The end of an era

[Karen]

It was just announced on the news that Sir Freddie Laker has died. Such as shame. He was such a pioneer to affordable flights to Florida.

So Thanks Freddie, hope that cloud you are now flying on is comfortable [msnwink]

[Ray&Sarah]

How sad, I expect he is in first class though.[msnsmile]

[Kazzie]

Yes, saw it in the newspaper this morning.

Karen

[luckylady]

I remenber Freddie I admired and respected that man so much

[andrewandcarole]

Yes - at the time Freddie was a pioneer - now we take cheap travel for granted. We have a lot to thank him for.
Carole

I have met Sir Freddie a few times, once on a Concorde flight which BA gave him free and he was a also regular on Jersey flights.

I also met his son on a flight to Fort Lauderdale in 1997 when he tried to get the airline business going again, which fail after a few months or a year I think.

Flew with a lot of ex Laker crew too.

He was a larger-than-life figure with a wicked sense of humour, and was also a Florida resident.

Very sad, may he rest in peace[grouphug]

[wrpac00]

They did a bit on Radio2 about him on Friday between 12:00 - 14:00 saying how he transformed air travel.

[KevinT]

Very sad to see that.

Our very first trip to Florida in 1980 was from Manchester on Freddie Lakers Skytrain. We had been looking at Spain or Majorca or N.Africa and spotted his deal to Florida (for £232 per person
14 nights staying at a motel in Miami! - what a bargain!) We arranged a side trip to Orlando for a couple of days (only Magic Kingdom open then - Epcot was just being built) and that got us totally hooked on Florida.
Had it not been for Freddie Laker we probably would never have got to the USA and would have missed all the fun! [msnsmile2]
Freddie will be sadly missed.

[orlandodaze]

We owe people like Freddie Laker a big debt of gratitude , he made longhaul travel accessable to the ordinary people , may he rest in peace.

[george]

Sounds like the exact deal we got in 1980 ! We also did a side trip to Orlando. There was nothing on 192 in those days we stayed in a motel called the Save Inn which was right up towards St Cloud.

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by KevinT
Very sad to see that.

Our very first trip to Florida in 1980 was from Manchester on Freddie Lakers Skytrain. We had been looking at Spain or Majorca or N.Africa and spotted his deal to Florida (for £232 per person
14 nights staying at a motel in Miami! - what a bargain!) We arranged a side trip to Orlando for a couple of days (only Magic Kingdom open then - Epcot was just being built) and that got us totally hooked on Florida.
Had it not been for Freddie Laker we probably would never have got to the USA and would have missed all the fun! [msnsmile2]
Freddie will be sadly missed.
[/quote]