First Leg

As an old bugger, I yearn for those days of flights where the passenger, even in economy class, was treated like a special visitor, not quite royalty, but "special".

The 90 minute flight from Manchester to Amsterdam in the creaking jumbo was an example, a hot breakfast was served and two rounds of free booze crammed into the short time, it didn't matter that it was early, a free gin and tonic or two are always welcome.

The flight from Amsterdam, which was leaving at 1400 hours, was with the now defunct Canadian Pacific carrier, flight YCXAB, we had another 90 minutes to wait at the airport which was quite different than Manchester.

I had never been to an airport with the range of shops that Amsterdam had, they even had a supermarket in there, and even more surprising, prices were reasonable.