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Monday 31 August 2009

Chavair: The Way to the Bars


Chavair.com, the favourite airline of the great unwashed, has enjoyed another successful summer season, shipping thousands of fat spongers away from the dole queues to the beaches and bars of a luckless Europe. The happy passengers have been working hard for months to earn their summer break, cloning credit cards, feigning disabilities and submitting imaginative and highly dubious benefits claims to make sure they have enough beer money to pass two weeks in total oblivion. Beer might not be as cheap as it was on the Costas, but even if it was they would still be broke when they came back.

One of Chavair's fleet of Boeing 737-300 GTi aircraft taxis to its stand on arrival at Faro. You can tell it's Chavair: when the engines stop, you can still hear the whining. Spotters note: This particular aircraft, G-CHAV, is named after a prominent member of the underclass famed for his excess weight, predisposition to fighting, greed and lack of morals. For his embodiment of all that we love about chavs, we were delighted to christen this aircraft 'John Prescott'.





Running an airport is a complicated business, as the owners of any airport will tell you. You can stick some concrete down in a big field, put up a prefab terminal and wait for a budget airline to come and park on your tarmac. But to get the serious players you've got to pretend you are near a major city, like London (only 30 miles from London Gatwick). It also helps if you can link your airport to a famous celebrity or historical figure, for example Liverpool's John Lennon, and how many of us were aware that Robin Hood hailed from Doncaster? Our photo (above) shows the newly-rebranded Barton Aerodrome which now styles itself Salford Vicky Pollard Airport in an effort to drag the locals away from watching endless repeats of Shameless and persuade them to sample the delights of Benidorm instead.





It's not our fault that Ryanair and Easyjet have bought up the entire production line of Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s for the next five years. Just because their fleets are brand new doesn't make them any better. Our aircraft still work perfectly well, even after all these years, and most of them have never crashed yet.






Of course not everybody finds it convenient to make their own way to the airport under their own steam. The estate's pool car might have been seized by the local plod for no insurance or ram-raiding, and the ticket inspectors on Northern Rail are red-hot these days. So why not treat yourself to a chauffeur-driven ride to the airport from the remnants of your front door to the long queue outside check-in. Our expert drivers, Wayne and Baz, know all the rat-runs like the backs of their tattooed hands. And it's all totally deniable of course. If a marked Volvo stops you, just deny knowing that our pimped-up Metro has been twocked and you'll be on your way. Eventually.






We encourage customer loyalty as we want our customers to come back. As do the courts in most cases. The photo above shows members of Chavair's Frequent Fleers Programme as they queue up at Leeds-Bradford Airport having fled from Leeds Crown Court rather than answer their bail.





All decent airlines have their own in-flight magazine, and so do we. This month's edition is specially edited to make our passengers feel welcome. And so that they can cope with it, there aren't many words but plenty of pictures, especially in the Duty Free Booze section.







'One size fits all': that's the motto of our Uniform Requisitioning Department. Here Kylie, one of our senior cabin staff, proves that the outfit she was issued when she originally joined Chavair is still just as good today. Our staff get a generous uniform allowance. They buy it and we allow them to keep it.





Our flight deck crews are consummate professionals. Here Chavair's Chief Pilot consumes a bit of Dutch Courage before boarding the creaking old museum piece we've cobbled together and persuaded him to fly to Malaga. Bottoms up!






For a small extra charge you can enjoy the calm and luxury of Chavair's 'Pleb Class' non-Executive Lounge. Perks include complimentary salt and vinegar crisps, pork scratchings, kebabs and all the White Lightning you can drink.






Intensive training is what makes Chavair's cabin staff so special. That and their ability to relate to our passengers. Note cabin staff member (lower right) who has adopted the 'Council House facelift' so beloved of our clientele. This photo shows our Cabin Staff Training Manager, Jeremy Kyle, as he teaches a class in The Psychology of Contemporary Holidaymakers. Today's topic :"That baby's not mine; it's off that waiter in the Hotel del Sol, Benidorm".







A face that only a mother could love. The rest of us might prefer to punch it, which is why all our cabin staff are highly trained in conflict-avoidance. As soon as the halfwits start twining, the crew disappear into the galley and pretend to be busy. Well it never looks good to assault your customers does it?






Waiting patiently for their delayed Chavair flight to Alicante, these happy souls while away the hours in the departure lounge at Liverpool Airport. Above us only half the Premiership, eh? eh?

It's our passengers that make us unique and we celebrate the diversity of British folk we fly from airports across the country. Chavair flies from an airport near you, as long as you don't live anywhere halfway decent or remotely near a posh airport like Heathrow or Manchester. As long as it's cheap and cheerful, and there's a bar in the terminal. Come and join us on our flights from Liverpool Ken Dodd Airport, Newcastle, Southend, Stansted, Luton, Doncaster-Sheffield-Barnsley-Rotherham International and many others that normal people would try and avoid.






Aviation security is at the forefront of our mind as a responsible air carrier, of course. Which is why we will mercilessly hunt down the scallies who stole the alloys from this Chavair A320 whilst it was parked overnight at Liverpool Ken Dodd Airport. In fact, not content with the wheels they've gone the whole hog and taken all the paintwork, both engines and one of the doors as well. So if any of our competitors are offered knock-off Airbus or Boeing parts we'd like to hear from you. We've got a hangar full of Ryanair wings and Jet2.com engines which we'll let you have back as they don't fit our aircraft.