Apart from the Titanic, which inaugural trip went (horribly) wrong?
An aviation-related disaster was Gulf Air's inaugural flight programme to celebrate the arrival of its - only - BAC 1-11, back in the early 70's.
We decided that it would be a good wheeze to give lots of VIPs a good day out, take them to another State, host a festive lunch party in each State, then take them all back home again.
So, starting from Bahrain in the morning , we flew 70+ VIPs to Doha, where we picked up 70+ Qatar VIPs whom we took to Abu Dhabi, where we picked up 70+ Abu Dhabi VIPs and took them to Dubai, where we picked up 70+ VIPs who went to Muscat, where we picked up 70+ VIPs whom we took to Kuwait, where, guess what, we picked up 70+ VIPs to go to Bahrain.
The idea, of course, was to unravel the whole thing after lunch by going round the opposite way to take everyone home again. Simple, well-planned, a
PR triumph.
420 of the Gulf region's most important movers and shakers, Rulers, Sheikhs and business leaders, military brass, a few bankers even, well-entertained and happy, in an orgy of intra-Gulf friendship and mutual co-operation.
The morning flights went like clockwork, BAC 1-11 much admired. At the lunches, the orange juice flowed like wine, many lambs gave their all, perhaps even a baby camel or two was sacrificed to the Great God of
PR.
After lunch, everyone settled down to wait to be taken back home...........
...............................and waited...............
The BAC 1-11 had gone irretrievably u/s in Bahrain.
In those days telephone calls were booked hours in advance; the airline teleprinter network (what was it called?) was the main/only form of communication between Gulf States.
It took nearly 2 days to sort out the mess and get everyone back to where they started, many in a DC3. And hotel rooms were quite a scarce commodity in those days.