At the Air Mauritius office in the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, we seldom got walk in customers and, therefore, I was surprised when a well dressed gentleman knocked on our door and announced that he wanted to work for us.  Francisco Rebelledo had visited a Trade Fair in Madrid where he saw the Air Mauritius booth and wanted to know how he could apply for a job in the USA.  He was directed to speak to us in NYC.

Francisco lived in Los Angeles and had some experience working for airlines on the West Coast.  I told him that we had recently opened the NYC office and at that stage, were not looking for nor could justify an expansion to the West Coast.  However, I assured him that I would keep in mind his desire to represent us on that side of the country.

On my next visit to MRU, I mentioned the incident to our CMD and CD who said that while they were satisfied with the revenue that we were generating, the additional expense of another office in the USA would be difficult to absorb.

We had been covering the West Coast by sporadic visits but did not appear to be making any serious impact and so, the thought of a permanent presence seemed quite attractive.  I, therefore, decided to give the subject more thought and came up with the following idea.

Office rents in Manhattan were going through the roof and on top of that, the parking charges for my car itself was close to $4,000 annually.  If we moved the office out of the city, we would pay far less in rent and at the same time, eliminate the cost of parking.  There did not appear any major reason to have a Sales Office in the city and I worked out that the savings in expenses would cover a major portion of hiring a part time resident representative on the West Coast.  On the positive side, we would have a presence and exposure there, which would inevitably result in additional revenue.

Accordingly, I proposed to my Head Office that we move the office to Englewood Cliffs, in New Jersey.  An added advantage of this move was that my commuting time would be shortened considerably - 10 minutes each way compared to one hour plus each way, thus improving my own productivity.

 The only objection came from the CMD who said that the loss of a NYC telephone number may indicate that we did not have an office in the most important city in the USA, which may, in turn, indicate that we are not represented in the country.  I countered by stating that under the telephone system, we would maintain our NYC telephone number and all calls to it would be automatically routed to our New Jersey number.  

And so, Francisco Rebelledo joined us as a part-time Sales Manager - Western USA and within 6 months, I was proud to show H.O. new AOS revenues from the West Coast.

On one of my visits to MRU, I enquired if we were carrying any Postal Mail originating from the USA and was told that while we did carry it, it was a very insignificant amount.  I made a pilgrimage to Washington, DC and met a number of Postal officials and convinced them to use MK as a connecting carrier at Paris, whereby the transatlantic portion would be retained on a U.S. Flag carrier.

The first year saw a new source of revenue which increased at a fairly good rate as each year went by.  All it took was a regular visit to the same Postal officials which I could easily accomplish since I was making regular visits to the World Bank and the IMF. 

While Francisco was proving to be a great addition to our team, I was soon to see dark clouds on the eastern seaboard.  

The MK Manager for the U.K. (George Tang) was very keen to move permanently to Canada.  He was a Mauritian and his wife and two children had already moved to Toronto and become Canadian residents.  His request was supported by Mr. Nari Dastur who, as I have mentioned in my Post of February 27, 2018, was known as the “de facto CMD” of MK.

I soon felt my arm being twisted and H.O. created an additional Post of Sales Manager - Canada.  I, therefore had two Sales Managers which meant a considerable increase in expenditure.  In addition to the wage bill, we had also an increase in the cost of maintaining an establishment in Canada. 

Till then, George Papamoros was using one of the bedrooms in his house as an office and with the addition of another body, we had no choice but to get a regular office.  The first problem came when between the two of them, they could not agree on its location.  The Mauritian wanted to be in Toronto city itself having worked at a city location during his previous postings at Rome and London, while the Canadian felt that we should have an office in the suburbs, for the same reason that we moved from NYC to NJ.

I had to intervene and we opened an office in a suburb of Toronto.  The Mauritian eventually accepted this compromise as his own residence was in that same suburb.

Peace was also restored in the office after I allocated different portfolios to them.  George Tang was told to look after the Mauritian ethnic traffic and George Papamoros was directed to develop business and tourist traffic.

Unfortunately, I soon found a problem for my own self.  Someone in MRU raised the question - why do we need Mr. Sethi to look after Canada since we now have two relatively senior persons there?  Have Mr. Sethi concentrate on the USA and also develop Latin America.  I was summoned to MRU where the CMD told me that they had decided to make this change.

Fortunately for me, the CD recognized that the change would affect me financially as I would then no longer be eligible for the over-riding commission of 3% on Canadian sales; an amount which at that time worked out to about US$30,000 on net sales of around US$1million.

One solution was to raise my salary by that amount (which the Finance Director  opposed as it would automatically result in higher expenditure in MK's contribution to my 401K and the annual Bonus. Each of these amounts represented 8.33% of my salary.

The CD recommended a compromise - I would continue to draw my commission on a gradually reduced scale whereby the commission would become zero at the end of 6 years.  In the meantime, if I concentrated on promoting traffic in the USA and Latin America, perhaps the shortfall would be overcome.

And so, I came back from MRU with a new title and new assignment.  

Interestingly, in the next two years, while MK saw that the USA was exceeding its target, Canada was well below not only its target, but was earning less than when I was in charge. 

Management soon saw “the error of their ways”.  I was politely approached by the CD if I would agree to “oversee” the Canadian operations which I equally and very politely declined.  My gross income had not seen any appreciable dent and, at that time, I was not interested to acting as a constant mediator between the two Georges (Tang and Papamoros) whose inability to work together was a detriment to the revenues from that country.