A HARD DECISION MADE #63

C.I.G.A's desire to employ me came as a surprise. I honestly believed that our earlier conversation was just that, a conversation that would not lead to an offer of employment. In a way I was a little sorry that it had come to this. I felt very much at home in the airline industry and I don't believe I would have looked at making any career changes. However, since the offer came unsolicited and included a substantial salary increase, along with the fact that I was very familiar with the nineteen hotels that made up the chain, it was a very interesting offer.

I had a few questions that needed answers, such as length of the employment contract and provisions for salary increases based on production and cost of living. I called Dr. Scialenga in Italy and we discussed the contract terms. It was decided that the length of the contract would be for 3 years and renewable every 3 years. There had been no salary adjustments for cost of living. I asked that a cost of living increase be added each year, based on the U.S. cost of living index. He agreed that this would be added. There were also productions bonuses that we still needed to sit down together and set targets for. Everything seemed to be in order, but I was having difficulty in making up my mind. I decided to consult with Charles Bulterman, who held an important executive position with KLM and had become a very good friend, someone that I was sure I could trust. His stepfather was Albert Plessman, the founder of KLM. It was Charles brother Dolf, who had prompted me to test for a position with KLM. Dolf was the District Manager for KLM, in Boston.

Charles prompted me to stay with KLM; he said that I had a secure position with the company, that from his personal knowledge, I was well liked and very well trusted. He said that KLM could not match the financial offer of C.I.G.A., but who knew what the future might hold. After a couple more sleepless nights, I called Alberto Scialenga in Italy and told him that I would accept C.I.G.A's employment; he said that he would make plans to join me at the law offices of DeFalco and Field in New York a few days later, to sign the contract.

A few days later, Charles asked me to join him and his wife for dinner; I guess he had been talking to his wife about my leaving KLM. I did join them for dinner and, as expected, they wanted to convince me to stay with the company. He informed me that the head of the Reservations Department was leaving and that he thought they could combine the Charter Department and Reservations Department with me as its head. I felt like a traitor when I informed Charles that I was going to leave and later, I gave him my letter of resignation. He took my resignation as a personal betrayal and our relationship more or less ended. I was very sorry for this as I liked Charles very much. He had always been a good friend. Word of my leaving spread very quickly. Tubby Walker, Luke Asjes, and many others came to my office to tell me they would miss me, but that they wished me the best of luck. I had given two weeks' notice. Just about a day or two before "D" day (departure date) KLM surprised me with a farewell party. There must have been about one hundred people in attendance. Several District Managers flew in, most home office personnel, all my charter staff, and even Fritz Kielman, head of KLM U.S.A. attended. They presented me with a set of crystal cocktail glasses and a card signed by all the head office staff in the USA and even a few from Amsterdam.

Perhaps, if I had known about the Reservations Manager leaving, I might have stayed. However, I had decided to leave, and for better or for worse, I was now stuck with my decision.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE PREASURE BUILDS #62

Although I felt that I would not hear from C.I.G.A. again, after my conversation with Alberto Scialenga, I couldn't help but think about it. I guess you would say that I was somewhat flattered by our conversation. That didn't last long; Tubby Walker, KLM's legal head, called me and asked me to accompany him to Washington, where the Civil Aviation Board was going to hold hearings on relaxing some of the rules regarding the chartering of aircraft. With the increased capacity of the large jet aircraft it was not easy to charter an aircraft to a company or group and expect them to fill over 200 seats. The airlines wanted the C.A.B. to allow "Split Charters", the idea being that the seat capacity affinity could be split between two companies or groups. Each group would still have to have an affinity, but you could charter one half of the aircraft to each one. The legal departments from each airline, and Charter Managers like me were in attendance. All were in favor of the rule change. The C.A.B. agreed and would issue a rule change.

As soon as I got back to New York, I advised all our stations of the change, and asked them to contact all their travel agents in their district with the news. I personally contacted a number of travel agents with whom I had a personal relationship in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Michigan. It was only about a week later that one of my old Connecticut agents called me to ask if he could charter a 747 aircraft on the split charter basis. After checking with Tubby Walker, who said that it was OK to do it, I told the Agent to go ahead. I called George Emory, the Hartford DSM, to set up a meeting with that agent and that I would go with him to take the charter contracts for signature. You will recall that George Emory had taken over my job in Hartford, when I went to Detroit.

At the travel agency, I asked to be shown the documentation that would guarantee that the two groups, the "John Boyle Society" and the "Polish American Club", were legitimate affinity organizations. The last thing I wanted was to have a C.A.B. investigator check after the fact and find any cheating on their membership. Satisfied that they were legitimate, I had the agent sign the charter contracts. A few weeks later, the charter departed out of Hartford.

It was just a few days later, upon my return to New York, that Fritz Kielman, the V.P. of American Operations, stormed into my office and demanded to know why I had operated a split charter without his permission. I was quite taken back. I had never had to have his permission to do my job, and said so. He said that this charter was the first one to operate under the new rules and that KLM, as a foreign airline, did not want to be the first to do so. I told him that I had no idea that this was his wish. As far as I knew, KLM had every right to perform a charter once it was approved by the America Civil Aviation Board. He said that it was a matter of courtesy to the American flag carriers that they are the first to fly under the new rules. (Although I didn't say so, I felt pretty good that I was able to be the first.) I had cleared it all through Tubby Walkers office and had his OK, so I guess Tubby didn't know either.

Just a note, Fritz Kielman was a Dutchman through and through. He was a big game hunter and often hunted with Prince Bernhard, husband of the Dutch Queen. As many times as I flew across to Holland in First Class on the same flights as Fritz Kielman, he never invited me to sit with him. That's very much European. I had already observed in Amsterdam, at the home office, that if a small group of employees were waiting for an elevator, they would get into the elevator by rank. If the President was there, he would board first. The rest, boarded according to their management level in the company. That's just the way it was.

It had been almost two months since I spoke with Alberto Scialenga, from C.I.G.A. and I assumed that he no longer had any interest in pursuing what we had discussed during our dinner. Therefore, it came as quite a surprise when he called and asked that we have dinner again. He had to return to Rome after our last dinner together and was just now getting back to New York.

I had already made arrangements to fly down to Aruba for the weekend. The manager of the Aruba Caribbean Hotel had invited me. This was one of my favorite hotels in the Dutch Antilles. I was flying down on Thursday and would not be back until Monday. Alberto agreed that we should meet on Monday evening after my return, to New York.

I had a great time in Aruba. The beach at the hotel was beautiful; it was called Miami Beach, but the similarity stopped there. The sand was snow white and the water as clear as the deep blue sky. The water was very salty as the Island got its drinking water from a desalinization plant. The salt was then returned to the sea, which led to very high buoyancy; it made swimming easy. The beach was rimmed with native Divi Divi trees, a unique tree to the ABC Islands, where the tree top lays horizontal to the ground in the direction of the prevailing winds. The beach was dotted with multi colored umbrellas to provided shade and "Beach Boys" stood by, ready to bring you a cooling drink or an extra towel. It was hard to leave all that beauty and get back to the reality in New York. Now that I was alone in New York, I tried to get away to Florida or the Dutch Islands as much as possible. Curacao Island was another Dutch favorite; I remember even today, the great time we had when I took the Kathy, Karen and Kirby there in the 1960's.

Dinner with Alberto was quite more than I had anticipated. He wanted to hire me to be President and Director of Marketing for their C.I.G.A. American Division. I would open an office in New York and staff it with reservations agents and sales staff. Later on, we'd open offices in Chicago and the West Coast. Eventually, they planned to expand into South America. The salary he offered was about $20,000 more than I was making at KLM. We talked about office budgets, contracts, expenses, and more. We spent more than four hours together with questions and answers. I left him with the promise that I would give it every consideration. Since he was returning to Italy the next day, he gave me his telephone number in Rome and said that he would be back in about two weeks. He wanted to know what I thought of his proposition. I told him that it certainly was interesting, but I needed time to think it over very carefully, as I would be giving up 13 years seniority with KLM and almost 40 years in aviation, which made me feel that I had a level of job security with KLM. I felt that I had grown up in the industry as it went from 21 seat DC-3's to giant Jets carrying 200 and more passengers.

I had a very sleepless night that night, and many more to follow.

TRAVEL CONTINUES, BUT CHANGE IS IN THE WIND #61

I hope you enjoyed reading the last blog about my trip to the Philippines, but let's get back to 1973. It seemed that my travels became more, rather than less; Amsterdam seemed to have become my home away from home, as I was there almost every week. Fortunately, being able to fly first class made it very easy. K.L.M.'s Royal Class was one of the best, if not the best, of all the North Atlantic carriers. I flew most of them at one time or another as they gave me first class passes when I requested them. K.L.M. gave all Royal Class passengers a small miniature Delft China Dutch house filled with gin. There was a complete collection of about thirty. We often had people call, asking where they could purchase a house to complete their collection. They were never for sale; a person had to actually fly Royal Class to get one. When I left KLM I had about 50 or 60 of the houses. I believe Kathy has some of them and I still have some as well. They have become a collector's item, and I have never tried to sell any of them. Sixty houses represented that many flights over the North Atlantic, not counting all the ones I had taken on other airlines besides KLM.

The Dutch people that I met over the years were outstanding. Many times, while I was in Holland, I was invited to their homes for dinner, and I got to meet their families. The Dutch, KLM employees I worked with in the USA, became friends that are still friends even today. It was unlikely that I could get a promotion to a higher position than the one I currently held, because all higher positions were traditionally held by Dutch employees. Still, I enjoyed my job and was very happy with what I was doing. Little did I know that there might be changes ahead.

In 1974, I received a phone call from Tony DelBalzo of C.I.G.A. Hotels. He said that he and Dr. Alberto Scialenga were in New York, and would like to see me. I was surprised to hear from Tony as I had not heard from him for a couple of years. I made a date with them to meet that evening at their hotel, for a cocktail.

That evening, over our cocktails, Dr. Scialenga was very warm and friendly, recalling the Auto Owners incentive groups and the importance of that business to C.I.G.A. Hotels. Soon, he got down to why he wanted to meet with me. He said that C.I.G.A. was very unhappy with H.R.I. (Hotel Representatives International), the firm that represented them in the U.S.A. They had decided that the solution was for C.I.G.A. to form a U.S. Corporation to handle all marketing, reservations, and sales in house. Their long term plan was to expand the hotel chain into North and South America. In conversations with some of their top hotel managers and a few of their travel industry friends, my name had come up several times as someone who could accomplish that plan. He told me that a couple of other names were on the list and he wanted to speak with them, but for now, he just wanted to know if I had any interest in becoming part of the project. I told him that I was very happy with KLM and enjoyed a good reputation with them and the travel industry. He said "That's why we're interested in you". I said that my interest would depend on a lot more information. I might be interested, depending on what C.I.G.A. would propose. He said: "I'll take that as a yes, and I will be in touch with you in a week or two after speaking with the two other prospects. Right now, let's have dinner together at Romeo Salta's". We had a great dinner and I must say that Alberto was an interesting dinner companion. He was married, had three boys; two of them were in a Military school, and the other was just a couple of years old. Alberto spoke perfect English and had worked in the USA at one time. He was the European Marketing Manager for the entire C.I.G.A. Italian chain of nineteen super deluxe hotels. I liked him very much from working with him in Rome on the Auto Owners Incentive trip. However, to be truthful, I didn't expect to hear from him again.