P3D4.5 Carenado ATR42-500 out of JFK

[John_Cillis 2,406]

[John F 2,417]

Nice. Gonna get this plane.

John

[John_Cillis 2,406]

8 minutes ago, John F said:

Nice. Gonna get this plane.

John

Will I get a commission from Carenado, LOL?  Not likely!

[Pugilist2 878]

Nice set John. Just flew out of JFK last week.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I have not flown out of JFK since December 24th, 1999, but I was upgraded to first class on that flight by my client, the JFK Hilton which I converted to a Best Western, doing business systems training, accounting training, and sales training for them.  LOL, they asked me who I was flying home on, and my boss told me NEVER to tell a client my airline, because some unscrupulous clients would change flights on trainers demanding more service from them for free.  But I did anyway, my client had asked me to work for them two extra weeks, and I figured I should trust them. 

Glad I did, turned out they had a business relationship with America West, and they upgraded me to first class.  But I was so exhausted I slept most of the flight.  Then I was only home Christmas Day, the day after Christmas I had to do more training in Seattle and a Y2K systems conversion converting them from Novell to Windows, and I had to go since I was fluent in both systems, only one of a handful of us training leads. 

So I ended up flying coast to coast with an overnight stop in Phoenix, home for only one day the month of December '99 since my JFK gig started in late November.  I saw the Y2K Space Needle fireworks from the rooftop of the Best Western I was converting, quite amazing to see something shown live on national TV since it was one of the biggest Y2K displays. 

I finally returned to Phoenix in January but made up my mind to leave business systems training for good a few months later--December of '99 was my daughter's first Christmas, she was born in October of '99, and I missed almost all of the holiday season with her, so I swore off my frequent business travel in March of 2000, although I did have to travel from that point on about three times a year for my subsequent employers.

I have flown first class out of JFK twice, in '84 I was bumped into first class in Philly because the gate agent said I was last in line from a diverted flight and made her laugh, rather than being upset with her for an act of God.  I also got bumped into first class on a Montreal-Atlanta flight because my partner, my employee was.  I said "I'm his boss, what about me?" and fluttered my eyes at the cute lady gate agent.  It worked!  On the way to Atlanta, as I sat on the left side of the aircraft, I saw a beautiful sight of Manhattan as we passed it in the early evening, with the sun catching the skyscrapers just right and JFK visible in the distance, an airport that was my first transoceanic base way back in '77, on my first of eight trips to Europe (so far).

John