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CNN Live At Daybreak

Millions Take to the Air This Week

Aired August 22, 2001 - 08:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you may not be going to Cuba this week, but no matter where you're going you'll have plenty of company. This is one of the busiest travel weeks of the summer. Millions of people are taking to the air.

CNN's Richard Quest is among them in a place where I'd like to be -- Richard.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Our home for the day is just two years old, a charter jet that shuttles to the sun. Final checks complete, the passengers are on board, there are 180 holidaymakers in all. Finally, half an hour late, we begin our trip, a two-hour flight to Ibiza.

Chloe Hunter sits in 8C. She's the first of six people who will use this chair today. These planes cost more than $60 million so keeping them flying and full is vital. A meal and a drink from Lisa Raw and her team. Being in the air means hard work. In the summer, they fly round trip to the Med four times a week. The poor plane does the trip three times a day.

By now Ibiza's in sight.

LISA RAW, BRITANNIA CABIN CREW: It's the start of somebody's holiday and you can either make it or break it for them, and I feel that anybody that gets on one of our flights can make it really happy for them and that's my job.

QUEST: On the ground it's goodbye to one lot and just time to clean up. Some say these planes are nothing more than buses in the sky.

MIKE DYSON, BRITANNIA CAPTAIN: I'm not a bus driver, I haven't got a license to drive a bus. I have got a license to fly this. I don't feel like a bus driver at all.

QUEST: Up in the air, back to the U.K. This time it's someone else's turn to sit in 8C. Watching over his flight and the other 40 planes in the fleet is Britannia's flight operations center.

RAY BRETTLE, OPERATIONS MANAGER: Obviously it's important we keep those aircraft running on time as much as possible and essentially that's what we're doing in here.

QUEST: Britain's Humberside Airport in time for all change, new pilots, new cabin crew, new passengers. Sarah Goodwin (ph) is our guest in 8C. The advantage for the crew is these flights are fun, holidaymakers out to have a good time.

So for the second time today, GBYNB is in Ibiza and the plane is at last back on schedule, which is just as well because with the heavy flying routine of these aircraft, any delays can get out of hand.

Another 180 passengers, this time heading home. Danny Gibson (ph) is in 8C. He's one of those who's had two weeks in the sun.

(on camera): The end of the fourth leg in this day and we're back at Leads-Bradford Airport. The plane's about to depart now for Palma in Majorca. It's the final two legs of its 24-hour day. The machine can keep going, but humans need sleep.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST: Now it may seem as if all that was enormous fun, but the nearest I actually got to the sun was the top of those aircraft stairs and my newly found tan that makes me look so great ends just about here -- Colleen.

MCEDWARDS: Well, Richard, come on, it must have been a terrible, terrible hardship for you.

QUEST: A real hardship. The biggest hardship of all, guess what, we had to eat four airline meals.

MCEDWARDS: Oh no.

QUEST: I've got one for you here. Would you prefer the Mediterranean chicken or the chicken with white wine and mushrooms? Now they couldn't serve beef because of mad cow disease so we had to have the chicken. There's a bit of a chocolate brownie, an old piece of cheese, oh and don't forget your bread roll. We had four of these in the space of about 16 hours as we shuttled backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. Oh, I'm going to have to put it down. The smell is getting to me a bit. I'm having an attack of the vapors.

MCEDWARDS: Well, Richard, it's nice to know you flew safely.

Thank you very much.

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