WRITING a weekly offering such as this demands three things and that’s quite apart from the slug or three of Calvados needed just to get my heart beating at a steady rate of knots as I sit at the electronic typewriter.

In no particular order, they are a skin as thick as a rhino’s, a pair of reasonably broad shoulders and a back which, when the flak starts flying, lets everything run off it in much the same way as does the duck’s with water.

I now see that those three attributes – for want of a better description – have been acquired by what is claimed to be Europe’s largest regional airline, the 2009 Regional Airline of the Year and, to use its own description, ‘a market leader in developing its range of passenger services’.

I’m talking of course of Flybe.

The true extent of its claim to be a market leader in developing its passenger services became apparent to Nurse Gill Bowie the other day – and readers of this newspaper not long afterwards – when she was quoted a truly extortionate £730 (in additional to the £260 she had already paid for a return fare and the one piece of luggage she’d booked) to shove an additional suitcase in the aircraft’s hold so she could get home to Scotland after working here for three months.

If I’ve got a skin like a rhino for putting up with whingers from the public sector who take exception to me telling it as it is – some of them work hard but some of them don’t – then Flybe must have an outer shell like a Sherman tank.

All they could say to the Scottish Daily Record – one of the most popular and widely read newspapers north of the border – when told of Gill Bowie’s experience was that they needed more time to investigate her baggage bill before they could comment.

Before they waste too much time on investigating her baggage bill, might I suggest that investigating the substance of her complaint – that she was ‘quoted’ £730 to get a suitcase from Jersey to Edinburgh, rather than she was stupid enough to actually give in to an extortionate demand – might be more customer friendly, not that being customer friendly seems to bother this particular outfit.

I’m glad that the Daily Record has now latched on to Flymaybe’s business practices. Perhaps if some of the English national newspapers gave this story some publicity Flybe might – I’m really clutching at straws here – just might alter its attitude towards those who pay its wages.

Happily, Ms Bowie was with some friends when she checked in and one of them suggested posting the suitcase to Edinburgh.

That cost 14 quid which, according to the good old electronic abacus, is less than two per cent of what Flybe wanted to screw her out of. Shameless isn’t the word, never mind thick skinned.

When are episodes like this going to become factors when outfits such as this renew their licences to operate on certain routes? That is what an increasing number of people want to know. And to think, this is the same mob that is threatening to sue the Guernsey States because they don’t want to talk to Flymaybe about taking over Aurigny.

Although it sticks in my gullet to say so, our Guernsey cousins are showing a somewhat surprising (given their track record) abundance of common sense in refusing to hand over Aurigny (and the all important Gatwick slots) to this crowd. I wouldn’t want to be in the same room as them.

There’s no wonder that one comment online suggested that the airline’s founder, Jack Walker, would be turning in his grave if he knew what was going on. I doubt he’d be best pleased about the prospect of his beloved Blackburn Rovers being sold, either.

Of course there’s precious little anyone can do about this and other complaints about this airline. However, here’s a thought. Flybe is 15 per cent owned by British Airways but it’s probably a waste of time asking them to rattle cages, given the problems they’ve got.

However, if you know someone employed by Flybe or if you’re one of the many with a gripe about them, it’s worth knowing that 16% of Flybe is owned by its staff.

They’ll soon get cheesed off if everyone starts giving them an ear bashing when they’ve got a gripe, that’s for sure.

WHILE on the subject of turning in graves, I reckon another who might be doing just that is my old friend the Hon Edward Greenall who, for the last few years of his life was Lord Daresbury.

I doubt that a nicer, gentler gentleman ever walked into a bar and one of his favourites, as I recall, was the public bar at the Oaklands Lodge on Trinity Hill, although I do recall having a pint with him at the Carrefour Selous in the days when Miss Le Boutillier ran it – ‘aided’, if that’s the right word, by an Irish barman whose name I have forgotten.

Forgetting bar staff’s names isn’t like me at all, although I hope I’m not in the category of some of Senator Alan Breckon’s States colleagues who, according to him, walk into a pub with a cactus in each pocket and talk to everyone but the barman, but I digress.

I have a feeling the Hon Edward had something to do with Randalls – for all I know he could have owned it but he certainly knew his way around its beer – and he’d have been absolutely appalled at that firm renaming General Don’s pub in the Parade after an Irish tart. So am I and I daresay Rachel will be spinning in his grave also.