A Scottish regional daily flew hundreds of copies across the Atlantic for eight days in a row to enable business leaders to keep up with the latest news.

More than 350 Scottish delegates were on the annual trip to the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas, regarded as the world’s most important oil and gas show.

The week-long conference is organised by the Press and Journal, Aberdeen, in conjunction with Munro’s Travel Group.

To enable the delegates to keep up to date with events back home, a major operation swung into action which involved transporting hundreds of copies of the P&J through three international airports.

It began with special editions of the newspaper rolling off the presses in Aberdeen in the early hours before being dropped off at the city’s airport at 5am.

They were then loaded on to the first BA flight to London Heathrow. After arriving at Terminal 5, they were put on the morning BA flight to Houston.

BA staff in the US city then arranged for the P&Js to be couriered to the delegation’s HQ hotel, the Hilton Houston Post Oak, by late afternoon, taking advantage of the six hour time difference between Texas and the UK.

That allowed delegates arriving back from the OTC show to pick up a copy of that day’s newspaper in the hotel lobby.

Three senior members of the P&J editorial team – editor Derek Tucker, business editor Ian Forsyth and energy supplement editor Jeremy Cresswell – were among delegation members in Houston.

Ian, who was involved in setting up the arrangements to get the P&Js to Houston, said: “It was like a military manoeuvre – one missed connection and the papers would have been lost for that day.

“It was a big effort on the part of the P&J and BA, with planning going on for several weeks, but everything fell into place perfectly.

“The P&Js were flown out for eight publication days in a row and we did not lose one delivery. The delight on the faces of delegates when they got that day’s paper made it well worth the effort.”

Comments

John Grey (14/05/2009 06:53:42)
ummm… have they heard of this new thing called the internet?

Derek Tucker (14/05/2009 09:16:23)
I’m afraid John Grey, like so many others, misses the point completely. The point of the exercise was to provide a service and to encourage continuity of readership of the newspaper. It’s what we do.

Onlooker (14/05/2009 09:52:01)
It does seem excessive at first – daily transporting a hunk of printed dead tree half-way round the world when the internet exists. However, personally speaking, I’m sure I would have enjoyed getting such a great newspaper as the Press and Journal in my hands instead of squinting at a computer screen in some Houston hotel. I’ll bet it made those Scots businessmen’s day.

HackedOFF (14/05/2009 12:14:20)
Well done to P&J and all involved.
Mr Tucker is quite right in his assessment – so he can’t be a publishing director!!

Col Kurtz (14/05/2009 14:15:03)
Great to see a newspaper actually spending money for a change, as opposed to seeking any avenue in order to make cuts.
Full marks to P&J managment team.

oldtimer (14/05/2009 14:25:25)
I could have sworn the P&J was doing this years ago. Maybe they had to stop it when the Northcliffe beancounters took over and they’ve able to revive it now they’re working with the largesse of D C Thomson’s!

oldtimer (14/05/2009 14:32:34)
Sod it! If I’d counted my ‘beens’, I’d have realsied I’d missed out a ‘been’. Really ought to know by now to check my copy before sending it. If some kind soul would like to insert the missing word, you could save space by ditching this message.

David Owen (15/05/2009 14:41:24)
This is a very impressive logistical exercise but given that NewspaperDirect.com for example have 1200 print sites around The World these copies could have been printed locally Day A and saved a lot of air miles and delay on these copies.