World change in Paris

It was an important meeting that day in Paris. The CTOs of both UK and France would be present to hear updates about the joint working groups that had been established following the purchase of Orange by France Telecom. I had a section on the agenda and rattled through my part. The French CTO quizzed me closely, but I managed to satisfy him. I have no memory of the actual content of that meeting though – it was one of dozens over that summer.

I left afterwards to make my way back to the airport and the corridors outside were weirdly buzzing. Everyone was standing, walking aimlessly and looking for TV monitors. Two planes had hit the World Trade centres in succession. One had collapsed.

I took the Metro to Charles de Gaulle in a haze. Phones were not good enough then to browse the web for information so I relied on calls back to the UK to find out what was happening. One person, Graham Cobb, told me everything had collapsed and I should get to the airport as soon as possible.

The airport was the emptiest I had ever experienced. I checked in easily although my flight was showing a delay. Down at the departure lounge, I was able to get more information from fellow passengers. All planes had been grounded.

It was originally an afternoon flight, but by mid evening, clearance had been given for it to take off back to Bristol. There were some extra bag checks, and everyone felt extremely pensive about flying on a day like this.

The flight back went without incident and I arrived back late to then immediately go online and bring myself up to date with what was actually happening.