Chapter 8: The World Is a Village

Sofia and I sat in the breakfast room, having a bite to eat before preparing to leave after two delightfully interesting days in her sister’s hotel. For obvious reasons I wouldn’t have minded a longer stay, but I had to get to Germany soon if I was to get started on September 1^st.

“Say goodbye to her in person, okay?” she asked me. “Esther tries to hide it, but you’ve made a much more lasting impression on her than she had expected.”

“Well, that goes both ways, really,” I admitted. “I don’t think we’ll be here for the last time.”

Sofia smiled. “She’ll like to hear that.”

“Be back in a bit,” I said and kissed her across the small table.

“Ian,” Esther said with a smile when I walked into her office, as if she hadn’t seen me in a while. She had actually crawled out of our bed just two hours ago, just like the day before.

“Just wanted to say goodbye,” I said and gave her a kiss. “We need to get going. After all, I want to be the proud owner of an airline in a few weeks time.”

“Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

Her happy facade definitely cracked a bit there as the shaky voice gave away that she was quite sad to see us leave.

“Don’t worry, dear, If nothing else, we’ve already decided on our favourite holiday location.”

That made her chuckle a bit.

“Be safe,” she said and kissed the daylights out of me. I let it happen and we were engaged in quite a tongue wrestling match until Sofia comically cleared her throat behind us.

For all the fun I had had, I was also happy to be back in Budapest. Sofia’s and Esther’s undisputable charms were of course delightful, but the freedom of the skies was still the best for me.

“Right, darling, can you leave your shirt on for these flights?” I asked her as Sofia got settled in the passenger cabin of the PC-12. “I’m alone up there for the last two legs and I can’t really afford any distractions.”

“I guess that means you don’t need a coffee?” she asked.

“I can grab one in Dresden,” I said. “It’s not even a two hour flight. I bet they’ll serve me one anyway when I drop by at the maintenance company to sign the deals.”

“Okay, I’ll be on my best behaviour,” she promised with a teasing smile. I gave her a kiss and left for the walk-around.

Takeoff from Budapest was much less hassle than trying to land there, after all they could just vector us off as soon as we were in the air. That way we weren’t in the way of any jets.

Compared to some of the flights we had done over the last week, this was a short one, but it was also a lot busier as we had to fly over Bratislava and Prague, which meant we crossed through very busy airspaces and that came with the resulting rapid-fire radio traffic on the ATC channel. This was why very few companies actually flew single-pilot flights, despite the fact that quite a few aircraft types were rated for it. Normally one pilot was flying and the other one handled the radio communication, but I had to do both.

When I finally landed in Dresden, I was feeling quite exhausted, despite this flight being so short. The additional workload had bitten quite a chunk out of me. I started to tie the plane down and kissed Sofia as she came down the three steps of the air stairs.

“Don’t be late okay? We’re leaving at sixteen-hundred.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not far from the airport,” she said and winked back at me with a smile as she left across the apron.

I finished my job and made my way to the FBO to pay our airport fees. I was surprised when I saw a familiar face there.

“Mark? What are you doing here?”

“Fred told me you were coming to Germany. We fly from here often enough ourselves, so we know all the guys around here. Wasn’t too hard to find out when they were expecting you. I thought I might give you hand. I doubt you have had much time to learn German yet.”

“Try not at all,” I said with a chuckle. “Thankfully Sofia speaks the language and my new personal assistant in Emden is fluent in English, I’m told.”

“Where is Sofia anyway?” he asked. “Wasn’t she supposed to be with you?”

“Know how they say sailors have a girl in every port? Sofia has a friend in every city by the look of it. I’m starting to think she was much better as a junior athlete than she lets on. She’s gone to the city to meet someone called Nicole who she used to compete against.”

The clerk had finally noticed he was having a customer and I paid our landing fee and the starting fee for the evening.

“Do you know some eatery or a cafe around here?” I asked Mark. “I could really use a Colombian bean soup now. Flying single-pilot was a lot more taxing than I had bargained for.”

“Dresden isn’t exactly London Heathrow, but there are some in the main terminal building,” he said and showed me the way.

“Great to see you flying again,” Mark said as we sipped our coffee, which was just what I needed to get my blood flowing again.

“Thanks to your Lydia, I’m told. Sofia said she gave her the idea how to kick my sorry, self-pitying arse back into line.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he argued. “You should have seen what state I was in when grandpa Ernst died two years ago. So, Fred said something about you starting an airline? Weren’t you supposed to take over your dad’s company?”

“No, at least not immediately,” I said and shook my head. “I’m to take over as the head of the European subsidiary. But I don’t plan to involve myself in day-to-day operations. I’ll be little more than some glorified management type on the board of directors. There are better people to run that business. I just need to hire them.”

“Not the worst approach,” he conceded. “So what’s that airline idea of yours? Surely you don’t want to cross swords with Lufthansa, do you?”

I chuckled. “No, I’m not that daft. We have a charter model in mind. Scheduled flights are something we might think about in a distant future.”

“So if we were to call you up to ask for two pilots, would that be possible?”

“If I have any with the correct type rating, sure,” I said. “What kind of ride do you have?”

“A little Dassault Falcon. Fred and Jack are actually flying it here, as their last flight before their license expires and they start working for you.”

“I take it you’ve arranged transport for them? I’ll need them in Emden soon.”

Mark chuckled. “Yep, your new personal assistant, who is also Lydia’s younger sister, will give them a ride to Emden. She’s at our place right now because our little one arrived two days ago.”

“Well, congratulations. Who of your numerous ladies is the mother?”

Mark laughed. “Fred asked me nearly exactly the same thing yesterday. It’s Nadja’s, but in reality she has four mother hens clucking over her, actually five. Jenny has adopted her as the little sister she had always wanted, and she’s the biggest mother hen of them all.”

“Your life certainly never gets boring,” I told him.

“Nope,” he agreed.

“I think we can work something out about piloting your plane, but realistically that won’t be before January next year. Since Fred and Jack are type rated, they can check ride other pilots.”

“It’s okay, we’re not going anywhere much for the rest of the year anyway. Lydia has a few marathons, but they’re mostly big city races, and she has usually flown to those commercially anyway.”

“Would you need just the pilots or cabin personnel as well?” I asked.

“Just the pilots. We all know how to work the galley. But the pilots would have to have a certain level of discretion.”

“That comes with the territory when you fly business clients,” I assured him. “I’m not going to hire gossip mongers. And your ‘secret’ is out in the open anyway. You even have a special edition of a glossy magazine to show for it.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Mark corrected me. “I mean more like, not freaking out when they realize their passengers aren’t wearing much. Fred and Jack always insisted that the pants stay on, but usually the tops come off quickly.”

“What do you think our passenger wore most of the time,” I said and chuckled with him.

“What’s with the insistence on keeping the pants on then?” he asked me.

“Safety reasons,” I explained. “It’s one thing to throw on a shirt when the pilot turns the seatbelt signs on, but you don’t have time to hop into your pants if he has done so because there’s turbulence ahead.”

“That makes sense,” Mark conceded.

“It’s the very same reason why Sofia’s idea of offering naked stewardesses doesn’t really work. Topless, perhaps, but not naked.”