Another V.I.P. Movement

Another V.I.P. Movement
In a recent post I discussed how a certain VIP aboard Air Force One could foul up the entire hub and spoke operation of any given airline in a single afternoon.

To contrast that episode, I flew a trip the other night that had a different VIP in question. In fact that person would be onboard our flight.

As we sat parked at the gate in Miami watching our passengers board for the city of Port-of-Spain in Trinidad, one of our flight attendants came up and told us that the Prime Minister of Trinidad would be on board tonight. It was interesting that neither our gate agent nor our dispatcher notified us about this. You'd think that they would want the cockpit crew to know about a high profile passenger being aboard. Sometimes we're the last to know!

So then off we went with Mr Patrick Manning and his entourage aboard for the 3 1/2 hour leg to Port-of-Spain. As we pushed back from the gate, we could see only one local Miami police officer on the jetbridge waiting to make sure that we departed safely.

I've flown numerous celebrities and athletes around before and it's always curious to hear from our flight attendants how they behaved while inflight. Occasionally these passengers expect preferential treatment due to their celebrity status. And when then don't get treated as such, they can get ugly.

I'm happy to report that Mr. Manning behaved like the true gentleman that I'm sure he is.As we descended for POS, Piarco Control ATC facility handed us off to POS tower and asked us to say "hello" to the President. "Consider it done" we replied. Then after landing, the tower controller asked us to "give our regards" to the President!

Sounds like a popular President we both thought.

As we finished up our shutdown checklists and were putting the plane to bed for the night, we saw Mr Manning and his entourage heading for Customs and Immigration along with the rest of the passengers. It was as if he were just a regular guy!

We both found it a little unusual that a Prime Minister of a nation (no matter how small), would be flying aboard a commercial airliner. Perhaps that's their policy...I don't know.

It was an interesting contrast as to what must go on behind the scenes of an Air Force One mission. Our flight was just business as usual even though we were carrying a head of state onboard. An Air Force One mission must take some intricate planning and coordination. The security details must be endless.

I'll bet the food is better too!

Coincidentally, on the return leg to Miami the next day, we heard Air Force One calling in a position report on the radio. They were headed from Lima to Washington. Good thing they weren't headed for Miami again.



For a look at some more of my photos, please aviate over to Plane & Simple.