precisely on the dot at 09:00 AM that Saturday morning. Airlines, like railroads, are trying to be very punctual.
Frau Grulenska was assigned to present and inform Herbert of procedures and material important to his new job. She did it with greatest professional finesse and too fast a speed; his head was spinning after a few hours of having words fired at him in fast succession, like a machine gun, while she was coffee-sipping and chain-smoking. A big pile of printed matter, with instructions assembled in front of him and explanations were given at the same time. He tried to absorb all this, like a sponge. It must be a test of his stamina and ability to comprehend, he told himself. She pursued relentlessly to finish the whole program on this half day, what would take about two days otherwise, so it seemed. At 12:50 PM she handed him a book with phrases used to communicate within the company on Teleprompters. Computers were not available locally. The one and only computer for this airline was located at the Pan Am-Building, New York City. This monster occupied two stories and handled all worldwide business for this company.
“Oh, one more item,” she added. “A list of abbreviations for the airport and/or Cities in the world, you MUST remember.”
These are three letter codes, like: NYC for New York City, or CHI for Chicago, easy stuff, but what is: IDL, LGA, NEW and EZE?
That is Idlewild (Now JFK, John F. Kennedy, one of the three airports for New York, namely: LGA for La Guardia and NEW for Newark in New Jersey.)
And: Ezeisa, the airport for Buenos Aires, Argentina.
This is some list, for the whole world!
“Take it all home and study it over the weekend so you will be a full time, complete member of our office on Monday!”
“Monday?” Herbert thought. What do they expect from me? But he didn’t say anything.
The next ten minutes were spent shooting the breeze and precisely at 1:00 PM, she stood up, shook his hand, wished him good luck, a pleasant weekend and was gone.
“A pleasant weekend?” My foot!
Herbert was bamboozled from this NIAGRA FALLS of info and sat there for a little while. He collected the pile of data and climbed up the stairs from the office in the basement to find a coworker waiting for him, with key in hand, to lock up the establishment to start his weekend.
The day and a half to read, understand and remember everything, was indeed no picnic and Herbert showed up there on Monday with a throbbing headache, wondering if every one of his coworkers had to go through this learning process in such a short time. He found out later, it was not so. It was Frau Grulenska’s understanding of what she was supposed to do.
“Pan American World Airways, good morning,” he heard himself saying, answering the telephone at the reservations center. He was sitting at a round table, like King Arthur, only much smaller. As a matter of fact, only three other colleagues were placed at this device being equipped with two rows of compartments on a large Lazy Susan. Each box represented a flight and had a cardboard in it to hold the names of confirmed passengers with their names and contact information, telephone number or address and travel agent, if applicable. The entries were done in pencil because of constant changes. These pencils had a short life span. The erasers at the top end were used up much faster than the writing end. This office had the exclusive control of operation for flights from Hamburg to Berlin. Anyone in the world had to contact this place to get their passengers confirmed. Berlin controlled flights in the opposite direction. London took care of Europe and New York for the rest of the planet Earth with their huge monster computer. As mentioned before, most of the communication was done per teletype, some by means of the telephone. Pan Am’s Intragerman operation was a colossal money maker with these flights. There was an obstacle, called the Berlin Wall, and the only competitions were Air France and British European Airways with much less flights. No other airline was permitted to fly over the Russian occupied territory. German travelers did not forget the Berlin Airlift where Pan Am had the most airplanes dedicated to it, and their appreciation manifested itself in choosing to fly with this airline.
Since the teleprompter was the major communication tool, it never stopped hammering message after message, day and night. Sending text was done by typing the document on a punched hole ticker tape, then transferred to a sending apparatus which enabled the message to be send in seconds much faster than anyone could type. It intrigued Herbert, and he was using this device any time the teletypist was busy doing something else. After a few months he was offered to become the operator for this communication appliance, which he took gladly. To him it was a promotion. Since it was not a constant busy task, he was helping out with: FARES & TARIFS. This is a complete science in itself. Fares had to be constructed with the help of large volumes of books, not easy when it was a fare to be constructed from place A to B and C with a side trip to D. Even journeys around the world were different depending what city it started and where it ended. A client who planned such a trip went from travel agent to travel agent to get the best price, because they were different each time he asked for it. All airline offices and travel agents, in the same city, had a system to ask each other for answers to a complicated fare construction. Herbert was getting good at it and soon his coworkers, who had to construct a difficult price tag for a ticket, consulted him. Once in a while, he went to the ticket counter to help out when there were a lot of customers present. Tickets were handwritten documents and made out on the spot for easy ones, meaning tickets from A to B and return. They had well known tariffs. A more complicated ticket had to be requested by a potential passenger and made out at a later time, for reasons mentioned before.
Not long and Herbert was promoted to be at the ticket counter. He liked it with a passion, since he enjoyed being in contact with people.
He was sent to England to attend a course in FARES & TARIFFS. This class was held at the White Hart hotel across from the Queen’s other residence, the famous Windsor Castle. When Herbert arrived at London Heathrow airport he was met by a limousine driver and addressed as “Sir”. It sounded so strange to him being spoken to in this form by an Englishman. Thinking back when he was a driver for the British Forces in Hamburg and talked this way to his English bosses. He enjoyed the fourteen days there and came home with a diploma for a successful completed mission.
One day a newspaper article announced: Pan American World Airways is hiring girls to become stewardesses to be flying out of the United States.
Hell broke loose after that!
Herbert at the ticket counter was selected to hand out applications to those aspirants and file these forms after completion. The majority of these papers were filed by him in the waste basket. Following given comprehensive instruction, of course.
Amazed by the willingness by so many young women to leave their country and venture out into a world of uncertainty.
The goal was to select about thirty to forty females, who would be informed by mail, about their status and when to report for a final interview.
A five persons committee was expected to arrive from the States, to make the final selection.
When the time for those interviews had arrived, the same office in the basement was selected, where Herbert received his first impression of this industry, two years ago.
A large table was placed with five chairs behind it. Another chair was positioned, at some distance, in the middle of this arrangement, facing the interviewers.
One by one were summoned to come down, by means of telephoning Herbert at the ticket counter. The last person to be interviewed was Herbert. He had approved himself to be a finalist. When he showed up, the surprise was theirs. He sat down in the torture chair, wearing already the uniform
