BUSINESS - DIGBY LORD JONES


You’ve only booked two for the two of you. What? But you still only have your allowed and paid-for baggage weight, although in three bags not two? Sorry, not on. That’ll be (wait for it) €340 please. ” For one measly bag! Twice the price of the RETURN flight! How to rip off the captive customer! Protect that bonus at all costs!


My experience concluded with the usual seven day wait in the baggage hall for my (three!) bags. I knew it would be bad when I saw the Salvation Army’s tea urn in the corner and some UN Disaster Relief tents on the trolleys. No one to contact; no announcements; even my own attempts to call the airport from my mobile meets the inevitable recorded message telling me how my custom is valued and what great offers are available in Duty Free Land! After we finally reached ‘the other side’ my persistent enquiries elicit the last refuge of the “Profit is all, customer take the hindmost” philosophy: “All that stuff is outsourced so we’re not to blame”.


Thank you, Dear Reader, for listening to my Traveller’s Tale. All of that didn’t happen on just one journey, but it did happen to me during a total of two flights from a couple of UK regional airports and two return flights.


I am left with a grumbling sense of grievance about being ripped off, about being the victim of profit hungry executives and reflecting that a mantra is being played out where everything has been sacrificed on the altar of providing the cheapest flights possible. They really do believe that the customer will put up with anything if the flight is cheap enough. Maybe they are right, but it’s the reputation of business and wealth creation that suffers in the end...and that plays straight into the hands of the bunch of Marxists and hard-left Socialist anti-capitalists who’ve hijacked the Labour Party ...and if they win the next General Election on the back of anti-business sentiment, that will lead to financial damage for our country that is far, far greater than €340!


Lord Digby Jones of Birmingham KB


Lord Digby Jones is former Director-General of the CBI & UK Trade Minister; a non-aligned, Crossbench Member of the House of Lords & a Businessman (chairing six companies), author & broadcaster. He works closely with Cancer, Military & Educational Charities.


Find solution on page 164 / 71


Fill in all the squares in the grid so that every row, every column and each of the nine squares contain all the numbers 1-9!


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