Seasoned travellers

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32701, 2 September 1971, Page 13

Seasoned travellers

(N.Z Press Assn.—Copyright) AMSTERDAM, September 1. K.L.M. Royal Dutch Airline officials are baffled by the mystery of a flying grandmother, aged 74, who has made 160 Atlantic crossings with her grandson, aged 14, in the last five months.

As the old lady, Mrs Sarah Krasnoff, an American, lay recovering from a light heart attack in an Amsterdam Hotel today, The grandson, Howard Gelfand, told telephone inquirers: “Go to hell. I’ll kill you.” Officials of the airline say that Mrs Krasnoff has spent nearly SUSI4O,OOO on almost daily crossings over the last five months. When air hostesses cautiously inquired about the reason for their trips, they received vague replies, such as, “Grandma likes flying,” or “My grandson would like to be a pilot.”

The couple usually arrived in Amsterdam in the morning and took off about six hours later for the return trip to New York, airport officials say. Members of the airline staff were concerned in the middle of this month, when the best customers in the company’s history booked on a Scandinavian Airlines System flight to Copenhagen immediately on arrival in Amsterdam. But the seasoned travellers explained that they were trying to inject some variation into their transatlantic routine.

The doctor treating Mrs Krasnoff has ordered her to take a rest, and to stop the tiring transatlantic crossings, whatever their purpose might