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rtin Carroll, chairman of air freight operator Saints Transport, looks
Page 44
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back on a ek of cycling, engine failure, and Impressive Christmas lights.
f you would like to feature in Working Week please fax your details to features tor Patric Cunnane or kicky Clarke on 020 8652 8912 or phone 020 8652 3678.
MONDAY
I phone the office from home every morning at 6am to find out how the night jobs have gone. Air-freight planes fly all the time and so were a 24-hours-a-day operation, seven days a week. Then I'm off to the gym for a good workout. Well, it makes me feel virtuous.
First thing in the Heathrow office is to run through the day's operations to see who we should or shouldn't work for. We like to give priority to our regular customers. After lunch I plough through e-mails. We're still being contacted by people who saw our Christmas lights. With 1,000 bulbs glowing over the festive season we were a bit of a landmark and pilots pointed us out to passengers as they came into land! I'm somewhat relieved they're down now as getting up the roof to check them was a bit scary in the windy weather.
TUESDAY
Visit the workshop early today to check the state of the vehicles and discuss any problems with the maintenance crew. They tell me about an engine failure where the oil pick-up pipe was broken in the sump, but this was easily mended. With the fleet {mostly MercedesBenz) being around a year old we don't get many serious problems.
However, what did cause us a headache recently were the high winds which caused a rig to blow over at Gatwick on the M25 at 2am. It took us until noon the next day to handball the aircraft containers off. Luckily it was a Sunday...
WEDNESDAY
A day of meetings with airlines to discuss the implications of the Airport Security Regulations. We're looking to set up a new security centre for freight to screen road freight coming in from the Continent.
Took a client out to lunch at the Villa Rosa in Egham for a friendly chat about Saints and how we can improve our customer relations. Before my afternoon meetings I have a quick chat with my operations staff about their Fantasy Football League. I am all for keeping a happy ship in the often frantic operations environment. It's also good for me to keep up on football-related topics for when I entertain clients at our box at Fulham FC.
THURSDAY
After cycling into work, which is 14 miles from home, I'm back in the workshop talking to the vehicle mechanics. After listening to their woes I'm on the phone shouting at vehicle manufacturers. We have the perennial problem of getting hold of spare parts. No one keeps any stock anymore. The really hard thing to find is door-hinges. We've just taken delivery of 10 new 18-tonne Mercedes so hopefully we won't need to think about spares for them just yet.
Spend the afternoon discussing the day's events with the office staff and then I take a new customer around the airport.
FRIDAY
Not my favourite day as it's the Quality Management Review meeting. Much of the emphasis is on Health and Safety issues—which are very important, but also very time consuming. On the brighter side, we also discuss our expansion plans with a move to new premises in Manchester later in the year. We look at the costs of implementing the computer link to our Heathrow office and the new remotelinked security systems and weighed them up against the potential benefits to be gained from the proposed relocation. A satisfying reminder that we're running a good, successful business.