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.
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