Our aircraft (12)

While paying a visit to our friends and former colleagues Diana and Tim in Canada, we made our first trip in a seaplane. Circling over the Hudson River is a spectacular experience. Very appropriately the carrier's name was 1000 Island Airways. The Hudson near Belleville is dotted with smaller and larger islands. We had the honour of being flown by the carrier's CEO who also happened to be the only employee.

Oct. 5, 2000, De Haviland B, 1000 Island Airways, 
circular flight  Gananoque (Can), 41/451,749 miles

During my last years with KLM I was involved in the set up and implementation of cargo security procedures. To that end I was a member of the BLACKS group. BLACKS was (is?) the acronym for British Airways, Lufthansa, Air France, Cargolux, KLM and Swissair. There we tried to agree to common security measures for the main European cargo carriers thus setting a standard for Western Europe. Later, this group was also suspected of fixing certain cargo pricing elements. I can safely deny this because there was no truth in that accusation. Anyway, the flights to Frankfurt and London had to do with this BLACKS group.

May 19, 2003, Airbus A321-100, LH, SPL/FRA, 228/465,775 miles
Photo ex Digitaltrends

July 9, 2003, Boeing 737-900, KL, SPL/LHR, 230/466,233 miles
Photo ex airline-pics

The flight to Catania, Sicily, was a holiday flight. I remember that there was a considerable delay on the way back. So we had ample time to test the airport facilities for passengers there (none) and the comfort of the chairs in the departure hall (none). But Taormina was nice!

Sept. 6, 2003, Boeing 757-300, HV, SPL/CTA, 1,140/468,871 miles
Photo ex zap16.com

With a pilot in the family I was able to add a Piper to my list of aircraft types. On the outbound trip we went to the island of Texel. We passed the Schiphol tower and flew overhead our house in Castricum. On the way back we flew via the city of Zwolle.

April 27, 2012, Piper Cadet PA28, Vliegclub Lelystad, Lelystad/Texel, 90/473,982
In the background good old PH-BUK at its final destination

CTA = Catania, Sicily
FRA = Frankfurt
HV = Transavia
KL = KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
LH = Lufthansa
LHR = London Heathrow
SPL = Schiphol Amsterdam airport

For the time being this is the last post in this series. I am 26,000 miles short of reaching the 500,000 miles mark. Whenever I reach it, I'll let you know. In the meantime I hope you have enjoyed the 12 posts on this subject. Thank you for reading them.