I am here to meet my mother

This year marks the Platinum Jubilee celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign as monarch of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland and Commonwealth realms. In her 70 remarkable years as monarch, fourteen Prime Ministers have served her including the indomitable Winston Churchill, the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher and the current office holder Boris Johnson. She remains the longest reigning British Monarch and the third longest reigning monarch in history. As the UK, the Commonwealth realms and British embassies worldwide celebrate Her Majesty’s anniversary as monarch, I would like to share a personal anecdote relating to Her Majesty’s visit to Abu Dhabi.

As a background to this story, it is necessary to know that, unlike the USA’s Air Force One, the UK didn’t have a dedicated fleet of state-owned aircrafts to fly their heads of state back in 2010. ?Chartered VVIP flights managed by British Airways facilitated foreign diplomatic travel by the Queen or the Prime Minister. During my long career with British Airways, as part of my role as Airport Manager at Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) and at Abu Dhabi (UAE), I have had to manage a few such VVIP flights. One of these was a visit by the Queen to the UAE.

It was a bright pleasant day at Abu Dhabi’s Presidential terminal, in November 2010. The Presidential terminal is the de facto terminal in Abu Dhabi for receiving VVIP guests especially heads of state. As Airport Manager, I was patiently awaiting on the Airport tarmac for the arrival of British Airway’s Boeing-777 aircraft to land with the Queen and her entourage. On the tarmac with me were my colleague CSS Alice Proudfoot, senior officials from the British Embassy, officials from UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Queen’s Security & Aviation experts from Buckingham Palace.

I was positioned at the start of the red carpet to oversee final arrangements. Close to me were the British Ambassador to the UAE, the Defense Attaché at the UK Embassy and the Post Aviation Security Officer (PASO) at the UK Embassy. My primary responsibility was to crosscheck that the passenger stairs are properly positioned and aligned to ensure passenger safety. An interesting side note, for VVIP flights, ‘open stairs’ are generally used instead of aerobridge due to a variety of security reasons.

With ten minutes to the planned door opening time, a helicopter landed in the presidential terminal with the Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed (current President of UAE). Along with him, an Englishman also alighted from the helicopter. ?As the Crown Prince walked towards the designated position of the awaited VVIP aircraft, he then shook hands with us and the officials on the tarmac and stood at the designated spot along with security officers.

The VVIP aircraft landed and taxied to the designated spot at precisely the planned door opening time. After the aircraft’s engines shut down, I was positioned at the bottom of the stairs, ready to go up and do the safety checks.?It is at this point when I noticed that a Gentleman was standing just opposite to me! Alarm bells were ringing in my head, as I was sure that he was not part of the British Embassy, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs or any of the various security teams. As I was in uniform, I was about to challenge him. ?My eyes caught the gaze of the Gentleman. Sensing my concerned facial expression, he astutely commented to me with a smile, “I am here to meet my mother”.

I immediately realized that I was speaking with Prince Andrew and thereby preventing an embarrassing incident! ?Prince Andrew was a regular visitor to Abu Dhabi to play golf with friends. We had to manage some special cabin baggage items during his trip.

Let me share one more anecdote from the same visit. Diplomatic visits are comprehensive affairs requiring adherence to various diplomatic protocols, many security measures and weeks of intense planning. A security team from Buckingham Palace had arrived one week in advance to help orchestrate the visit. In one of our many meetings, one of these officials had mentioned to the UAE immigration team that one passenger would arrive without a passport! This got the immigration team anxious and concerned. We were looking at each other, thought it was a joke! ?The security official then revealed that the person without the passport would be the Queen. ?When we eagerly asked why, it was explained very well by a team member. As a British Passport is issued in the name of Her Majesty, it is unnecessary for Queen to possess one. The rest of the royal family, however, including Duke of Edinburgh and The Princess of Wales have had passports.

Wishing Her Majesty all the very best on her Platinum Jubilee. ?And as they say in the UK, Long Live the Queen!!

Mehaboob Chakkarathodi, 5th June 2022