Chapter 49\ The day we delayed The Concorde

Samir Fares hired an account executive to help him on his portfolio of clients, and this newcomer turned out to be an old friend. Georges Moussallem was quickly fascinated by the way Samir operated and had a new story to share with me every time we had lunch together. The thought of urgency was not yet instilled in our minds, but Georges always had stories to share about the speed in which Samir responded to the many telexes he received, and the fact that he never left the agency before completely clearing his desk. Georges was very impressed by Samir’s network of international contacts. Every time one of the partners needed a contact, Samir had an old friend to introduce, even in faraway places.

One day, Samir announced that the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) had briefed us to help it organize a visit of their new aircraft, the Concorde, to Beirut. Samir needed people to help, and I instantly volunteered for the task. The Concorde^[1] was the world’s first supersonic passenger airliner and had a maximum speed of over twice the speed of sound and seating for between 92 and 128 passengers. Concorde was jointly developed and manufactured by BAC and Sud Aviation (later named Aerospatiale), a French state-owned aircraft manufacturer. Obviously, agreeing on a manufacturing breakdown required long meetings and hard bargaining, but the Concorde finally entered commercial service in 1976.

The visit to Lebanon that took place on 30 June 1972 was part of what was labelled the “world tour”. That was not a precisely accurate description, since the Concorde orbited only half the globe, and then went back to base. The technical objectives were to test the intensive environmental flight conditions and extremes of climate dust and humidity. The manufacturers hoped to hit two birds with one stone by arranging to demonstrate the Concorde to potential buyers in Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabian Airlines) and Lebanon (MEA). Accordingly, and as per BAC’s brief, Samir Fares had to coordinate closely with Khattar Hadati, general director of public relations and human resources at MEA, who in turn was coordinating with the Anglo-French team that had flown to Beirut ahead of the Concorde to ensure that all technical and organizational logistics were in place. Hadati was also coordinating with the Civil Aviation Authority, the Lebanese Army Airbase officers, the Prime Minister’s office, as well as the management of his own company.

Intermarkets’ involvement was to introduce the Concorde to the Arab public by shedding maximum light – via all media channels – on this first visit to Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. We were also tasked with helping to deliver the invitations to 22 guests and assisting them on getting to where the aircraft was parked on 30 June, to take the inaugural supersonic flight from Beirut to Toulouse (the base of the Concorde) and back.

The aircraft that was at the center of this event had the code name 002. Its interior was occupied with test flight machinery and computers, allowing space for only 22 seats to be used by VIPs of the potential buying governments and airlines. Khattar, the office of the Prime Minister and the embassies of France and the UK toiled over the guest list, which kept changing as government officials and senior MEA executives continued to lobby until the last minute over the names, they were keen to add to the list.

All this time, Samir Fares was by the side of Khattar Hadati, welcoming the VIPs and attending to the thousands of requests and questions that were being asked. I was put in charge of the makeshift operations office, which was built on the runway. Captain Brian Trubshaw, the chief pilot of Concorde 002, was resting in the office close to me reading The Daily Star when the phone rang. The caller had an authoritative military tone and he introduced himself as the commander-in-chief of the presidential guards. His message was a command rather than a last-minute request, which stated that Roro (Robert Frangieh), the younger son of the president, was on his way from the Presidential Palace to Khaldeh and we had to delay the Concorde’s flight since he was due to join. Khattar Hadati nearly exploded when Samir Fares relayed the message to him, and the following 30 minutes were spent making the challenging decision of who would need to give up their seat for the son of the president.

Ultimately, the Concorde got airborne, and it took two hours and 19 minutes to make the round-trip. In the meantime, Samir Fares, Georges Moussallem and I took Wafic Ajouz, the publisher and editor-in-chief of Cedar Wings, MEA’s in-flight magazine and the guest who had had to give up his seat for the president’s son, to lunch at the Lucullus.

The Concorde flight to Dhahran and Beirut airports received huge coverage, not only in the media of our region, but also in international media, which brought a great deal of pride to Intermarkets and Samir Fares.

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^[1] Concorde History – http://www.concordesst.com/history/historyindex.html