Santa’s Christmas Check List

And so it was finally Christmas. Santa and his elves were busy in the workshop with the preparations for the Big Trip that night. Santa had his list and was checking it twice before Santa came to town.

Did Santa know what everyone wanted?

Santa had received a large bundle of beautifully written and decorated personal letters from the children around the globe asking him for lots of lovely things.There were a couple of letters that had less oomph as they looked like standard letters from Money Saving Expert and something called the CAA, but he had ignored these as everybody else seemed to.

What’s the weather doing?

Using his Santa pad he clicked on BBC Weather for an up to date report and then cross checked it with EUclaim’s data for the same time last year. ‘Hmmph !‘ Said Santa. It doesn’t look so good this year but it shouldn’t cause us any delays on our flight.

Sleigh maintenance

The Sleigh is an amazing piece of equipment but it does suffer a fair amount of wear and tear on its annual travels, bumping from roof to roof so it needs to be checked carefully before take-off.Santa had heard of a certain Mr Huzar who’d had a flight delay due to a technical issue and it caused him a whole heap of problems. But at least that’s sorted now!

Crew

Santa’s reindeer also need to be rested and ready to work. There is only one crew and they can’t be over their legal working hours or over tired as exhaustion can cause a terrible muddle and delays on a very busy night. Fortunately with Rudolph as the union rep he has kept his (red) nose firmly on the pulse of EU working regulations.

The take off - runways

Santa had reminded the elves to check the runway and clear any ice and snow.Although Santa had repeatedly wished (and asked) for 1, 2 or even more runways to help with his take offs and landings, but the Powers that be said that, like Santa’s gifts, planswere still under wraps and well hidden.Let’s hope this doesn’t land Santa in a whole heap of snow like last year!

Fuel

The sleigh had been filled with love, hope and stardust ready for take-off.Thanks goodness it doesn’t take regular fuel or this trip would cost me a fortune smiled Santa.Although it was a shame he mused that he still had to pay Air Passenger Duty unlike the kiddiewinks now.

Baggage

Although the elves were very experienced in packing the Sleigh with all the presents Santa must ensure that every gift was accounted for.We didn’t want to have another ESE - Emergency Sleigh Evacuation like last year when a parcel was left unattended.Mind you if it can happen at larger airports such as Luton and Edinburgh how was Lapland supposed to cope?

SSS

Check the SSS - Santa’s Stairway to Sleigh as Santa no longer consider incidents of the mobile stair banging against the Sleigh as extraordinary and will not accept a delay because it of it.He has given the sleigh crew extra training since the ruling.

Destinations

Santa has programmed the Santa Nav and has a route to children in every nation.Some would be easier to get to than others of course, but luckily he had a level 3 pilots licence so would even be able to land at Innsbruckif the weather turned wintery (unlike the Thomas Cook pilots he chuckled)

Timings

Santa needs to make sure he leaves on time as there is no one in the land that would accept a delay from him.The knock on effect of his delay could be catastrophic and children (and some aviation experts) would be devastated to miss this important event that no amount of flight delay compensation could make up for….although he could always check with EUclaim just to see if hehad a viable case. Ho Ho Ho. If you want to see where Santa is right now check his route here https://www.noradsanta.org/

Free flight check

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