airsupport, you don't seriously expect anybody to believe the story that Abeles threatened McD and they backed down to him, do you???? Consider the relative sizes of the companies. McD could have financially buried Abeles in less than five minutes if they chose.
PS.... I didn't say they backed down to him, we were never told what they actually replied to him, just that they let him think he had won, then THEY arranged for the second hand MD80s from SAS, I guess without telling him. We understood at the time that they just took the easy option and avoided upsetting TNT, NOT because they were scared but guess it was better not to upset any big customer.
As I mentioned before we were about half way through the second day of our course at the time, we were sent home (not home to Australia but back to our apartments) for the rest of that day and one more while the Instructors altered the course to suit the differences between the New MD80s and the SAS MD80s, then we resumed the course, all thanks to Sir Peter.
