My old pal, Paul Stowe, of Stowaway Travel, tells me that he and his staff were all of a flutter recently when they opened their office one morning to discover four stowaways making free with the place.
And boy, what a mess they’d made. Well, if you’d ever cleaned out a bird cage, you’d know what I mean, for the stowaways in question were budgerigars.
How the little birds got there remains a mystery; Paul assumes they were sent air mail or pigeon post but says it’s little wonder they headed for his office. “If they were after tickets back to Australia, Stowaway Travel is the Aussie specialist for ‘cheep’ flights,” he said, to a chorus of groans.
With limited budgie-catching equipment available to them, Paul and the staff used brochure boxes to catch the birds before calling the RSPCA, who were as puzzled as everybody else as to how they came to be there.
“It’s a total mystery,” says Paul. “The only way into the premises was through the letter box as far as I can tell. I’ve heard of snail mail, but not parrots by post!”
Always a keen bird-watcher, though not previously attuned to the feathered kind, Paul has developed a new sympathy for the little birds.
“I’m twitching regularly,” he commented.
If anyone can shed any light on the matter, do give the good people at Stowaway Travel a call. The investigation is currently at the fledgling stage and further developments are eggspected.
One rule for some…
In the famous words of Sir Terry Wogan: “Is it me?” I know the older you get, the rosier the past looks from a distance, but I do recall that booking a package holiday was about as straightforward as it gets.
The client took himself to the airport, boarded the aircraft where he’d be seated next to his partner, served a rubbery omelette and a cup of dishwater tea, be met at the other end and transported to his hotel. Job done. At the end of the holiday, the whole thing would happen in reverse and a jolly good time would have been had by all.
Achieving the same in 2009 has become a series of choices, payments and possibilities for disappointment, as confusing for clients as for cabin crew and operators.
This was all brought into sharp focus for me when a client called in to complain that his family had paid for extra leg-room seats for both their outward and return charter flights. Not only had they not got what they’d paid for, but he, his wife and his mother-in-law were split up and allocated random seats on the aircraft.
Okay, so I’m guessing he wasn’t too unhappy at not having the company of his mother-in-law on the flights but he did seem pretty rattled at not having been able to sit with his wife.
What makes the failure to be seated in the seats he’d paid for more annoying was that the two passengers in ‘his’ exit seats told him that they needed to sit there as they were both over 80 and each had had a hip replacement.
And there was me thinking that those seats went to people fit enough to jump up at the merest hint of an emergency landing, ready to grapple with the doors-to-manual procedure.
Perhaps, as in so many areas of contemporary life, the sacredness of the emergency exit has been dumbed down. I took a flight not so long ago and was fortunate enough to be allocated the exit row – without paying anything extra at all.
Once we’d reached cruising height, a collection of teenagers shot out from various rows and created a camp at my feet. I watched as cabin crew struggled to make their way past them with trollies, and I can’t have been the only one to tire of their inane conversation over loud iPod music. As for ‘extra leg room’, I was in danger of causing a brain injury to a youth every time I crossed my legs without thinking.
Eventually, when it became clear that the parents had no intention of taking responsibility for them, I mouthed the words ‘safety hazard’ to the chief steward and the kids were finally dispersed.
I have a great deal of sympathy for cabin crew who have to match purchase options to passengers, but if we’re going to charge for exit row seats with leg room, the airlines have to deliver. Bring back numbered, pre-allocated seating and rubbery omelettes for all!
Maureen Hill works at Travel Angels in Gillingham, Dorset