ON THE ROAD TO DUBROVNIK #55

Our road to Dubrovnik started in Amsterdam, where Rudy and I boarded a KLM flight to Zagreb, in what used to be Yugoslavia, in the days of Tito. Our plan was to rent a car in Zagreb and drive through the Dinaric Alps to Dubrovnik, which is located on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. The Dinaric Alps are not anywhere as high as the Swiss Alps, but are a continuation of the Swiss Chain. Zagreb is now the Capitol of Croatia, very near the Slovenia boarder.

Since KLM was paying for renting the car, it was decided that I would drive, a decision that I should have given a little more attention to. The route took us through what is now Bosnia Herzegovina. I would have to say that I certainly had driven on better roads, as this one twisted and turned through the mountains. I have always considered myself a good driver, but these roads had no guard rails; on top of this, it was raining. The car would slip and slide, and we came close to a nasty drop into the valley below. Finally we came upon a roadside restaurant that didn't look too bad, (and I needed to get my breath back); I pulled in so we could get a bite to eat. Neither Rudy nor I spoke Croatian and this was a very modest, local restaurant. When we walked in, all conversation stopped, as the locals stared at this couple of tourists. We managed to get a menu, which unfortunately had no English or Dutch subtitles. We had no idea what we were ordering, so we just pointed to an item that looked like it was something we thought would sure suit our purpose.

Lesson number one: never order anything that you have no idea of what it is. It ended up that we had ordered wild boar head. The plate that was put before me was one half of a boar's head, complete with one ear and one eye, which seemed to stare at me. The ear still had hair on it. I have to give Rudy credit, because he ate his. I'm sure the cook probably enjoyed mine, as I just left it on my plate. We had changed some money in Zagreb, so we paid the amount shown on the menu, left a more than a generous tip, and took our leave. We heard a lot of laughter as the door closed behind us. Thankfully, Rudy agreed to take over the driving. I'm sure that I had given him some white hair on a few of the curves, when I was driving.

It was late afternoon, when we arrived just outside Dubrovnik, since you cannot drive into the city, we checked into a local hotel on the outskirts. I don't recall the name of the hotel, but I remember that it was modern and had no doubt been built after World War Two. I was happy to see that it was a hotel that catered to the international trade. We had single rooms that were very comfortable, and had dinner in the hotel restaurant, that had an English menu. Walking around the hotel after dinner I was surprised to see that it had a casino; the casino was owned by the owners of Hurrah's Club in Reno Nevada. I'll tell you more about that later, we retired early as we wanted to see the city in the morning.

Dubrovnik was a city built during the Middle Ages. We learned that it achieved a great deal of its growth and development in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, when it was a major seaport and a center of trade; it was walled, to protect it from the constant threats by the Ottoman Empire and by Venice. There is no vehicle traffic within the city; the narrow cobblestone streets are lined with small shops and many quaint open air restaurants, that serve wine and local liquor to patrons at small tables outdoors, and in tree lined squares. The town is built on a hill; some of the streets are quite steep, others lead down to the sea and the old fortresses. Rudy had chartered an Epirotiki Line cruise ship that would carry the Auto Owners group between Dubrovnik and Naples. The cruise would go down the Adriatic coast, around the boot of Italy, into Naples. We were not able to see the ship, as Dubrovnik was not a port where it regularly called, except when on a charter basis. After a full day of walking and exploring, we retired to the hotel. Rudy wanted to visit Sveti Stefan the following day as he was considering adding this historic city as a day trip for the group while they were in Dubrovnik.

Sveti Stefan lies south of Dubrovnik, on the central part of Montenegro Adriatic coast line. It is a small island with a 15^th century fortified village named after Saint Stephen. It was built to defend against the Turks and eventually became a haven for pirates. The island coast line is only about 2 miles in length, but is connected by a narrow isthmus to the mainland. Nearby, on the mainland, there were two pink, sandy beaches. It was well worth the drive, and Rudy did include it as a day trip on the A. O. itinerary.

Back at the hotel, I found a note from someone at the casino who wanted to see me. I don't remember his name, but he was the Casino manager. I noted from the On the previous evening I had noticed that the casino was not very busy, and when I made my way to the meeting, there were only a handful of people at the tables. The manager was interested in why we were visiting the hotel, noting that I was with KLM. I told him it was an exploratory trip and that we were looking at the facilities with the possibility of bringing in some charter flights. At that point he wanted to know if I could promote gambling trips from the USA to the hotel and casino. If I could do that, he would pay me a commission of 25% of whatever amount of money the charter members lost. I was a little taken back by the offer, and told him that it was not anything I would be interested in doing, so he upped the offer to 50 %. I guess they were desperate to get players in that casino. I thanked him for his offer, but promoting that kind of business was not in my job description.

On the following day, Rudy and I drove back to Zagreb. We were to take a Yugoslavian Airline flight to Rome. That will be the next chapter of this saga.

 

 

 

 

 

THE BIG SALE #54

I was making good progress on my visits to the Regional Sales offices. As expected, the sales staff was reluctant to approach a potential charter client as they had never had any training in this aspect of air transportation. Thinking back to my years with Eastern Airlines, I recall a time when I was approached by someone who wanted to charter an Eastern aircraft and asked me how much it would cost. When I inquired from the company, I was told that the cost would be much higher than the per seat cost for a normal ticket. Eastern was missing out on a great revenue opportunity; they often had aircraft available that they could have been sold on a charter basis. They just didn't see this as a market. I guess that's just one more reason why they are no longer in business.

K.L.M. saw whole aircraft charters as a new market; I was fortunate to now be in charge of this market in the U.S.A. I started to set up a series of sales meetings and invited the regional offices sales staff to come to New York and participate. I created a "Charter Sales Manual" with the instructions on procedures, copies of typical charter contracts, and C.A.B regulations. I also had the agreement of Tubby Walker to spend an hour at each session to discuss C.A.B. regulations. The most important rule at that time was that all the passengers must have the same affinity, such as all participants actually being employees of a single company or members of the same clubs or organizations. It was not beneath the C.A.B. to send an inspector to the business, club or organization to check on the validity of the membership.

While I was District Manager in Detroit, I had been in contact with Auto Owners Insurance Company. They wanted to have a sales contest among the agents who sold their insurance policies, so they asked me to suggest a program that would involve a flight to Europe and a one week tour. I didn't handle hotels, land arrangements, etc, so I brought in Rudy Postmaa of Emhage Tours. Rudy was a good friend who had handled several other land tours for me; I knew his arrangements were always excellent. Rudy was a graduate from the University of Michigan. His family owned a large travel agency in Amsterdam, so after graduation, Rudy decided to stay in Michigan and open a branch office of Emhage Tours. This tour company still exists today under the name of Image Tours.

Rudy called me in New York and told me that Auto Owners had made a decision on an Itinerary by which we'd fly into Dubrovnik, in Yugoslavia, stay there for two nights, then board a cruise ship and cruise for two nights to Italy; they would then spend a couple of days in Naples, go up the Apian Way to Rome for three nights, and then fly home. This would make a total of 10 nights, including the overnight flight to Dubrovnik. Auto Owners was requesting a total of seven back to back charters. They wanted to charter the new Boeing 747 that carried 200 passengers. With a total of 1,400 passengers, this was the largest charter sale KLM had ever had up to that time. I flew to Amsterdam for consultation with the people in the Charter Department. Looking at the itinerary, there was a question as to whether the 747 could land in Dubrovnik. The single runway was just the minimum required. We brought in KLM's Chief pilot who decided that he wanted a test flight to be sure it was going to be adequate. The test flight was set up for the following day. I was granted permission to go along. We had several other passengers from various departments that went along. When I had been talking with the Chief Pilot I was telling him that I had a private pilot's license and, a one time, had wanted to get a commercial license. However, when I went in for the medical tests, they found that I was "shade blind" and could not get a commercial license. I'm not color blind, as an example, I can't see the difference between dark blue and black. You can imagine how happy I was when the Captain invited me to sit in the jump seat; the jump seat is a small hinged folding seat between the pilot and co-pilot. It was an unexpected privilege that I remember even today.

The test flight was without incident and, although the landing and takeoff used up the entire runway, the chief pilot gave his approval for the charter flights. I took the time to visit Emhage Tours in Amsterdam and met with Rudy's father. He was a retired teacher who used to organize student groups who then travelled throughout Europe. (My daughter Karen had been on one of their European student tours and she had a great time). Upon retirement, he decided to make tourism a business. It really took off and he had over twenty employees, both administrative and tour conductors. Upon return to New York, I spoke to Rudy and gave him the good news. He told me that Auto Owners wanted me to come to Michigan for a meeting.

Rudy and I met with Ralph Moulton, President of Auto Owners, and Max Tanner, their Vice President. I gave them the KLM flight schedule I had worked out. The first charter would be one way to Dubrovnik. This group would then travel via the land and cruise itinerary to Rome. The next charter would be from Rome to Detroit to bring the first group home. This charter from Rome would then pick up group two and take them to Dubrovnik, and so on. In other words the first charter would be one way, as would be the last charter that would bring the final group home. The other charters would be full in both directions. In this way Auto Owners would only have to pay for two empty legs at the empty leg rate. The other five would be at the full charter rate.

Rudy then went over the details of the land arrangements. Ralph Moulton wanted to add a gala dinner in Rome. The C.I.G.A. Excelsior hotel in Rome, where all the groups would be staying, had a special Roman theme dinner where all the participants dressed in robes, etc as they did in early Roman days. The hotel would provide all the material needed for the participants to make a costume. Rudy said that he would set this up. Auto Owners was very concerned that this program goes without any problems. The passengers were going to be the top producers for them and any unwanted problems would reflect on Auto Owners. Both Rudy and I assured them that both of us would check and recheck every detail including a dry-run to be sure everything went smoothly. I told them about the flight I had been on to Dubrovnik to check out flight procedures and airport facilities. They were pleased about that and said that if this proved successful, they would plan for more such programs.

Upon leaving Auto Owners, Rudy suggested that the two of us go over the entire itinerary together. I told him that I would have to clear it with the home office. When I got back to New York I spoke to Fritz Kielman about the importance of the Auto Owners business and that I had the promise of even more business if this program I had set up went off well. I asked him for approval of a pass for Rudy and his permission for me to accompany him. It was no problem, Fritz knew that Rudy was becoming one of KLM's top producing agents and he also wanted to see more traffic from Auto Owners.

In the next blog I will tell you about our trip.