The Airport I Designed Over Breakfast at Denny's

During my time as Commercial and Overseas Director at Airtours, I travelled regularly to Florida. It was one of the first destinations where contracting was conducted entirely in English, so unlike Spain, where my terrible language skills often got in the way, I could get fully involved.

There was just one problem. I hated Orlando International Airport.

Customers had to collect their luggage twice, and the car hire facilities were off-site, which meant it could easily be three hours after landing before an Airtours customer finally drove away towards their hotel.

I complained regularly, but Orlando was dominated by the large scheduled airlines, and frankly they didn't give a shit about Airtours customers or what I thought.

My local DMC, Loraine Frame, therefore arranged a breakfast meeting at Denny's with an American called Tim Howe, who was looking at launching international operations from an old military airfield he had acquired at Sanford.

After breakfast, Tim drove me out there.

We passed mile after mile of low-rise domestic housing before eventually arriving at what appeared to be a wooden shack masquerading as an airport terminal. My immediate instinct was to turn around and find the nearest taxi.

Instead, Tim made me walk the entire length of the runway.

As we walked, he explained that the runway represented about 90% of the cost of building an airport. The expensive bit was already there, so if Airtours committed its passengers, I could effectively design the terminal I wanted, and he would build it.

That got my attention.

We went back to his office, and I drew my airport on three pieces of A4 paper, which I still have framed at home today.

My requirements were actually very straightforward. Lots of immigration desks so passengers could be processed quickly, six baggage belts and all the car hire companies located directly opposite the terminal. My target was to get customers from aircraft seat to hire car within 45 minutes.

Some of my other ideas were slightly less conventional.

I wanted an outdoor swimming area for passengers after check-in, large children's clubs in departures and, while we were at it, I wanted to change the name from Central Florida Regional Airport to Orlando Sanford International.

I never got my swimming pool, but we did get the kids' facilities and the name change. I must confess that I particularly enjoyed watching kids wearing Airtours Kids Club T-shirts boarding the Britannia planes after their Thomson holidays because I knew which brand the kids would remember. The Thomson management hated me for that little trick.

Commercially, the deal was fantastic for Airtours as I had negotiated our passenger fee as a $10 offset below Orlando International rates and at least $4 below the rate other airlines subsequently paid, after inevitably following us into the much lower-cost Sanford.

It saved Airtours millions and should probably have been one of the highlights of my commercial career.

Unfortunately, being me, I had done something spectacularly stupid.

I was worried customers might be put off by seeing a different airport code in the brochure. Orlando was MCO, while Sanford was SFB, so I simply invented MC0, using a zero instead of an O, and printed it in the brochure.

I might even have got away with it if Tim had not suddenly died four months before opening, throwing the entire project into doubt.

My lawyer friend Andy Cooper discovered my little piece of creative airport coding and had to tell a distinctly unimpressed David Crossland that Airtours could face claims of millions of pounds for mis-selling if the airport did not open on time.

Not surprisingly, I was rapidly dispatched back to Florida.

I invited my airline mate Mike Lee over to cut the ribbon as the first Airtours aircraft landed.

Naturally, our aircraft went technical.

A Britannia aircraft landed first, and its pilot walked away with the commemorative cut-glass bowl while poor Mike stood there politely handing it over as the local press took photographs.

So, I helped create an airport that saved Airtours millions of pounds, improved our customers' holidays and subsequently became a major gateway into Orlando.

And nearly ruined my career by inventing an airport code.

Sometimes trying to be too clever really isn't very clever at all.