Dreamflight Celebration

We are still in celebratory mode for Brooklands College Travel & Tourism students who delivered a spectacular charity event on 22 January 2020. The fundraising dinner raised a grand total of £2,073.01 for UK organisation Dreamflight.

Marking this occasion, British Airways captain and trustee John Tye visited the college to receive the cheque on behalf of Dreamflight. The Travel & Tourism students were also presented with certificates from the charity. Our Catering & Hospitality students who helped on the fundraising night, also baked a special cake for this celebratory moment.

Wishing to inspire the students, John Tye shared his experiences of seeing the positive affect on the young minds and also how he worked his way up in the airline industry. “I grew up local in Sunbury and I left school with some ‘O’ Levels. There was an advert on Capital Radio in 1976 for clerks, I applied and got the job, It was great fun and I did that for a few weeks. And then I saw a job advertised, it was driving a van around the airport. I had a uniform, driving a van, 18/19 years old… I thought who’d want to give this up to go to university? I got to meet airline staff. When I met the pilot, I thought ‘you’re just a regular guy, not a superman – I want to do that job’. It inspired me to work hard, go on and get my pilot’s licence. I went on to become a Concorde pilot. When you leave college, you’ll go out there into the Travel & Tourism industry and it’s a great life. I’m going to Orlando on Wednesday, Antigua next week, Cancun the week after… It’s tough, but somebody’s got to do it! It’s a fantastic job and I’m very privileged to be involved in it.”

Dreamflight proudly give children with serious illnesses or disabilities the trip of a lifetime to Orlando, Florida. “For the first time in their lives, they feel normal. They come out of their shells, they do things that they didn’t think they were capable of doing,” John Tye explains. “Well done, and thank you for what you’ve done for Dreamflight.”

Discover Travel & Tourism at Brooklands College