LIFE IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES, YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOURE GOING TO GET UNTIL YOU BITE INTO IT.

Sorry to take a quotation from Forest Gump, but he was right. Life is uncertain and roads in life can take many detours. It seems that since I joined KLM, my progress had been a little rocky and was about to take another detour.

After several months of waiting for the transfer to Miami, I was asked to come into New York for a meeting with Luke Asjes. I was informed that Jack Bussian, the Miami Manager, had refused the transfer to Los Angles. He and the company could not come to an agreement over transfer benefits. I knew Jack pretty well; we had attended many company meetings and had participated in training session and outings together. He was a great guy and I know KLM considered him a valuable employee. The proof of this is that they kept him on as Miami Manager.

So, what was my future at this point? KLM was uncertain as to who was now going where? In my case they decided that I would become "Assistant Regional Manager for the Eastern Region that was comprised of the following areas, Hartford, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Charlotte and Atlanta. Each office covered the whole state or more. The Eastern Regional Manager was Peter Silton. I would have to work out of the New York office at 609 5^th Ave. Mr. Asjes was very apologetic and told me that this was just a temporary position until they got everything sorted out, and it was still possible that I would be sent to Miami as District Manager. He went on to say, they considered me an excellent manager and despite these problems, I had a good future with the Company. I was happy to learn that.

After the meeting with Luke Asjes, I went to the Regional office to speak with Peter Silton. During the conversation he asked how quickly I could find a place to live and move the family. I referred to my conversation with Luke Asjes that this was just a temporary position and therefore, I had no intention of moving the family to New York. This didn't sit too well with Peter Silton, I suggested that we go back up to Mr. Asjes office and come to some understanding as to exactly what my position entailed. Luke Asjes agreed with me that I would not have to move. I could come to New York on Monday and the company would accommodate me at the Edison Hotel, where KLM had a contract for accommodating crew members. Peter had indicated that he wanted me to undertake the supervision of those stations under the Regional office, and that this was going to require me to visit those stations and assist them with sales. Asjes agreed that as an executive of KLM I would be entitled to "Annual Passes" on domestic airlines. (There was an agreement between airlines to provide "space available" annual passes to management staff that had to travel on airline business.). After everything was agreed to, including expenses etc. I was driving back to Hartford dreading exactly how my wife was going to accept this new news?

Helen took the news pretty well. She didn't like the fact that I would be away from home all week, leaving her with 3 children to take care of, all by herself, and how long this "temporary" position was going to take. She was hoping it would still be Miami.

I had to wait until someone was appointed to take over the Hartford District. In about a week, I was informed that George Emory would be coming from Philadelphia as my replacement. When I closed the ticket office in Hartford I had rented a small two room office downtown on Asylum Ave. One room was my office and the other room was for storage of brochures and other promotional material. When George arrived, I turned over the office keys and turned over the company car. (All salesmen and District Managers were provided with a company car) George Emory was a good person; I had also known him from company events prior to this appointment. He was very competent and I felt good about the Company choice.

It was October, 1994 when I reported to Peter Silton. The Regional office was very large and in addition to Peter, his, soon to be our, secretary had a desk and a desk for me. We were on the fourth floor of the KLM building at 609 5^th Ave. The main floor was a beautiful ticket office staffed with uniformed staff in KLM royal blue. The 5^th floor was the reservations office where the staff sat in front of computers, headsets on, taking flight reservations from all over the USA. The Charter Department was also on this floor where all the charter flights were handled by a staff of six. Both the Reservations Manager and the Charter Sales Manager had private offices here as well. The accounting dept. was also on this floor. The 6^th and 7^th floor was rented by Martinair, another Dutch air carrier. The 8^th floor was rented out to The Netherlands Tourist office. The 9^th floor was our Executive offices and their staffs. The top floor was a large room that was used for company parties, large meetings etc.

Peter was a man of few words. His instructions to me were to visit our assigned districts on a very frequent basis, provide assistance to the local managers, work with them on their annual budgets, review and approve their expense accounts. Join them in visiting their local travel agents and commercial accounts. I was also to do an annual review on each manager, review it with them and submit it to him for their files. As far as he was concerned he would like to see me every Monday morning and a weekly report to him on Friday afternoons. Peter did not like to travel, and as I found out later, the local managers were happy with this.

Little did I know how long I would be in this job and how many other things I was going to be asked to do?

 

 

 

THE CHANGING MARKET

In 1963 the international airline industry was booming. All the big international airlines such as KLM, Swissair, BOAC, Lufthansa, Air France, etc. all operated under Civil Aviation Rules and Regulations. Actually, their rules included all airlines. In regard to the International carriers, they operated under reciprocal agreements between governments. The Netherlands had an open sky's policy which meant that any certificated airline was welcome to land and discharge or board passengers in Amsterdam. Most others bartered landing rights. In other words, if Air France wanted to fly into New York, they would offer the U.S. landing rights in Paris to Pan American Airways, and so on. Once they started flying into the U.S. they came under American Civil Aviation Rules. All air lines operating outside the U.S. also had to conform to I.A.T.A. Rules, which are the "International" rules governing air line operations. One of these rules was that an airline was forbidden to give away its service in order to obtain business. This did not preclude the payment of set commissions to Travel Agents, which were set at 10% of sales.

While all the airlines swore that they observed these rules, none that I know of, did. For instance, a Travel Agent would have a large group that wanted to fly and tour Europe. The agent was free to choose the international airline of his choice. He would contact his Sales Rep. for airline "A" and offer to book his group with them but wanted more commission than the 10%. If airline "A" refused, he would approach airline "B". As an example, he may eventually obtain an additional $25 per head plus a free seat or two for his tour leader. What would happen after the business materialized, an employee (most probably an especially faithful accounting person) would meet with the local manager and Travel Agent and pay him in cash for the business received. Some Travel Agents, especially the ones that had a very high number of ethnic travelers, such as Polish, Jewish, Greek, etc. could make many thousands of dollars under the table. The practice of airlines paying under the table money or free seats became so bad that the airlines Presidents convened a meeting that took place in Dublin, Ireland. They all came to an agreement to stop the illegal practice and pledged to enforce the rules with their world wide offices. This became known as the "Dublin Agreement". I'm writing this background information because of something that happened to me, and is an example to my children of what can happen in life that you don't expect.

As Manger of the Hartford office, the salesmen and I were approached many times by Agents and others for override payments and often complied to obtain the business. After the Dublin agreement I had a staff meeting and advised the salesmen that we could not participate in any more such practices. It was not very much later that I received a phone call from an Agent offering to book a very large group with me but wanted an override commission. I explained the Dublin agreement and offered to book his group however; I could not pay him any more than the standard commission. He said no and hung up. A few days later I received a phone call from my Regional Manager in New York. The Agent had gone over my head and spoken to him. He had agreed to the override. I asked him about the Dublin agreement and he told me that he had special permission to take the group and to go ahead with the booking. It was for a group that would be departing several months later.

The months passed, and the group departed and returned. The Agent called me and wanted to know when he could expect his override commission which was going to be a couple of thousand dollars. I contacted the Regional Manager who told me he would take care of it. A few more weeks passed and no payment. It was just about that time that I received a phone call from Margret, the regional managers' secretary. She would not tell me anything except that I was going to get a call from the new company V.P. and that I should tell him the truth and that this was very important. She would say no more and hung up. A couple of days later I received the phone call from Luke Asjes, the new Dutch head of sales for the U.S. operation. He informed me that a two day meeting was to be held in New York the following Tuesday morning for all management staff in the U.S.A. Since I would be attending the meeting he wanted to see me in his office on Tuesday morning prior to the meeting. Needless to say I was bewildered about what was going on.

Flying down to New York on Monday night, I was at the meeting with Asjes at 8am. Mr. Asjes asked me if I was aware of the Dublin Accords. I said that I was. He produced a company memo that was addressed to me and asked me if I had received the memo. I said that I had never seen it. He asked me to read it. It was a memo from my regional manager, in it he said that I had been warned about the Dublin Accords and that I had deliberately taken a group against his orders and he was holding me personally responsible. I told Luke Asjes that I had never seen the memo and that in fact I had taken the group on the orders of the Regional Manager. He told me that he believed me, that I should proceed out to JFK airport Hotel; attend the meeting that was to start at 11:30 with a luncheon. He cautioned me not to speak with my regional manager. Actually, The Regional Manager was not at the meeting. Although my room phone rang several times, I never answered it. The meeting went on for two days; it was an introduction of Luke Asjes as the new Sales Manager of KLM in the USA and plans for the future of the Company.

At the conclusion of the meeting, I found out what had happened in New York after I had left Luke Asjes office. I learned that his secretary, Margret, had typed up the memo and was instructed to destroy the original and place the copy in my file. He was then going to use this memo to fire me. I don't know why Margret turned that memo over to Luke Asjes. I really didn't know Margret other than to say hello to her when I visited the Regional office. When I found out, I thanked her profusely for saving my job. She would only say that she did not like dishonesty and couldn't work for someone who would do such an underhanded thing. I understand that after I left Mr. Asjes office, he sent for the regional manager and confronted him with the memo. He confessed what he had done and was escorted from the building by security and as a Dutch employee, sent home to Holland. I found out that Luke Asjes was not a man to tolerate lies. Incidentally, the agent got his payment. And there were no more breaking the Dublin Accords.

This is a very long blog but I don't think my children ever knew this event in my life and I don't know what the moral of this event is, perhaps, "if the company has a rule, don't break it, even if your manger tells you to" or perhaps it's "you are a very lucky person if you have a guardian angel you didn't know you had". It may also be a good idea to be friendly to everybody. You never know when you may need a friend. Incidentally, sometime later I received a letter of apology from Holland. He was no longer with KLM and asked for my forgiveness. I never replied.

 

KLM IN HARTFORD

Getting back to work after such a great family vacation in Europe was a very busy time. As I mentioned in the last chapter, I was now the District Sales Manager (DSM) for our Hartford office. I had to make many trips to the home office in New York, for budgeting, planning and meeting the top brass, along with and getting to know my Regional Manager, John Wold and the USA Sales Manager George Lambert, along with meeting the Vice President and General Manager for the USA Mr. D. J. Koeleman. Dealing with my own District was pretty easy as it was much the same area I had covered for Eastern Airlines. The major difference of course was that the revenue sources such as Travel Agents and Commercial Accounts were directed to Europe rather than the USA. I spent a great deal of time getting to know those Agents who had a lot of foreign travel, especially those who had a great deal of ethnic business such as Polish, Dutch, German, and other nationalities.

During my introduction to Mr. Koeleman the Vice President and Chief Executive, we were speaking about my time with Eastern Air Lines in Western Massachusetts. He asked if I was still living in Springfield, which I was. He informed me that as a DSM in Connecticut, I would have to move back to the Hartford area. In his rather thick Dutch accent, he said, our local managers have to live in the same State as their area of management. I was not a very happy camper to have to return home and tell my wife we had to move back to Connecticut. She was not exactly a happy camper either, but we packed up and moved on. This time I found a big English style home in West Hartford. It had a nice stream called Trout Creek that ran through the back yard. My son Kirby loved this as he could go fishing in the creek. Again, it was an old house with three floors, but it had a great location and looked very good. Of course, we painted, papered, repaired and restored. This was now our sixth home.

When we were in Holland on our family vacation I purchased authentic Dutch costumes for both Kathy and Karen. When the Hartford Times newspaper held their annual Travel Show, I got the girls to dress up in their costumes (wooden shoes and all) and distribute brochures in downtown Hartford. They were quite a hit and even ended up with their picture in the paper and a TV interview on a local station.

At this particular show, KLM was featuring my good friend Arthur Frommer, author of "Europe on five dollars a day". I had a great picture of the girls sitting on Arthurs lap and looking over his new book. Arthur Frommer is a great guy. He got the idea for the "Five Dollars A Day Books". While serving in Europe during WW ll. When he returned home he was sure that a guide book showing how inexpensive it was to travel in Europe resulted in a whole series of books on each country such as "Holland on Five Dollars A Day" France on Five Dollars A Day and so on. On one of my trips to Europe I took along his book and found that it was very accurate and I was able to find some very nice accommodations for that price. Of course that was in the good old days of the early fifties and sixties. I suppose today the book would be "Europe on $300 a day ".

I had a very interesting experience when I found that the 6^th World Sport Parachuting Championship Competition was going to be held on August 11^th to September 3^rd in Orange Massachusetts. I contacted the organization and found that participants would be coming from Russia, Poland, Holland, Germany etc. as well as the USA and Canada. I was able to speak with the organizer and talk to him about letting KLM set up a Charter flight out of Europe to bring in the participants. He agreed that it might work out and asked me to prepare a proposal. To make a long story short, we ended up with a Round trip charter flight out of Vienna to Boston. I had picked Vienna since the participants could fly from their home country into Vienna; board the DC-8 jet Charter which would already have the Dutch participants on board. This worked out fine and the organization bought the program. It was very interesting as I flew to Amsterdam and was on hand with the Dutch group in Vienna to welcome the other groups. The interesting part was that the Russians had to be the last to board the charter and insisted that they stand by the cargo door and watch their parachutes loaded and the door locked so no one could touch their chutes. I didn't fly with them to Boston but flew back to Amsterdam and then on to New York, pick up my car and drive home. A few days later I drove up to Orange and watched some of the competition. I was very interested in the Russian group and thought it would be nice to invite them to visit my home and see a little bit of Connecticut. At first they said it was forbidden for them to travel in the USA. I somehow got their leader (probably a KGB man) to agree to a one day trip and that he must go along as interpreter.

I had a good friend at the Travelers Insurance Company in Hartford. Their building had a tower that gave a good view of Hartford. He agreed to host the group for lunch and a visit to their tower. I rented an 8 seater van and picked up the group in Orange for the day trip. Travelers Insurance was a very good host and served a nice luncheon in their commissary. After lunch I drove them around Hartford and ended up at our home. The group came inside and toured the house. They had lots of questions and thought the garbage disposal was something they had never seen. Helen offered coffee and soft drinks and we were soon on our way back to Orange. I felt that I had done my best at international relations.