Continuing my previous tradition of making entirely unofficial announcements before I am authorised to do so, I present to you the latest news from Shannon and the rest of the EuroDirect Network. Please remember that until it is announced in the Media Centre nothing is official. I just like to give some idea of the things going on behind the scenes and although I may not always be 100% correct everything here has at least some basis in fact...

7th September 2000 : Night of the Long Knives?

It is true. The senior management team of EuroDirect have moved aside to make room for the new, younger management team. Those departing include Paolo Patat, the CEO who brought EuroDirect back from it's hardest winter, Serge Lukic, the man responsible for the transformation of the Central European Division, and me.

Each of us are going to move onto projects that have been calling us for some time: Paolo is going to retire to China where he is involved in scientific research investigating the cause of turbulance on behalf of Airbus. Serge is making a long distance move to Shannon where he intends to start a winemaking and Global Positioning Display factory in an abandoned 757 and I am applying for Italian citizenship so that I can further my armwaving and shouting skills in order to persuade Boeing to have the production of MD-11s restarted.

I cannot promise that we will be gone forever and we will certainly be on hand for the odd chat at the forum. I will just take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support and name some of the people who have helped me:

Alan, Paolo, Antonio, Dan, Julie, Henrik, and Serge all deserve some special thanks.

From outside ED there are Bill Alderson, Helge Bast, Jim Youngken, Jens Borgstroem, Sami Puro, Saul Loebe and Esa Kaihlanen all of whom have helped and inspired me.

Finally I have to thank Rob, Simon and Jens for keeping the dream alive, and the pilots of EuroDirect (especially Trevor) for the taste of something fine!

12th August 2000 : Missing Manager Found!

Serge Lukic, overworked Director of the Central European Division has been found, after going missing from the Frankfurt Offices last Tuesday. Mr. Lukic was last seen en-route to Shannon to collect one of the refitted ATR 72 aircrafts for the Berlin Hub.

Mr Lukic was discovered wandering around in one of the hangers at Shannon, Virginia (rather than Shannon, Ireland) murmering "Könnten Sie mir den Weg zum EuroDirect-Büro erklären?" at passers by. Mr Lukic has been under a great deal of stress lately with the set up of the new Berlin mini-hub...

EuroDirect CEO Paolo Patat reasures me that this event has nothing to do with the appointment of Jens Gessing as a consultant at Frankfurt, although he has been considering offering Mr Lukic a promotion.

When I asked Mr Lukic if he was feeling any better now he commented "Bitte entschuldigsen Sie, aber könnten Sie mir den Weg nach Frankfurt zeigen?... "

1st August 2000 : Through the Keyhole...

EuroDirect CEO is currently in China enjoying a well earned vacation. In his absence I visited his offices in Milan and using my authority managed to get passed security (and the fifteen personal assistants) and take a look around...

First I should tell you that Mr Patat's suite of offices double as his place of residence while he is in Milan and that as a consequence there are some unusual features. We shall start with Mr Patat's personal office:

It is larger than most of the EuroDirect offices and is mostly empty. There are two very large pictures of Malpensa airport and there is a drinks cabinet (filled with fine Italian wines of great vintage which, of course, I sampled). A few moments after entry opera begines to play from hidden speakers.

Mr Patat's desk is very interesting. It is oval, made of glass and measures about 2 metres deep and 3 meters wide. There are no drawers and nothing is on it. Behind it sits Mr Patat's dicatorial chair which is very large. I gave it a try and I can tell you that despite it's comfy appearance it is very lumpy. It is also so high that it is difficult to get my knees under the desk and it keeps reclining to a very odd angle...

Beyond Mr Patat's office are a number of other rooms, the first of which is the bathroom which is very like other bathrooms except for a few features. First, it is very big, each wall is easily more than 10 metres long. Then, there is the large bath which is shaped like an Avro RJ, has enough gold plating to damage the world economy and has four gold taps. I played with the taps for some time but I could not get them to work. Finally I should mention the large stack of aviation magazines.

Now we move on to Mr Patat's bedroom...

It is almost as large as the bathroom and is dominated by a very large four poster bed. Next to the bed is a trampoline and a small desk with drawers (locked) and some papers on top. The paperwork mostly relates to an unpaid invoice for repairs to the trampoline. There is also an alarm clock - I notice that Mr Patat is clearly an early riser, the alarm is set to go off at 1100!

Moving further on there is Mr Patat's 'collection' room. It is here that Mr Patat keeps his fine collection of airliner seats. Here also is the flight simulator that should have made it's way to the new training centre but for some reason there is a 'fault' that Mr Patat would prefer to deal with personally.