8:44am Monday 6th September 2010
By Steven Smith
Bournemouth Airport and airline Palmair have received a boost from one of the UK’s most outspoken columnists.
Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson wrote in his page in The Sun on Saturday that he had initially been “disappointed” to find that his two-week holiday would be starting with a Palmair flight from Bournemouth.
He had imagined that “things would not go well”.
The often-scathing journalist wrote: “The plane – probably a Sopwith Camel – would be marooned in Tenerife and would not be able to pick me up until it had deposited a party of Swedes in Yugoslavia.
“I’d therefore be spending my entire fortnight at Bournemouth Airport. A place where Coca-Cola has not yet been invented and all you can have is mead.
“Wrong. Bournemouth Airport is brilliant and Palmair was even better. We took off on time, landed on time, the food was nice and we didn’t crash once.”
It serves as a high-profile boost for both the airport and Bournemouth-based Palmair, who have both suffered during the recession – Ryanair and Palmair announced in the summer that they would not be flying from Hurn this winter.
Palmair boss David Skillicorn said he knew that someone with the name Jeremy Clarkson had booked with the airline, but didn’t think anything more of it.
“It can’t do any harm at all and he was complimentary about the airport as well, which will please them too,” he said.
“In an industry that’s had very little good news for as long as I can remember it’s good to get a pat on the back and particularly from someone so high profile.”
The writer has not always been so complimentary about Bournemouth in his column. Last year he lambasted roadworks on the A338 and the town’s traffic problems.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thisisdorset.net/trade_directory/