The in-flight service seems to have changed since last month!!
Video: Katherine Jenkins sings to troops on plane after Afghan trip cancelled - Telegraph

and this also proves that unless things have REALLY improved, that is NOT a VC10!!:ugh:

(Nice to see the ATSY are still enforcing the 'no mobile phones to be taken into theatre' rule!!)

If the movers can't count up to 160, what will happen when the A330's arrive? :(

Is that clever laser, as in technology, or clever loser, as in Mover? :oh:

Thinks of Brian Hanrahan (RIP)

I cannot say how many people were on the VC10but I counted them all out and then counted some extra when they came back again

In this season of goodwill - how about giving credit where credit is due?
 

On 19 Dec, Brize Norton and most UK airports experienced some of the most severe pre-Christmas weather for decades.

The task faced by all airports is similar - get passengers moving on time – but as the UK end of the Afghanistan Airbridge, the task facing Brize Norton was more personal – get TROOPS home for R&R at Christmas.

Working in temperatures of -15C to get and keep the airfield clear of the 15cm of snow, Brize Norton opened 7 hours earlier than most international airports
Off-duty shifts were called in and leave was been cancelled in all but the most exceptional circumstances.
Facing a backlog of almost 600 soldiers, sailors and airmen the Station rescheduled almost a dozen flights to produce a plan that should get all the troops home for Christmas.
The last passengers from Afghanistan will be in the UK on the afternoon of Christmas Eve.
Regrettably, many people have been delayed but the Movements Team in Afghanistan has prioritised travel on a case by case basis. R&R passengers have been put at the front of the list and shorter-term ‘visitors’ will be recovered on the later flights.
While keeping the Airbridge open, the personnel at Brize Norton have also:
Recovered almost 100 troops conducting vital pre-deployment training overseas.
Maintained support to the UK’s quick reaction alert.
Mounted an AeroMed flight which involved the civilian police escorting one of the surgeons to the aircraft.
Personally I think that's pretty good!!!! :D

Having not been at EMA to witness the Movers first hand. I would take a guess there was not as much free hand control afforded to the RAF. Has no one experianced the problems of getting pax to flight, from Hotel when down route (EMA might as well be classed as that, Anyone actually worked threre, Security is aBIG word there and it takes a while to get anything and keep it airside). We seem to forget how lucky we are when operating from home ports. How many extra security checks do you undergo just to get airside at your normal work place. As for Pax counts, the ALM also does a head count and that would not impose a massive delay if wrong (you only have to count the empty seats!).

My youngest son lost three days of his leave due to the Tri-Stars going tech in Cyprus, he and about 300 hundred others were camped on the perim of Kandahar, with the RAF totally knackered seems a total load of Boll.ks to run aircraft of that age( are they ex Freddie Laker) when the nation needs to keep an airbridge working every hour of every everyday to bring back more serious people. Then they are told Pilots need to rest after flying in from Cyprus, what sort of plonkers are running that side of the AF

the Yanks always seem to do it right for their Military, when we are supposed to boast of the finest fighting force in the World, has someone at the head sheds house, forgotten we need better busses, If we as a Nation cannot do any better, then we should withdraw from all theatres and have a Boarder Defence force only to work entirely from and within our Country, stop all this wetdream stuff for the Polititians, or better still send those political morons to sort it out with their mouths, and keep our underequipped miltary at home.
Shambolic is the word to describe all this..!

Peter R-B

Agatha, makes the comment that R&R people were put to the front of the list, that is a total load of ****e the RAF regiment who were going home for good, took priority on the one A/C that landed in kandahar despite being asked if they would swop for Infantry already late and eating time from their R&R, booking in and seat numbers were sorted out by two Army Majors and 3 Captains, who listed long hand everyone who was a priority and wrote out the loading lists, the sort of crap being fed back to you Agatha is WRONG.

Peter R-B

But that nice Mr Cameron said everything would be alright and our Forces have lost none of their capability.

Makes ME wonder who he thinks believe him or a word any other politician says.

Look at Wikileaks again, there is a lot of invertebrate literature there too.

I see everybody is very quick at blaming the RAF for this latest debacle!

There is only one culprit and that a succession of governments that the British tax payer has voted into power which have repeatedly under funded the military.

Its time the British public realised how badly the government is letting its troops down.

Some of the billions we waste on overseas aid would be better spent at home.

Procurement creep, surely?

I recall a confident announcement in 1996, when were told by MoD that the VC10 and TriStar would be out of service "in the next 10 years", to be replaced by some 25-30 'MRTT' aircraft (A310MRTT or B767-200ER were the favourites).

Mind you, we were also told that the in-service date for 25 x 'FLA' (which became A400M) was 2004....:\

Now 14 years later, the poor old VC10s and TriStars are still struggling on, there are no A400Ms in service yet (and their numbers have been cut), the '25-30' MRTT have become 14, of which only 9 will be in regular use....

And we thought that it was bad when they binned 99 and 511 all those years ago...

Hope the poor buggers in the Great Sandpit get home for Christmas!

Do we still have a crew at KAF as part of the slip pattern to take the outbound aircraft?

PTC - REMF - Yep.

Just curious, if they are the off going crew and there was a crew to take the aircraft back , why would the pax be told that the crew needed rest? Surely they would go straight into crew rest handing over the aircraft to the crew who had been at Kandahar?

The last 2 times I've been on a trooper into East Midlands we taxied straight to the cargo terminal, walked off the aircraft, straight onto
MT coaches at the bottom of the steps and swept out of the airfield gates for a quick journey home. No sign of any movers or customs or security checks or H&S knobbers.

Mind you this was courtesy of the French Air Force and their excellent AT squadron and their Airbuses various.

Embarkation on one of these flights was being held up by the UK Rozzers we had to have with us, doing a bag check. FAF Captain strolls up, "they are all military yes?" er yes, "then get out of the way and let them on my aircraft so we can get moving".

Comfortable. Efficient. Crew and cabin staff in smart uniforms not overstretched growbags. Fine food for all. No one dicking about pretending to be LHR security through their own deluded sense of self importance. On time, fully serviceable, and not covered in bits of dayglo with the details of whatever ADF the broken bit of cabin was snagged as. A very model of military AT that we could do much to aspire to.

Peter RB,

The US does better than the UK because it spends 4% of its much larger GDP on Defence. In fact the US spends more on Defence than the next 25 largest spenders put together. The RAF still has ageing Air Transport jets because the last government did not increase Defence spending at a time of war. The Services could not afford the additional costs of the War in Afghanistan and modernise its forces at the same time. Finally, the Treasury has always insisted that defence contracts go to UK or European Comapnies even when there is a cheaper alternative somewhere else.

The RAF people you keep having a pop at have worked bl**dy hard over the last week to overcome technical and weather problems that nobody else would have overcome. If you represent all the thanks that they get - I doubt they'll bother again. Fortunately, most sensible troops do recognise the problems and the effort expended and will be grateful when in the end they get home for Christmas.

Flew back after 6 months in the desert last week, thank you for getting me home, even landed about 10 minutes early. Shame all the money in the 80s was spent on tanks, that is why they are still flogging around in old airliners, doing a good job in my opinion, for what it is worth:).

Yeah I have to say the last 2 posts are spot on. People work damm hard to do the best with what they have got and some jumped up arse like David Blunt criticises.
Yet again the story has just made the RAF look unproffesional as usual thats the more damaging, Joe public dont care about underfunding and political **** ups, they just hear the troops have been let down by the RAF.

I totally agree the RAF made out as scapegoats. This was a civilian charter operating out of a civilian airport handled by a civilian ground handler. There would only have been one or two movers probably RLC to assist with escorting the pax from BZZ and getting weapons and baggage through the very strict airport security. So Mr Blunt if you want to blame someone speak to the CEO of the airline operating that leg not the RAF!!!

Not one complimentary comment for Katherine – just goes to show the half glass empty mentality. How sad.:(:(