John Delach

This is an edited edition of my piece about this trip that I made in December of 1983.

I received two important invitations requiring commitments for early December of 1983 that conflicted with each other. The first was from Exxon asking me to speak to their Pacific Rim insurance executives at a conference they were arranging on a Wednesday afternoon in Singapore. The second was to attend the wedding of a woman with whom I had worked at the Westchester Country Club the following Saturday evening.

Everything being equal, I thought I could attend both without a problem, but another wrinkle was added. One of Exxon’s executives was from their Malaysian affiliate, EPMI. We were also the insurance broker for this profitable, though troublesome account that roughly equated to dealing with a recalcitrant teenager. Knowing that I would be in near-by Singapore, their man from EPMI demanded that I also schedule a visit to his base in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. K.L. is about the same distance from Singapore that Boston is from New York so distance wasn’t a problem. But I couldn’t leave Singapore until Thursday morning and would not be able to leave K.L. until Friday afternoon.

It looked hopeless, but I chose not to surrender. I took home the airline guides and studied them on the train. My company rules, quite loose in those days, allowed for First Class for a trip of this distance. I studied the guide and realized this could be done thanks to this being a First-Class trip that would include an upgrade to the SST, Concorde. By going via London and beginning and ending my trip on the fast bird, I could leave JFK on BA-Flight 1 on Monday morning, arrive in Heathrow that afternoon and catch a Quantas 747 to Singapore via Bahrain and arrive in Singapore, Wednesday morning. Sleep would have to come on the airplane which, flying up front was not a problem.

MAS (Malaysian Air Services) provided shuttle-like flights to KL and I could be in Kuala Lumpur by mid-morning on Thursday. That would provide sufficient time for in-house meetings with our local branch, dinner with the client and meetings in their office the next day. A late afternoon flight back to Singapore on Friday would allow me to connect with the Singapore Airlines flight to London via Bombay that night. That flight was scheduled to land at 6 am GMT Saturday, giving me three hours before Concorde was scheduled to depart to New York. Concorde’s ETA into JFK was 8:45 am EST.

It could be done! And so I accepted both invitations.

The flights out were fine, my speech went well, Kuala Lumpur was what KL is; teenagers making outrageous demands but I was cool. One of our local guys, Tan Lai Wat drove me to the airport. I checked into MAS with carry-on baggage only to find that all was not well. The airplane for our 5 pm flight was delayed. Oh boy, my Singapore connection was the key. If I missed the Singapore Airlines 747, scheduled to depart at 9 pm, my plan would collapse like a house of cards.

Everything went backwards; the MAS 737 didn’t arrive until 7:30 pm and we didn’t leave the ground until 8:15. I was sitting in Row 1 of First Class next to an Aussie who was of no help. All he did was attempt to feed me drinks and repeat over and over, “Mate, you haven’t a chance, you’re not going to make it.”

“Damn,” I said to myself, “I’m too close to fail.” I stopped a typical, pretty Malay flight attendant and told her, “I have a First-Class ticket on Singapore Airlines Flight 4 to London. Here is my ticket. Tell the pilot to call the airport and tell them to hold the plane. I have carry-on so I will not need luggage service.”

She nodded and went into the cockpit. My Aussie buddy thought this was great fun repeating, “Mate, you’re not going to make it.”

Defiantly, I replied, “Yes I am.”

But my push for confidence was dented when the pretty Malay girl returned and asked, “What BA flight are you on?”

“No, no, it’s Singapore Airlines!” I shouted in reply driving her back into the cockpit as my mate had a blast at my expense.

We reached the gate at nine and a lot of change. The door opened and a Singapore Airlines hostess stepped on board and called my name as best she could. “Damn,” my companion shouted, “Mate you are going to make it; well done!”

I heard his remarks over my shoulder as I sprinted through the jet way with my little angel. She stopped, trading my ticket for the boarding pass she held in her hands. Her traditional uniform and short legs made it impossible to keep up with my adrenalin induced gait so I stopped and asked, “What gate?”

She replied, “Twenty-one,” and pointed the way.

“Great, stay here,” I replied and went into overdrive.

I saw the gals waiting outside the gate for me and I waved my boarding pass at them as I sprinted toward the gate. All smiles as is their training and demur; they took my pass and hustled me on board. I swear the cabin door descended into position and locked into place on my heels like something out of a science fiction movie.

I immediately fell asleep and slept in my totally reclined big seat until jarred awake by the landing in Bombay…so much for “Your seats must be up in the erect and locked position.”

No memory of the flight from Bombay to London except toward the landing. Back in 1983, movies were shown the same way as a theatre using a screen in front of the cabin. Again, no memory of what film was playing, but it wasn’t over as the pilot made his approach to Heathrow. Even though we were on final approach, the flight attendants didn’t interfere with the passengers or the show and the movie continued as we landed and taxied to the gate. Even then, the movie stayed on, their suggestion; if you want to see the end, please do so before de-planing.

We landed way early, before 5 am local time. Nothing was open in Heathrow. The Concorde lounge didn’t open until 7:30. By chance, I asked a guard, “Is there any place I can take a shower?”

“Yes sir,” and he directed me to this blockhouse sort of a structure in the middle of the main part of the terminal. “Damn,” I said to myself. “Okay granted, almost all of my flights through Terminal 3 were just arriving or going home but how did this escape me?”

I found the shower facility and its sleepy attendant and for some small amount less than half a Pound, he gave me a tiny towel and a minuscule bar of soap directing me to a numbered stall. One look at the size of the towel and I asked for two. He said that was not possible so I told him, “No problem, I will pay for two showers.” He looked at me with visible distain, another ugly American. Visibly displeased, reluctantly he accepted my money and the second towel was mine.

One of the best showers in my life!

I actually used all of the remaining clean clothes in my bag and wandered the terminal until the lounge opened. The Concorde BA staff were on their game, but it was really quiet on this early Saturday morning. I fell into a conversation with a fellow American on his way home from a trip to South America and southern Europe. I recall he showed me a prize pipe he had acquired while we occasionally observed the lounge’s TV tuned to MTV without comment, a new experience for both of us.

Not very many people pay to fly this fast plane to New York early on a Saturday morning. But I did it, I completed the mission. Home by 10 am, words, kisses with Mary Ann, Beth, Michael and Harry and Fred (our first two Golden Retrievers), the giving of gifts from far off places and to bed for a four-hour nap before the wedding.

The wedding was grand, the bride, beautiful. Don’t ask me what I remember: not much. I’ll end with this: Naturally, Mary Ann drove. When we left our house, she had to make two turns to get us on a main road. After she did, she stopped the car. I asked her, “Why are you stopping here?”

She replied, “I usually stop at red lights.”

“Cool,” I replied, “It’s a good thing you’re driving.”