Getting back to my start as a full time employee of Air Mauritius, I enlarged our accommodation at the Roosevelt Hotel from a single room to a 3 room suite.  

Next, I called George Papamoros who was, at that time, the Sales Manager - Canada for Kuwait Airways.  George was going through a rough time as Kuwait Airways had appointed a Palestinian as an additional Sales Manager - Canada and it was quite clear that the writing was on the wall - George’s days were numbered.

I asked George if he would be interested in a change and, if so, would he like to work for Air Mauritius.  He said he would and we went through the terms of the offer that I made.  I told him that he would work out of his home as, for the time being, I needed to keep expenses down. I also told him that he could hire an assistant who would take care of reservations and ticketing.

I was delighted when George accepted the offer.

Meanwhile, we recruited Rajiv Sarna as our Res/Tktg. agent for the NYC office - and I sent both him and George Papamoros to Mauritius to get acquainted with the product that we would be selling and at the same time, learn MK’s reservations procedures.

When George came back, he interviewed some persons and shortlisted a couple of them for me to meet.  I flew to Toronto and we decided to offer the post of Res/Tktg. assistant to a young lady who had good credentials and experience.

Back in NYC, I appointed the Desley Group to handle our advertising and P.R.  I had met Bob Desley during my Kuwait Airways days and he had left a good impression upon me.  It was a small and yet efficient Organization and seemed ideally suited for limited requirements.

And so, we had a soft opening of the Air Mauritius North American offices and started full time work in May of 1988.  We had what I assume, our share of teething problems particularly with the accounting of our payables and receivables, which had our Accounting Department in a panic. 

The Internal Auditor, however, assured the Chairman that the monies banked by us were about equal to the value of the tickets that we had issued and that there was no reason to be unduly concerned.

Following upon my meetings with the Internal Auditor, I hired a firm of Accountants to prepare our Sales reports and at the same time, take care of our taxes payable to various agencies.  

While all this was going on, I requested the Finance Director to “bond” our staff as they were handling tickets and MCOs, plus cash and checks.  He never answered my telexes despite a number of reminders and we suffered the consequences in 1993; a subject I will speak of in a later Post.

The Tariffs Department had given us Net Fares from Europe gateways to MRU and also between MRU on the one hand and JNB and SIN/HKG on the other.  We entered into agreements with PanAm, TWA and Air-India for transatlantic prorates and with Cathay for the Pacific routes.  Our best agreement was with Virgin who gave us excellent prorates not only to LON but also to JNB.  Our Tariffs Superintendent came back with congratulations for what he called a “killer” agreement. 

Shortly after we had settled down, I received a call from Sir Harry Tiruvengadam, our CMD.  He said that Sir Anerood Jugnauth, the Prime Minister of Mauritius, was visiting the USA shortly and that he would be accompanied by Sir Binhod Bacha, the Home Secretary and Harry himself.  The total group would include the wives of all three gentlemen.  

Harry asked me to meet him in Washington, DC and then accompany the team to Seattle for an official visit to the Boeing factory where two 767 aircraft were being assembled for Air Mauritius.  He also stated that the Mauritian ambassador to the USA and his wife would join the group traveling to Seattle.

I learnt that the Government officials were booked to travel DCA-STL-SEA by TWA and accordingly arranged complimentary tickets for Harry, his wife Elahi and myself for the same flights.

I had already met the Mauritian Ambassador on my earlier visits to Mauritius, but this would be the first time, that I met the PM, the Home Secretary and their wives.  They were extremely gracious and cordial towards me and I am glad to say that the 5 day stay in Washington and Seattle gave me a great opportunity to develop a relatively good relationship with the PM and the Home Secretary and I will comment on this in future Posts.

The visit to Seattle went off exceedingly well.  We were accompanied by members of the American Secret Service at all times and it was my first experience of traveling in an escorted convoy of limousines with outriders on motorcycles.  There was, however, one incident upon which I would like to comment.

The TWA flight from DCA to SEA involved a change of aircraft at St. Louis.  We left DCA around 8:30pm and were served peanuts followed by damp sandwiches and the Chairman’s wife, Elahi asked me if this constituted First Class service on U.S. airlines.  I told her that the airline had recently been bought by Carl Icahn who decreed that meal service on domestic flights be terminated on all flights departing after 8:00pm.  His attitude was that TWA was offering transportation services and not hospitality in for form of three course dinners.

During our transit at St. Louis, Harry and I managed to get some snacks which helped us land at Seattle on relatively full stomachs.  I am glad to say that Boeing’s hospitality in Seattle was excellent and the TWA experience was soon forgotten.

Both the Ambassador and I relieved sighs of relief when the Mauritian team left Seattle for London on their way back home.  The trip had gone off extremely well and I received a congratulatory call from the CMD on his return to Mauritius.  During this call, Harry mentioned that he did not want me to spend any time receiving or seeing of any Government official.  This included the Prime Minister who may on occasion, attend the U.N. General Assembly.

Harry emphasized that my time would be better served generating revenues for the airline and I am happy to say that with one exception, we managed to stay away from “meet and greet” events.

It soon became apparent that selling Mauritius in the USA was not going to be an easy task.  The average American did not know where Mauritius was.  I was very disappointed with the local office of the Mauritius Tourist Department.  They also represented other destinations countries and my personal observations revealed that they were promoting Belize in preference to Mauritius, particularly when callers asked for information on diving and snorkeling.

In fact, the local Seychelles Tourist offices was far more active than the Mauritius one and I soon realized that we had to work harder to sell Mauritius to the American public.

Our advertising and P.R. work did develop quite a few enquiries and we followed up with organizing individual and group FAM trips for agents and travel writers.  The trade writers trips were rewarding as we did get mention in travel journals, but the agent FAM trips were a dead loss.  Almost every agent had the following comment:

“Mauritius is a great destination with excellent upscale resorts and a lot of culture and sightseeing, BUT IT IS TOO FAR AWAY.  The Caribbean islands also offer sun, sea and sand and they are only 3 to 4 hours away.  Why would someone spend two nights to get to Mauritius?”

Very true and as we were constantly reminded, for the average American, a foreign tour can be summed up by the title of the movie - If it is Tuesday, it must be Belgium.