport. A black car with a smartly dressed driver would wait for my arrival every week, and would eventually pick me up at the hotel to connect a commercial flight returning to wherever. The airplane arrived half full from Milan and the load would be completed in Rome. A standard transit would take anything between 3 to 4 hours of preparation, but once the airplane was in the air, on the way to crossing the pond to New-York, I was free to use my time as I was pleased. On Sundays, agenda permitting, I would catch a train from Rome to Ostia, and would end up in a shoreline restaurant, sitting with Italian families with plenty of kids, eating pasta with “vongole” (2).
I loved Ostia, a coastal city on the sea, with plenty of pine trees, long beaches, where the pace of life
has nothing to do with that of Rome. When talking about Rome, tourists often do not realize how close it is from the sea. In the Rome area, one could be a top of a mountain in the morning, and baking in the sun in the afternoon, on one of the numerous beaches of the “lido” (3). Sometimes, I would position to Rome catching a night sleeper from Paris. This would give me time to slowly change my environment, get to sleep in France and wake up in Italy, to an expresso coffee served in my “Single” (4) along with almond cookies. When the job was done, Rome was mine, with a dinner in one of the “trattorias” (5) of the Trastevere (6) district. In winter it was cosy, in spring and summer, one could it out, directly in the streets close to the traffic. It was so warm in June or July that one would of course look for somewhere to cool off. I knew some places where only real “Romans” would come. There, the Nastro Azzurro (Blue Flag) beer was cheap and a full dinner would never reach a two digits bill. Once the dinner was over, I would simply walk back to my “palace” and crossed the river. I would always bring a bit of food in a paper handkerchief, knowing that around the bridge going over the Tiber, cats would be happy to grab a bite. On occasions, when winter had settled in, I would decide to stay in Rome for the week end, catch a bus over to the ski resort of Terminillo, three hours away, just for the sake of eating grilled lamb chops and polenta in one the the cosy mountain restaurants. Was I working only two days a week? Was my job such an easy one? Did I have time to go to the “lido” everyday?
The company decided to sign a contract with the Saudi Arabian flag carrier Saudia, and introduced 3 DC 8.63 flying on schedule to and from Ryad, Dharan and Jeddah, as well as operating charter flights using one of ours B.747. We were flying oil drilling equipment to DAHRAN, where Aramco (7) was located as well as microwave telephone equipment supplied by Western Electric which was dropped in Ryad. Working the B.747 could become an ordeal. An inoperative PDU (8), a stuck container, a mistake in the load plan or in the offload sequence, and your day would be far longer than planned, with on the top, a detailed report to explain to the New-York headquarter why the plane was three hours late, or why you did not load the cargo properly. Cargo straps, turnbuckles or cables used on some operation could prove to be dangerous. Opening a ratchet without glove was a no-no, so watch not wearing safety shoes. Some the units we carrier on board our “Containerships” weigh several tons and required specific precautions. Leather gloves were a plus, patience a must. I had been exposed to Saudi Arabia during one of my first missions for a “Hajj” operation, but now things were different as this was a pure cargo business, and required knowhow and, sometimes, improvisation. Patience was the essence. The rules for entry into the kingdom were quite drastic.
No one holding an Israeli stamp on the passport could ever get to the Kingdom, the “sandbox” as it was often referred to. It was no uncommon to carry alcoholic beverages and put them in “secluded places” which included in the body of the airplane’s toilet, the only place which customs officers climbing onboard upon arrival, avoided to search. We knew that of course and this amused us. Every time some “alcoholic beverage” transited through the kingdom, we felt it like it was a small victory. This, of course, was as stupid as could be, and if caught, the consequences could have been dramatic. The hotels in Dharan and Ryad were nothing but luxurious. Spa, swimming pools, several restaurants. I never felt at ease in these big structures, crossing paths with the riches and the powerful. Crew food out of the Kingdom was, invariable, a composite of Hummus (9) chicken or lamb kebab with rice as well as an industrial pastry for dessert. Food orders were placed upon arrival to give the catering unit enough time to get the order ready and brought on board timely enough for an on-time departure. On occasion, I would order a complement of fresh fruit which included pineapple and mangoes. The Arabic bread would be welcome with the “hummus” and to push down the industrial pastry, it was not rare to extract from a cache a bottle of brandy or spirit bought at the previous stop’s duty-free store. The SAUDIA program kept me busy for a while but once the operation had become a regular transit in the three major Saudi towns, I changed horizon in an interesting way.
Air India Cargo was set up in 1932, and started its freighter operations with a Douglas DC-3 aircraft, giving Air India the distinction of being the first Asian airline to operate freighters. In the mid-seventies, Air-India had been looking for an airplane able to carry 18-unit load devices of both the “igloo” or the “pallet” type to connect the three Indian major cities with Paris, London and Frankfurt. We had assigned one of our airplanes which had been re painted with the Indian flag carrier white livery and the name Air-India cargo on it. Wet leased, the airplane was flown by Seaboard World Airlines crews. Because it was the first airplane of this type to be used by the Indian carrier, I was asked to go to India and dispense training to the Air India staff in New-Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta.
I had never been a trainer before. I had to improvise. In a flea market, not far from the hotel, I had bought an old scale and a set of weights, all manufactured in England, long, long ago. I relied on my capacity to draw rough sketches to support the “weight and balance “class that I would give in front of airport personnel in New-Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta. There was a lot of goodwill from the part of the personnel, but the company forms were a bit of a challenge. I was using the Centaur Hotel chain, wherever I would be going (10). These were a bit decrepit, dusty and humid, but the coffee shop was a constant surprise in my discovery of Indian food. In addition to the confrontation between my westerner’s stomach and the various Indian spices, it was nice to drink King Fisher beer which, curiously enough, came into 75 cl bottles of cold lager. Supervising the Indian transits brought many surprises. One morning, as I was going to the airport, sitting in a “Tuk-Tuk” (11) I recall that traffic had slowed down. I peeked out, and, no surprise, they were two or three cows wandering between the cars on the road crossing the small city of Baguiati, near Calcutta. The traffic was at a standstill and the cows had made their way to the other side of the road. Peaking again, I noticed that three or four cars ahead of out rickshaw, was a wooden cart drawn by a donkey. I had no idea what the two men by the cart were picking up and laying on the platform. Each time they would bring “something” on the platform of the cart, they would cover it with a white sheet. The cars ahead of us finally cleared the cart. The two men were picking up the dead bodies of homeless people which had died during the night. Asking the rickshaw driver for some explanation, he simply answered:
“that’s the morning pick-up, there will be another one at 6 pm for those who will die today.
India was a weird country for me, totally different from what I was usually confronted to. One could make out the “social” rank of anyone just counting the ball point pen sticking out of the breast pocket, and if one encountered any kind of professional problem, one would have always to call for the “babu” (12).
India was a bit like Saudi Arabia, as both cultures were totally foreign to westerners, especially unseasoned like I was. I had been astonished at seeing so many menial jobs existing at Air India and found this a waste of resources, until I was told that short of these menial jobs, the people would be unemployed, hungry and homeless. If I correctly recall, SEABOARD WORLD had assigned N 642 SW to the Indian operation and for a long time, even after the Air India contract was over, the airplane’s cabin carried that “Indian” smell just like if we had carried tons of incense, thousand of yards of Indian sari fabrics, and enormous amounts or quantities of curry, cardamom, cinnamon or black pepper. How long did it take me to get to love India? I do not know. I do not remember. What I know is that today I still think about this country as a place where I felt good, even with the existing poverty, the incredible ““caste”” system and the selective marriage classified found in the “Indian Times”. I also remember that I finally found out “the” secret way to avoid the unpleasant effects of abusing spicy food and especially curry. I was sitting in the Centaur coffee shop one evening, and besides me was an old man with a German name. He was a dealer of used military equipment and saw that I enjoyed my Indian meal.
Winking at me, he simply said:
“Of course, you love that food, don’t you…! The secret is that you can pig out on curry and spices, but never ever forget to eat yogurt as a dessert. It will soothe you up when time come for “evacuation”.
This was the best tip I ever received during my Indian days.
(1) Via Vittorio Veneto (Italian pronunciation: [ˈviːa vitˈtɔːrjo ˈvɛːneto]), colloquially called Via Veneto, is one of the most famous, elegant, and expensive streets of Rome, Italy. The street is named after the Battle of Vittorio Veneto (1918), a decisive Italian victory of World War I. Federico Fellini's classic 1960 film La Dolce Vita was mostly centred on the Via Veneto area.
(2) Spaghetti alle vongole (pronounced [spaˈɡetti alle ˈvoŋɡole]), Italian for "spaghetti with clams", is a dish that is very popular throughout Italy, especially in Campania (where it is part of traditional Neapolitan cuisine). It is also a dish found in most of the Italian restaurants outside of the Naples area.
(3) Lido, an Italian word for "beach", forms part of the place names of several Italian seaside towns known for their beaches, such as Lido di Venezia, the barrier beach enclosing the Venetian Lagoon. The term may have found its way into English via English visitors returning from the Lido di Venezia, where people have bathed in the sea since the late 19th century.
(4) In a European sleeping car operated by the CIWL (Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits), a SINGLE was a compartment for one person, holding a first-class ticket and paying the bed’s SINGLE fare. It was an expensive way to travel, but with a guaranteed comfort
(5) A trattoria (plural: trattorie) is an Italian-style eating establishment that is generally much less formal than a ristorante, but more formal than an osteria.
(6) Trastevere (Italian pronunciation: [trasˈteːvere])[1] is the 13th rione of Rome: it is identified by the initials R. XIII and it is located within Municipio I. Its name comes from Latin trans Tiberim, literally 'beyond the Tiber'. Its coat of arms depicts a golden head of a lion on a red background, the meaning of which is uncertain.
(7) Saudi Aramco (Arabic: أرامكو السعودية ʾArāmkū as-Suʿūdiyyah), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company), is a Saudi Arabian public petroleum and natural gas company based in Dhahran. As of 2020, it is one of the largest companies in the world by revenue. Saudi Aramco has both the world's second-largest proven crude oil reserves, at more than 270 billion barrels (43 billion cubic metres), and largest daily oil production of all oil-producing companies. It is the single greatest contributor to global carbon emissions of any company in the world since 1965. On 11 May 2022, Saudi Aramco became the largest (most valuable) company in the world by market cap, surpassing Apple Inc.
(8) An electric motorized wheel used on a B.747 to move cargo units back and forth and bring it to its proper location where the load device will be locked in position.
(9) Hummus (/ˈhʊməs/, /ˈhʌməs/; Arabic: حُمُّص, 'chickpeas'; full Arabic name: ḥummuṣ bi-ṭ-ṭaḥīna Arabic: حمص بالطحينة, 'chickpeas with tahini'), also spelled houmous, is a Middle Eastern dip, spread, or savory dish made from cooked, mashed chickpeas blended with tahini, lemon juice, and garlic. The standard garnish in the Middle East includes olive oil, a few whole chickpeas, parsley, and paprika. In Middle Eastern cuisine, it is usually eaten as a dip, with pita bread. In the West, it is now produced industrially, and is often served as a snack or appetizer with crackers.
(10) A chain of hotels owned by Air-India
(11)An auto rickshaw is a motorized version of the pulled rickshaw or cycle rickshaw. Most have three wheels and do not tilt. They are known by many terms in various countries including auto, auto rickshaw, baby taxi, moto taxi, pigeon, Jonny bee, Bajaj, Chand gari, lapa, tuk-tuk, tum-tum, Keke-napep, Maruwa, 3wheel, pragya, bao-bao, easy bike, cog and tukxi.
The title babu, also spelled baboo, is used in the Indian subcontinent as a sign of respect towards men. In some cultures, the term "babu" is a term of endearment for a loved one as well. At Air-India for instance, supervisors or men with authority were called “babu"
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