So, it was a trial day to check signange etc. we were each given a 'script', which consisted (for example) a flight to 'Broome', off we'd go at a designated time, locate the gate, wait in the lounge, proceed to the gate attendent who scan our dummy boarding pass and down the aerobridge we'd go, but no aircraft waiting...instead an employee guarding a doorway that we'd pass through and be heading into 'arrivals', arriving in 'Darwin', locate baggage claim and be on our way.
This was followed by 'Departing for 'Nadi' (Ironic, given I actually departed for Nadi earlier in the Month), but this time passing by emigration & additional security, then 'returning' from Phuket. All seemed to work well enough...a lovely lunch box put on afterwards for our efforts.
That was the 'new', nostalgia comes from the fact that when I was a child, my first experience with OOL was from the passenger terminal that is today a cargo shed. I was listening to the local ABC radio on the way down & was fortunate enough to be interviwed by the presenter Nicole Dwyer when I was there!....She was half aghast when I relayed this info to her.
A phone based survey was expected of us after the 'tour' - 'Trial', fine. I ripped into them about the design, it is but a large extension of the old terminal to which it is attached. I noted Eero Saarinen's TWA terminal at JFK, instantly recogniseable.
Paris CDG, SIN Changi, Washington Dulles, what an imposing structure!, the Arches at LAX, the list goes on, yet here they missed a generational oportunity to make something special, they just extended the existing.
International departures level, to be fair is some serious floor to ceiling glass offering a very good view across the runway Southern end at least. They did get that part right.!
Anyway, it sounds like a strange thing to do on a day off, but then again I was part of history too...
