As France celebrated Bastille Day Monday July 14th with a German general of all people as Grand Marshall of the big parade in Paris, over at Air France the airline executive corps was revving up another heretofore unlikely scenario, the privatization of the airline. Just as the French people stormed the Bastille Prison in Paris in 1789 , ridding the country of the monarchy, soon this handsome group of executives pictured at CDG in 2002, will gain independence from French government control for the airline including Air France Cargo, now the world’s fourth largest provider of air cargo services. More info: www.airfrancecargo.fr.

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Bill Jones

     Ran into Bill Jones the other day, bjones@airlinelogistics.com. Bill Jones wrote us a nice note about our obit for Frank Fine, but that’s not why we are telling you about this guy right now.
     Once for a short period of time, maybe less than a year, Jones woke up as passenger station manager at JFK International Airport in New York, to the late Marty Shugrue’s valiant, if ill-fated attempt to raise Pan Am after the airline went down into bankruptcy and out of business in 1991.
     Bill was boss of the Pan Am station at JFK in New York, in the old National Airlines Terminal, the one designed by I. M. Pei, that now is home to Jet Blue.
     Anyway the “new” Pan Am carried the name, logo and air of excitement of the old, except that this rebirth, had no backup equipment to relieve the situation, when say at LAX or JFK, the old dog Airbus A300 B4s and B727’s being used developed problems.
     Often, what happened was that travelers were asked to await another airplane.
     Which also meant at times there would be a building full of agitated people impatient to go somewhere.
     But Bill Jones is a cargo guy who knows a lot about stuffing lower holds and ramping up services on main decks.
     Also cargo guys by their nature, are creative about customer service, especially the all-cargo ones who must deal with delays that are sometimes due to aircraft that are older than their mothers.
     Bill Jones had already figured out that one way to soothe the masses would be to hire a piano player and put him in the middle of the lobby of the I. M. Pei Terminal at Pan Am flight times.
     Bill got the idea one evening after a particularly tough day while having a couple shooters at a piano bar near the airport.
     In the beginning the piano was something nice.
     Here was this nice looking man dressed up elegantly in a tuxedo, tinkling away on a baby grand, while the airport muzak droned faintly in the background of the place, and people lined up to buy tickets and check their bags.
     Some passengers, even some UAL travelers from the counter nearby, would often stop for a moment to listen to the bright live performance piano music.
     One hot summer Sunday morning a certain PAA Clipper B727 bound for Puerto Rico pulled a mechanical.
     This time, with no back up, some passengers got incensed, jumped ugly and suddenly all hell broke loose.
     The piano player was playing furiously trying to calm things down before closing and locking up the action on the baby grand, just before running for his life.
     But here is where Bill Jones’ cargo training really helped the situation out.
     In a flash Jones jumped up on top of the piano where he waved free drink coupons around in the air calling for some order to be restored.
     As the disgruntled mob muttered and slowly walked toward the airport bar to redeem their drink coupons, Jones was on the phone trying to get the credit line on his American Express card increased so that he could keep the drinks flowing and the restless natives appeased.
     Courage, conviction and knowing what to do based on experience, that was our friend Bill Jones.
     It’s nice to hear that he is still out there.
     Bill makes the going great.