Newsstand - 'Air Babylon'

Hi, I am new to Flyertalk, and have just finished reading a book by Imogen Edwards-Jones, called 'Air Babylon', Now I am wondering has anyone else out there read this book and is still flying?!:D

Yup. And I've read the book Hotel Babylon and there are a few stories in that one I know where they originated and by whom.

Scary.

The mistake I made was reading it on the plane! If you can imagine. Let's just say from this time on I am taking my own food on the plane.;)

Thoroughly enjoyed it!

Have always been nice to check in/gate agents etc anyway... (wouldn't do their job for quids!) and it seems to have paid off with seat assignments, flight changes etc..

Having read the book I'm REAL glad I adopted that approach! :D;):D

I too have always been polite to the check in staff, I see no reason to be rude, and I must say there were places that had me falling on the floor with laughter, I mean some of the things that happen are just too damn funny for words. But some of the other things, just really made me think OMG!!!:eek:

Sounds like I want to read it. Can someone give me the gist of this book - what's it about ? Non-fiction ?

Here you go, this is an extract from the book, it is essentially a collection of true airport and airline stories, that are collected and written about as if having occurred all in a 24 hr time period at Gatwick Airport.

5-6am

Having spent the past ten years working for this airline, you'd have thought I'd have a better parking spot by now. Somewhere within the airport, at least, where I could park up in the short-term multi-storey and walk across without getting bloody rained on. But no. As duty manager, I'm one of the most senior employees my airline has working over here in the UK; I'm in charge of all that goes on in the airport and I am still parking my car at the bloody north perimeter fence along with all the other riff-raff.

And I've got a rubbish car. Well, everyone has a rubbish car if you compare them to the hardware the baggage handlers drive to work. It's like the forecourt of Jack Barclay out here. It's known as Jag row, although they aren't obviously all Jags. I can see a couple of shiny Audis, a BMW, a Lexus and a brand-new Merc glistening in the rain. Quite how baggage handlers manage to afford such glamorous transport on their wages is anyone's guess. But one thing's for sure: I won't be doing the asking.

I had a run-in with those boys a couple of years back. I found out they were watching the soap opera Neighbours on the TV instead of processing my lunchtime bags onto the carousel. They were causing chaos. I had irate passengers waiting for over an hour for their luggage. It was a nightmare. So I got their TV stopped and had my tyres slashed in return. A similar thing happened to a mate of mine. She was trying to broker a deal with baggage, knock down the quadruple overtime they get paid, change their working conditions a bit. She had her brake lines cut, she received threatening phone calls, and eventually she ended up being driven to and collected from work for her own protection. They are blokes not to be messed with. So now I know to keep my head down and not to ask too many questions.

It's still dark as I make my way to the bus stop and wait for the British Airport Authority courtesy transport to take me to the terminal. It's drizzling slightly. It's not enough to penetrate my clothes, but it sits on my shoulders like a dank cloak and makes my back feel cold. I stamp my feet slightly and scan the horizon for a glimpse of the dawn. In my job I can go for days at a time without seeing daylight. No wonder I have skin the colour of an avocado and red-rimmed eyes like a smack addict. I am supposed to do a five a.m. to three p.m. shift, but planes get delayed and passengers go crazy, and I'm not often out of the place until well after six p.m., when for half the year the sun has well and truly gone. Some days I don't even make it home. I check into a nearby hotel for a couple of hours, along with all the other aviation staff, then stumble back across the road to the airport. So you can understand why I am keen to spot just one ray of sunshine to get me through the day. That is, after all, why most us of got into the flying business in the first place. Sun, sand, sea and, of course, the glamour. It all seems rather ironic now, standing here, in the drizzle, waiting for the bus.

The queue is long. There are at least fifty of us waiting in a quiet, neat line. No-one is talking to anyone. Everyone is avoiding eye contact. I scan the group for anyone I recognize. I don't often find anyone. Well, there are some seventy thousand of us employed here and the whole airport has to drive to work. The public transport connections to this place are non-existent at this time of day/night, so none of us has much choice. A few of the locals manage to get here, catching the odd passing night bus, but other than that it's motors all the way.

I've got an old-school air hostess, or more correctly a flight attendant, standing in front of me. She's in her navy uniform, carrying her hat. She must be in her early forties but she is still slim and ramrod straight, sporting the hair-in-a-bun-and-pearl-earrings combination that used to be regulation some years back. You can always tell the old school from the new school by the way they are turned out. The old school wear pearls, tie their hair up and pile on the make-up. There used to be this rule that eyes and lips had to be visible six rows back, and they all still adhere to it. This one is wearing her high-heeled walking-through-the-airport shoes that make her hips swing as she whisks past the check-in. I suspect her flatter onboard shoes are in her wheeled bag.

The bus turns up and we all file in in an orderly fashion. It's weird, but on this journey, which I do every day, no-one ever barges past anyone else. The bus always fills up from the back and everyone takes their orderly place. It's like the most well-behaved school trip you've ever seen.

We travel to the terminals in silence. Our damp coats and warm breath quickly steam up the inside of the bus. I press my nose against the glass and try to look out. There isn't much of a view - giant warehouses, the Royal Mail sorting office, rows and rows of parked cars, the catering building that produces some ten thousand non-identifiable chicken dishes a day. The bus does the circuit of the terminals and my stop is last. By the end it's just me and the old-school hostess. We wander through the revolving doors into the building, into the glare of neon strip-lighting. She places her pillbox hat on her brushed and lacquered head and sashays off in the direction of some Far Eastern airline. I turn left, towards the five check-in desks that have been my domain for as long as I can remember.

Having been closed all night - there are no flights out of the airport after eleven p.m., and no flights coming in before six a.m. - the terminal is just beginning to come to life. Devoid of the usual throng of milling passengers, the place seems strangely empty. There are few signs of life. Two cleaners polish the floors, swinging their humming, hovering machines in ever more jaded circles, and various corpses stir on the seats and benches as I walk past. Tramps, alcoholics, Tube passengers who have fallen asleep and missed the last train home, airline passengers who have missed their flights and can't afford to stay in any of the nearby hotels - they've all bedded down together. Some are more semi-permanent residents: drug addicts who survive by selling discarded Underground tickets, students who have run out of money and need somewhere to crash for a few weeks, and petty thieves who dodge the police and pick pockets for a living. They say that an airport is like a shopping centre with runways, but I always think it's more like a city. It has the same facilities - its own police, its own ambulance crews, its own church - and it has exactly the same social problems.

Most FTers would enjoy reading this one. Written a bit more fictional than "Plane Insanity", and with a British twist. I just finished reading it last week and would be happy to pass along my copy to anyone interested.