A few years back I was working on the Flow Regulator position at West Drayton. I issued a slot time to a Lear Jet out of Gatwick. It picked up a considerable delay. French restrictions, too many aircraft etc. etc. The flight was being handled by Gatwick Handling. Their guy was very good. He understood the situation.
Then the pilot came on the phone and started to rant and rave at me. I tried to explain the situation. If I allowed him to take off it was likely that the French would refuse to accept him and would turn his aircraft back. He became quite abusive and asked me if I knew who his passenger was. I didn’t. He said it was Henry Kissinger, then the Secretary of State of the US of A and he had to get to Geneva. I said that he should have applied in advance for ‘Special Flight’ status and then we wouldn’t have this problem. He demanded to speak to my supervisor so I gave him the number to call. He never rang.
His tirade of abuse continued. I eventually terminated the conversation. About ten minutes later, as a result of an aircraft going tech, a slot became available and I could have offered HK an earlier slot. I thought, ‘Why should I ?’ So I rang up DanAir and bought forward one of their departures. Ok, not very professional on my part maybe but it made me feel better.
That evening I watched the TV news. HK got to Geneva in time for his meeting.
C.