Before it slips out of my mind, I thought I must write some thing about an extra ordinary colleague of mine. He has been working in our company since its inception in 1985. In fact, it was quite recently during a business trip to Tunis that I found out he was a the Flight Purser of one of the two very first flights of the airline on October the 21st, 1985. He has served on the flight from Dubai to Karachi on that day. Telling the story of that 1st flight, he said "The give-aways on that flight were 24 carrot gold plated key rings and when I walked in the aircraft cabin to distribute give-aways, none of the passengers wanted them and they were refusing…." They didn't want to accept these 24 carrot gold plated key rings as they were so afraid of their local airport customs that they would impound them on arrival…."
He also shared with me about a dinner that him and another few first employees were invited by the Chief Executive of the company. In that dinner, the Chief Executive of the company, then has said about how the company's route network would look like in the future, talking about all sorts of destinations like Colombo, Manila, Singapore, Hongkong, London, Paris, North America…. Looking at where we are now, as one of the world's fastest growing airline, it is amazing, the vision of our Chief Executive during those early days, has now become a reality ! Most certainly, untiring efforts of all those who were part of those early days in setting up the vision and making things happen had contributed to the growth and success to the organization. In that, my colleague Ibrahim Issa has always been one of them.
I have to say, it has been a privilege to being able to have him as a wonderful colleague and a friend! As I go along which would think a long one in writing and posting about my life and career, I hope to be able to write more stories from Ibrahim about the airline's early days.