FOR eight days in a row, hundreds of copies of The Press and Journal newspaper were dispatched to the USA so that 350 Scottish delegates at a conference would not miss an edition.
Given the importance of the oil and gas industry to Aberdeen, where the P&J is headquartered, the decision was made to fly out the copies to Scots attending the Offshore Technology Conference, in Houston – considered the world’s most important oil and gas show.
Also involved in the exercise – which concluded last week – was Munro’s Travel Group of Aberdeen and British Airways. The papers made their way to the USA via Terminal 5 at London Heathrow airport. They would arrive for delegates to pick up in the early afternoon, local time.
Three senior members of the P&J editorial team – editor Derek Tucker, business editor Ian Forsyth and editor of the Energy supplement Jeremy Cresswell – were at the conference.
The P&J was also last week crowned Newspaper of the Year at the UK Regional Press Awards.
Said Ian of the exercise: “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 British Airways, 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.”
