thanks for your reply Hugh! I do appreciate that there was another side to the story, and there is always two. As the one fire truck goes, i have a photo somewhere that defnitely has 2 on it, and one of the newspapers did report three, but minor details.
I appreciate that i was only 11 at the time and the six years have perhaps taken their toll on my memory. You must understand that the passengers confidence levels at this point were incredibly low. We hadn't flown out with Excalibur, we flew Lauda, although some poor people had to wait for a Tower747. returning, if it had only been the problems you described then perhaps many more would have flown; but then it wasn't just that. After the mess with the outbound flights, and the general interior state of the DC10 (flickering lights, seats without tray tables etc. Anyway, just more details) passengers confidence levels were not what they could be.
As for the "ashamed to be british" comments then yes fair enough, but those passengers were no where vear the back, where the problems were. Again there was another side; a cabin crew member was interviewed @ MAN and said "if i had been a passenger, then i wouldn't have flown", other passengers also said they only flew because they had no other means of getting home. Also, on board, one cabin crew members had been blatently worried by the problems hersef. If the crew were worried, what were we supposed to think? Some passengers were agressive, yes, but we all got tarnished with the same brush, which wasn't fair, as some just were genuinely concerned for the safety of themselves and, more importantly, their families. My parents say that they perhaps would have flown on that DC-10 had it not been for me and my younger brother being present.
Anyway, i appreciate your posting. We were in no way 'out to get' Excalibur, or in no way just causing a fuss to get a free flight with VS, or even a few days in MCO (i'd rather be in my own bed than sleeping on MCO's check-in hall floor!). We flew with EXC upon recommendation (friends had flown A320), and from what I here they were a great airline, it is a shame things went wrong.
I hope everything went well for you, and all your colleagues at Excalibur, no-one likes to see anyone out of work, and that's not what we wanted, you must appreciate that.
Thanks again.
jmc757
Last edited by jmc757; 13th July 2002 at 12:39.