“Life in France was superb, a real breath of fresh air.”
In 2007 I moved from the UAE back to Toulouse at the behest of Etihad. They requested this as a large number of Airbus aircraft needed to be delivered and I was spending most of my time in Toulouse or Hamburg anyway, so it made the most sense to base me there. All the arrangements for moving our furniture were put in place by Etihad and with the assistance of Airbus, we managed to locate a suitable house to rent in Tournefeuille, a suburb of Toulouse. A contract between Etihad Airways and the landlord was drawn up. This was a real feeling of how strange life can be sometimes as not only was this area we lived in way back when I worked for BCAL but the landlord was the son of the landlord we rented from back then! What a small world. Until the move was complete, my wife and I stayed in hotels in central Toulouse.
The container carrying all our furniture arrived and was very efficiently unpacked by the French team of movers. It was nice to finally be back in a house rather than living out of a collection of suitcases in various hotels. We met our lovely neighbours who helped us integrate quickly into the French way of life – telling us where all the best local shops were within walking distance, including a patisserie and pizza restaurant, which were incredible!
From the house, the journey to the Airbus facility was just over 10 minutes, even in heavy traffic which was delightful compared to the hustle and bustle of Abu Dhabi or the journeys to and from Heathrow on the notorious M25 aka The Road to Hell! Airbus had arranged two offices for me to work out of – one in Periport and one inside the production facility, based on the far side of Blagnac airport.
Life in France was superb, a real breath of fresh air. We had many dinners and BBQs at the house with relatives, friends, and new acquaintances. During these three years, I oversaw the delivery of a total of 37 aircraft, including my very first A330 freighter in January 2010. It was also during this period that I experienced the worst day of my career, when a terrible accident befell one of my aircraft, causing serious damage to the plane and injuring all the crew onboard. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt or killed but it was a harrowing reminder of the importance of safety and communication.
Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever, and were blissfully unaware that our time in Toulouse was temporary until our landlord knocked on the door one day and informed my wife that the house rental contract was not going to be renewed, he showed my wife a letter from Etihad Airways Paris confirming this! I made some phone calls to Etihad HQ in Abu Dhabi to find out what the hell was going on! They told me that despite it stating in my contract that Etihad would pay my tax in France, they had forgotten to do so! So, the French tax system fined Etihad Airways a large amount of money to the tune of $250,000! I was told by Etihad that I needed to leave France immediately.
“I have a delivery to the UAE Airforce currently in progress!” That was my first response.
“You still have to leave immediately” was theirs.
I then informed them that they would need to call the senior officer of the UAE Air Force to inform him that I could no longer complete the delivery, as he had insisted that I be the one to oversee it. They declined to make this phone call and instead left it up to me, as well as gifting me a time limit of 10 days in which I had to pack up and move my entire household out of Toulouse. My priority was finishing my delivery with the UAE Air Force, which I managed successfully. The delivery was completed on time, and the aircraft flew to Spain to be converted to an MRTT – Multi-Role-Transport-Tanker. Seeing how I was so good at multi-tasking; Etihad also informed me that it was my job to contact three different moving companies so that Etihad had a selection of quotes to choose from! With the assistance of Airbus, I managed this on day 1 of my countdown! 9 to go!
I was also told that I was not going directly back to Abu Dhabi, but I was being sent to Malta for a month to oversee a cabin modification program. The movers arrived just in time on the 8th day of my countdown, packed the whole house up, and listed all the items for customs clearance in Abu Dhabi. My wife and I flew to London and then to Malta. The container with our furniture in was shipped to Marseilles where it stayed for 2 weeks due to a dockers strike. The moving company gave me the container number and shipping manifest, and with this information, you can track your container anywhere in the world, except the Suez Canal. The ship carrying our furniture stopped over in Malta while we were there!
This was another very busy chapter in my Etihad saga, which will conclude in the next blog.
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