It is another visit offering opportunities to catch up with family and old friends in Holland. Han's second son Rutger stopped at her birthday, introducing his new girlfriend Angie. It was ten years ago that I saw Rutger during the funeral of my father. In between the social meetings, I tried to keep working on my fitness with walks and some swimming in the nice public pool of Soest.
In Amsterdam I had a long lunch with Aad, one of my colleagues during the 1985-1988 period at Fokker Aircraft. With his economics degree and being an early adaptor of things like spreadsheets, Aad spent many hours with me making a comparison model for my work for the Spanish Iberia airline. We had to compare operational costing models for thee combinations of new aircraft for this airline for their short and medium length European routes (Airbus 320 + Fokker 100, two types of Boeing aircraft, and two types of McDonnell Douglas planes). Aad built with me a multi layered spreadsheet including purchasing prices, maintenance expenses over a 10 year period, as well as various other operational expenses such as spare parts and ongoing training of pilots, cabin staff and maintenance technicians. All of the analysis results were than summarized by me in a fast moving slide presentation of just five minutes to the Board of Directors of Iberia. It got the Fokker team on the negotiation, but in the end it was McDonnell Douglas walking away with the deal. Security staff in our office building worried about the many late evenings they found Aad and me slaving away at the computers, but without all the work Aad did with me, I would never have managed that assignment. I am forever thankful, and it was so nice to have a few hours together again. While having a coffee in downtown Amsterdam, I took a photo of some of the city's little backyards. Lovely chaos.....
