When the tragedy was first reported, Egypt destination manager, Dharma van der Dam, and I were at an end of season meeting in Frankfurt.  It was reported to be a technical fault at the time, so we monitored the situation from there.  Dharma returned to Egypt as scheduled and I flew back to the UK for some planned annual leave.  

As soon as the UK travel advice changed, Dharma knew that there would be no more flights, and he got in his car and drove nine hours from Hurghada to lead the operation. I also knew that I had to get back to my team and customers in resort.  I’ve been with the company for 30 years and from past experience I know that as a team, we come into our own at times like this. We pull together, the adrenalin kicks in and we get on and do our best for our customers and each other.  I was extremely grateful to Stephen Murphy from TCX who offered me a seat on the first empty rescue flight out of Manchester to pick our customers up and I repaid the crew’s kindness by taking my turn at making the coffees onboard.