I went to Frankfurt airport on a cold March morning at 5.30 am to pick up a group from, Dallas, Texas for a 10 day tour of Central Europe. This group of 38 people were travelling together and had group leader, Bob, who had organised the trip. I was waiting in the arrivals hall when a big man with a cowboy hat appeared and said “Howdy, are you Anita?” This was Bob. His next words were “Anita (or maybe he said Houston), we have a problem!!!”
I was sure the “problem” would be something easy to solve as it is amazing how many Group Leaders or clients say those words on arrival. But as Bob explained the problem to me, I realised this problem would be more tricky….
2 young guys in Bob’s group had had far too much to drink on the plane and started to annoy the other passengers. They had by all accounts been very obnoxious and even brought their own alcohol onto the plane – this is not allowed. The cabin crew had a hard time controlling them so called through to the Frankfurt Airport police prior to landing – the result being that these 2 guys had been arrested as they got off the plane.
So my first task on this tour, at 6 am, was to get 2 drunken Texans out of jail. I sweet-talked the police and explained that we would hardly be in Germany and were heading for Austria and Switzerland. I also promised that the 2 guys would behave. It worked and Russell and James, the 2 drunks, were released and had a great tour – I couldn’t resist teasing them during the whole tour about the events on the plane and the fact that they obviously couldn’t take their alcohol.