747 bubble – silverfox175

Boeing 747 – the work horse of flying in the 1980’s

How something simple can grow & grow!

In 1986 I was asked to attend an operational meeting in London, to which I agreed.

I warned Maureen that I would be away for a few days because I was going to London.

Later it was decided that I should fly over to New York from London and see their office and how it differed from ours, and of course to meet the staff. Connections in the international transport field made the world go round.

Later that day I warned Maureen again that I would be a way a little longer than I first thought

The following day the GM said to me ‘After New York why not ‘nip over’ to San Francisco and see how they operate, and on the way back call in at Los Angeles . . . . . . then you can come home.’

That evening I informed Maureen . . .

I felt tired out just thinking of all the flying and the meetings. Some might think international business travel is romantic, but my itinerary was work, not a holiday, and the only foreign sites that I would see would be airports and airport hotels, because our business was air transport, so the operation of airports was my focus.

It was decided that I should fly British Airways rather than Qantas because BA was keen to increase our spending power with them through their cargo system.
British Airways knew that they could not compete for our OBC traffic (on board courier) because Qantas had the best timetable that fitted our requirements.

Some years earlier, being an ex-employee of British Airways, I had ‘done a deal’ with BA Australia for a particular product of ours that generated over 100,000 kilos of cargo a year. British Airways’ price per kilo encouraged us to ship our non-urgent traffic through them – but they wanted us to increase our traffic.

So why not spend money with BA passenger department which would keep Qantas on their toes if we appeared to be getting ‘close’ to British Airways.

Competition is great leveller.

I was booked economy by the company, but thankfully BA took pity on me, and I was upgraded to Business class from Sydney to London.

At that time video on demand from your seat was not available so a passenger had to make sure he/she had a couple of good books to help pass the time.

I was allocated a seat in the ‘bubble’.

The Bubble was an area upstairs at the front of the B 747 – some airlines created a bar area in the bubble, but British Airways at that time used it as a business class area. It was a quiet area and seating was limited.

  

This picture gives you an idea of the area. As you see there was a small screen at the front. The passengers had earphones and could listen to music or talks about various subjects. After the lunchtime meal had been cleared away a film would be shown and you could listen to the film via the headphones.If you had seen the film hard luck because the only thing you could change was the sound, you could not change the film. You could still listen to music if you wished.

In other areas of the aircraft a pulldown screen in each passenger area was used for passengers to view a film. The pulldown screen was much larger than the screen in the Bubble.