$1000 wont even get you into the 1st class head now!!!!
Sent from my iPhone
Great Story!!!!!
Hi
Clyde,
Your story of
carrying $3,000 USD reminded me of an experience my wife and I had in May 1981
returning home from our honeymoon. It was a Cathay Pacific flight from
London to Bahrain, then via HK to Sydney. First thing we knew anything was amiss
was the fighter jets surrounding our Jumbo. Our very British captain came
on the intercom and said: “Ladies and Gentlemen, you may have noticed that we
have company. They are Syrian Air Force. A short time ago, Nicosia air
traffic control had 3 planes converging on the same place at the same time, so
we were all sent off in different directions. We were sent off into Syria
and unfortunately the Syrians aren’t too happy about it. They have asked us to
land in Damascus. I have suggested to them that we can simply turn around and
fly out of their air space, but they have not agreed to that. So we are on
our way to Damascus.”
This was, of course, the Northern Hemisphere’s spring, and
Sping of 1981 was particularly tense in that region. It was complicated both
militarily and politically, but the salient events at that time had included the
French building a nuclear power plant in Syria that the Israelis could not
tolerate so they destroyed it with air strikes, and then there was the disputes
over the Golan Heights, Syrian helicopters being downed and Soviet ground-to-air
missiles being wheeled in to spice it all up. So it was an interesting
time to arrive in Syria unannounced.
We landed at dusk in Damascus and the plane taxied right to
the far end of the runway, away from everything else and onto the grass. A
bunch of old cars that looked like Fiat 124s surrounded the plane and a bunch of
tough-looking guys carrying lots of guns boarded the plane and positioned
themselves throughout. Everyone remained calm although anxiety levels
increased when the pilot and co-pilot were taken away at gun-point. And so
here we sat for hours and hours into the night and early morning, until the
captain’s voice came on the intercom to say they were back. He said:
“Well, we managed to convince the local (pregnant pause)… authorities… that we
were directed on this vector and Nicosia has confirmed this, so it looks like we
will be able to go soon. However, because of this diversion, we will need
to get fuel and we are arranging this via the French Embassy because Britain
does not have representation here. Stand by…” Much later, he came
back on the intercom again: “Well, we have arranged fuel and will get that
shortly and should be ok to leave then.” Later again: “OK, we have got
fuel and are ready to go but we have hit another snag. The local…
authorities… are now asking for landing fees and they want it in USD
cash.” (From memory, the figure demanded was $1,000 USD, which was a lot
of readies in 1981.) The captain again: “Unfortunately, we don’t carry
that sort of cash around with us under the pilot’s seat. So I suppose we
could get the French Ambassador out of bed again and see if he can help us
again, but perhaps we could have a whip-around amongst you all to see if we can
raise the cash.” And that’s what we did and we still had to go to Bahrain
and then to HK and then to Sydney so by the time we got home it was about 3 days
in transit.
Cheers,
Grahame
Erik I disagree
The US dollar will get you out of trouble anywhere in the
world
When they bust drug lords and people ask for
ransom
They ask for dead Presidents not euros or wan or any other
currencies
When I flew international I always had $3000 in dead
presidents with me for
RF4-4EVR
Scars are Tattoos with better stories !
If you have no enemies, you have no character !
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It’s not that the cars are worth more, it’s really that the
USD just isn’t what it used to be.
$92k for the BMW M Coupe was a real
stretch.
This Alfa doesn’t seem as far fetched...
Wonders never seem to amaze me https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1965-alfa-romeo-2600-spider/?utm_source=dailymail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2019-02-28
RF4-4EVR
Scars are Tattoos with better stories !
If you have no enemies, you have no character
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