Come Fly with Me

Tomorrow I will travel to Spain.  The last time I flew to Bilboa from Manchester was the best flight I have ever been and I got stuck in Brussels Airport for more than eight hours

In 1999 I booked a Sabina flight from Manchester to Bilboa via Brussels for myself and my then six year old twins Holly and Patrick.  The flight was delayed leaving Manchester because of NATO exercises over the North Sea and as a consequence, we missed the connecting flight.

I went to the Sabina desk and they issued me with some vouchers for a restaurant back in Terminal 1 which is where we arrived.  In order to return I had to pass by some Belgian Bureaucrat who in informed that

“According EU Regulation 65783452/4F it is not possible to transfer back to a terminal that you earlier arrived at and you will have to remain in Terminal 2”. 

I then marched into one of those 1^st Class Lounges you see at airports, and in a rather manner I demanded that the Sabina representative at the desk should do something about it.  In a very calm way she suggested that I should sit down and she would sort something out for me.

I was taken to heaven, or the closest place to heaven you can get within an airport.  I was asks to sit down in room that that contained the Bang Olufsen TV set I had ever seen and suggested that the children watch CBBC, she brought in sandwiches that tasted as if they were prepared by some Michelin Star chef, and I was informed that I could help myself to anything from the bar.  I have never seen a bar like it, and I have seen quite a few bars.  It contained well over a hundred different bottles of Belgian beer and  wines that they sell at Morrissons

Later a group of bankers, who had just flown in from New York asked me if I would mind changing the channel from Jackonory to Bloomberg.  Suddenly, the Sabina Lady appears and informs the group of bankers that the children have had a long day are happy watching the TV.  This was better than Storming of the Winter Palace and the Paris Commune and was all being conducted by a representative of the Belgian National Airline and Leon, Che or Fidel.

At this point I wanted to marry this woman and would have been prepared to move to Ostend in order to spend the rest of life with her.  I wouldn’t have that surprised if she had agreed.

I vowed that if possible I would always fly with Sabina.  Sadly they went out of business two years later.