Chapter 28: A Scary Approach

We had better luck with the approach back into Berlin-Tegel as we weren’t in anyone’s way this time. After dropping off Jens, we tied the plane down, because our remaining duty hours weren’t even enough for the short hop to Dresden. That’s why we decided to stay in a hotel after all. Jens had one of his people drive us to the hotel near the airport that Sofia and I had stayed in in the summer.

It looked like Jens was really liking his new role. We had arrived late in the afternoon the day before, but apparently he had done some extra hours. When we arrived to prepare for our flight back to Emden he greeted us with the news that both the Berlin-Erfurt-Nuremberg round trip and flights from and to Magdeburg were a go.

He was so fresh in his new role that he hadn’t even realised yet that as the COO for regional services, he had full authority to add additional routes to the ones mandated by the management. On the flip side, he would also be answerable to them if those routes tanked. After conferring with one of his IT people, who had studied computer science at Magdeburg University, he was convinced that academic circles alone would provide enough self-loading cargo to make routes to Düsseldorf, Nuremberg and Kassel viable.

I urged him to negotiate with the airport in Magdeburg before finalising that decision. They would at least have to reopen their tower. Flying regularly into an uncontrolled airfield was asking for trouble. Not every of the resident hobby pilots could be expected to have as much routine and experience as Martin, the local flight instructor.

We took our leave and after a rather lengthy wait for several incoming scheduled flights, the tower finally found an opening to let us take off for our flight back to Emden.

“You better take Jack with you on that one,” Fred told me one morning, just after Christmas. “Samedan is not the easiest approach in the world.”

“Where is that?” I asked and looked at the approach chart. It looked like more of a handful.

“Switzerland,” he replied. “Came in yesterday. Mark and his gang are travelling to a ski race in St. Moritz. You’ll have to take the all-business Dash. They’re having extra guests this time.”

“Is that plane still in Dresden?” I asked.

“Nope, we’ve stored her at Berlin. The ramp agents will reconfigure it from eco to all-business and two of the new pilots will ferry it to DRS in the evening.”

“I take it you’ve provided a hire car too for the drive back to Berlin?”

“Nope,” Fred said with a chuckle. “The poor fellas will get a taste of Nadja’s driving.”

“As funny as it is, we shouldn’t make it a habit to rely on Mark’s people for rides. Bea has a hard time to fit it into the tax reports. It’s easier to just rent a car.”

“We didn’t even ask,” Fred defended himself. “They called us. We’ve flown them often enough and they know we usually have to shuffle some planes around. If you ask me, Nadja just wants to take a ride. She didn’t get much chances at driving since she had her first two car races in the fall.”

I shook my head with amusement. I definitely would have to have a talk with Mark about it. Personally I didn’t mind, but German tax law disagreed and I didn’t fancy incurring a fine or worse yet, ending up in court for tax fraud.

I went over to Jack’s office to get briefed on what the deal was with that Samedan airport.

I landed the Pilatus at Dresden, seeing that our Dash-7 was already being prepared by the ramp agents. Since it had twenty seats in an all-business layout, regulations required a flight attendant, which was why Ira was back in the passenger cabin waiting to start her shift.

When we walked into the FBO’s office, our passengers were already waiting. Mark, Regina, Nadja, Femke and Lydia were to be expected, but this time there were two more people. A woman named Ilka, who at a guess, was about Regina’s age and a rather young fellow called Mario. He looked sixteen at best. From the way he and Ilka interacted, it was clear they were an item.

Well, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, I thought to myself. There were millions of guys with much younger girlfriends, and in this case it seemed to go the other way.

Since this was not a scheduled flight, which meant there were no security queues and passport controls to go through, the boarding was a rather swift process. Normally Ira wouldn’t give the safety presentation, after all we had flown the lot of them at least a hundred times by now, but with two first-timers on board, we played it safe and she performed the presentation, if perhaps not with the over-the-top acting you sometimes see on commercial flights.