The first time Martin walked into the flight deck of MJN's only aircraft, he found a rather unusual rule book
Martin, really could not believe his luck, yes he had achieved his lifelong ambition of becoming an airline, no not an airline he thought, they do only have one jet after all, captain. Despite this however, he discovered he couldn't give up his man with a van job seeing as though he had agreed to work for free. He still wasn't entirely sure how that had happened, other than the fact that Carolyn didn't look like the sort of woman you should argue with.
Using the keys Carolyn had just given him, he decided to have a look around Gerti, he'd been told the airplane was called. He walked into the flight deck immediately noticing the book placed upon the control panel. Walking over to it, he noticed that it had his name on it. Just as he picked it up Douglas, his new first officer walked in. "Ah, I see Carolyn's left the MJN rule book out for you. I must say it's gotten bigger then when I was given it" he said nostalgically.
Douglas then left a very confused looking Martin to read the Rule Book of MJN Air.
As he read Martin discovered that each of the rules had come from a different ATC either for their benefit, or for MJN's some had included quite a few…
A few hours later he walked into the port cabin to find Douglas and Carolyn, along with her son Arthur the steward sat round an old dining room table. "Ah Martin, I see you've been going over the rule book" Carolyn said as she noticed his expression.
"Yes" he replied. "I do have a number of questions though" he told them. "We'd have been surprised if you hadn't. You better take a seat" Douglas said. Martin did so, at the same time Arthur made to get up "Right then mum coffee milk, one sugar?" Carolyn nodded her appreciation at the offer, Arthur made to look at Douglas "As if you even have to ask" the first officer said. "Martin, tea, coffee, milk, sugar, sweetener, honey, green, herbal…?" Arthur could have continued, but Martin decided to cut him off "Uh, coffee black no sugar, please" he said. "What?" he asked noticing the strange looks the over three were giving him "I have a feeling it's going to be a long afternoon"
"So Martin, what would you like to ask first?" Douglas asked him. Martin thought it over for a few minutes before deciding to ask the question that had been confusing him the most. "Why?"
"Ah yes good question that" Douglas said. "MJN's not exactly your typical air charter business" Carolyn answered. "You mean to say there's a reason for each of those rules existing?" he asked the pair of them as Arthur bought in their drinks. "Oh yeah, skip each of them is based on a true story" said Arthur handing him his coffee, Martin took a sip eager to hear more.
"Which one to start with though? said Carolyn. "Hmm, how about the list from Chicago ATC?" said Douglas fondly, thinking about the five rules that they had recently attained. "Ok, what happened in Chicago?" he asked, taking another sip of coffee. Douglas took a breath and began "Well our former first officer James as we've told to call him for legal reasons…" he started to explain, when Carolyn interrupted him "That's a different story" she told him. "Yes, anyway James took the landing, unfortunately the ATC was his ex, and they'd broken up on rather bad terms, they proceeded to have a shouting match over the radio forgetting that they had a plane full of people to land…" at this point Martin decided to cut in "What happened?" he asked, it was Carolyn who answered "Well James wasn't paying attention to what he was doing, and didn't notice that instead of aiming for the designated runway, he was aiming for one of the airport's hangers…" she told him, the memory still fresh in her mind "If it hadn't been for Douglas taking control…" Arthur said before shaking his head.
OK, Martin thought that explains the 'do not let Jane do the ATC announcements for MJN' rule, from the Chicago list. He gave a nod of his head signalling for them to continue.
By the time he had left it was dark outside, but he didn't mind he now knew each of the stories behind the rules of MJN, although there was quite a few of them that he had a hard time believing were true.
What he didn't doubt however, was that each ATC at each airport they had visited had their own copy of The MJN Rule Book, which as with the company itself was shown to each new employee on their first day.