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Sydney Man's 66

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(BOAC Supplement—Advertisement)

High-speed Sydney businessman, Gordon Banks, recently went around the world in 66 hours (something of a record) in order to be in London for a two or three hour conference.

Time is money, he said, and the per sonal contact in business all im portant. This is why he took BOAC’s jumbo jet from Sydney via the Orient to spend a few hours in London be fore returning by way of the trans pacific VC 10 service.

Mr Banks believes that his journey made him the fastest man around the world by scheduled airline on this routing. His journey, by way of Singapore, Bangkok, Teheran, Lon don, New York, Los Angeles, Hono lulu, Fiji and back to Sydney, covered 25,481 miles and, even including time for stops, he travelled at an average speed of 387 miles an hour through out.

Owner and managing director of John Milne Pty Ltd, of Bankstown, Sydney, who are specialists in produc ing veneered panels, Mr Banks said that in his industry in which the de velopment of manufacturing pro cesses is so rapid, there is no substi tute for the face-to-face contact to sort out problems and learn of new techniques at first hand. No amount of telephone time could achieve the same result, he said.

Leaving Sydney by the BOAC jumbo jet via Singapore at 2.25 pm on a recent Monday, Mr Banks arrived at London Airport at 7 am the following day and went to a hotel (“to have a shower”, he said), where his business principles met him. After the conference he left the hotel again just before noon the same day to board BOAC’s 1 pm VCIO, of which he says he is a devotee, for the journey to Australia via the USA and the Pacific to arrive at Mascot Airport, Sydney, at 8.25 am on the Thursday of the same week.

Five-and-a-half days was Mr Banks’ previous record for a similar journey.

“I regard it pretty much as a run-of the-mill job—although done quickly,”

he said, but added that he also wanted to prove a point to himself— “that I could do a journey of this kind and return without undue discomfort, which I did.”

For the record it has to be pointed out that Mr Banks almost missed out.

When he got back Sydney Airport was fogbound and his flight was diverted, However, he was back overhead Sydney Airport after his allotted 66 hours before going to Melbourne.