Russian Connections

We traded all over the world to keep the business alive, even Syria for a while, which caused a number of logistical issues, none more so than one memorable journey home.

Damascus airport was hardly JFK and the flight schedule seemed to be that flights came and left as and when available. You paid your money and you took your choice.

One particular day I had waited at the airport all day for something to take us out. We were told a plane was available and we boarded a bus to take us right across Damascus Airfield which is massive.

When I got to the plane I was struggling to take it all in, I had never seen a plane like this in my life and it didn’t look the best, on the floor by the front wheel of the plane was a large pool of what I thought was water.

I had a really uneasy feeling about this thing but I really wanted to get out of the stifling heat.

I watched as people started to climb on board the plane using the front stairs, suddenly, as people boarded the plane the nose of the plane dropped a few inches. I thought the heat was playing tricks with my mind so decided to just take another couple of minutes before I boarded.

A minute or so later the plane dropped yet again, this time to such a degree that as passengers got to the top of the gangplank, they were actually stepping down onto the plane!

I continued to look the plane over and realized it was covered in patches where makeshift repairs had been made to the fuselage and then I made the stark realization that the water on the runway was in fact hydraulic oil, probably from the front suspension, leaking out.

I asked a fellow traveler if he knew what sort of plane it was, “it’s a Russian Tupolev” he replied.

Now my shot nerves were completely gone. The Syrians we struggling to get spare parts to run their sewing machines so how did they get spare parts for their planes?

It is with great trepidation that I finally plucked up the courage to board the plane. As we were sitting there in absolutely blistering heat, shouts came up from the back of the aircraft that the seatbelts were missing or wrong. Some had the left belt but not the right, some had two lefts, some non at all. The whole plane was shambolic. The cabin crew had to move the belts around to get people totally sorted.

I started to work out the escape procedures and my heart missed a beat when I realized the escape hatch, which was designed to be remove and thrown out in case of an emergency was held in place using an old fashioned sash cord you used to get in old window frames!

Just when I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, I spotted an open topped jeep hurtling towards us across the dusty landing strip. The jeep approaches with speed and stops just short of hitting the steps. A really fat man, with a huge cigar and dirty green t-shirt gets off and walks towards the plane, giving it the old one-two as he does. 

The man walks up the steps, acknowledges the cabin crew with a nonchalant wave of the hand and heads to the cockpit, still puffing away on his big stogie.

It was the pilot.

By this stage I am so stiff with fright I think rigor-mortis has set in.

The engines fire up, the crew closes the doors and the pilot points the plane down the runway. He hits full throttle and the engines are screaming.

The plane rumbles on, the heat becomes unbearable but the plane doesn’t want to leave terra-firma. We are now rumbling away down the runway like a Russian battle tank in all its terrifying glory.

The perimeter fence looms large in the not so distance, I can see the guard post with a sentry, fully armed, monitoring our approach, and still the plane doesn’t want to lift up.

Just when we were about to hurtle through the fence, the front of the plane lifts just at the last minute and we are over. This is it, I thought, just a slight pull on the control column now and this thing is going to reach for the skies.

How wrong could I be, the escape hatch close to me seemed to be rattling out a demented SOS in Morse code as the plane never seemed to reach more than 1,000 feet. We seemed to hedge hop all the way to Larnaca with the plane moaning and groaning all the way there.

The plane eventually landed and we all vowed never to travel that way again.

Although we did trade with the Syrians, it only lasted about six months due to the problems with logistics proved too much of a burden, which is a real shame as they were wonderful people to do business with, couldn’t do enough to help and their hospitality amongst the warmest I’ve come across.

Yet again Flintshire’s commercial development team should be ashamed of themselves and sit back and take notice of how it should be done when trying to attract and maintain new sustainable business opportunities to the area.