It was while piloting an airplane in the US, with no salary and more than US$50,000 (Dh183,655) of debt, that Andrew Hoy concocted a plan to send himself back home to the UK by FedEx.
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As a pilot with certain "jump-seat privileges" and through the help of a friend at FedEx, Mr Hoy managed to board multiple cargo flights that ferried him from Los Angeles to Oakland, up to Anchorage, down to Memphis then over to London to Stansted so that he could find work to repay his debt.
"If you remember Cast Away, I was Tom Hanks sitting in the rear seat to get home because I had no money," says Mr Hoy, 41, who now lives in Dubai.
He had to argue with a captain who wanted to boot him from a flight, he says. "I said, 'I'm getting married and gotta get home.' It wasn't true. I convinced him, and we became good friends after that."
Savvy salesmanship has elevated Mr Hoy's career to new heights, though not as high as he would like. As managing director for ExecuJet Aircraft Trading, which sells and manages planes for businesses and billionaires alike, Mr Hoy acknowledges the company has faced fairly tough times. The scene was dire four years ago when he landed at ExecuJet as head of sales. His first few months consisted of slashing the sales team from 23 down to just six employees.
"I was like 'Hatchet Hoy'," he says. "It was a tough time, but the right thing to do."
More recently, cash-rich bankers who once bought aircraft on the fly have dropped out of the market, grounding sales of smaller planes. But sales of business jets, which can cost from $60 million to $70m apiece, started lifting off again last September, and ExecuJet has reached 65 per cent of its sales target halfway through its fiscal year.
"This year has been better than last," says Mr Hoy.
Part of the boost is directly attributable to Mr Hoy, who holds four airline gold cards and often zips around the world - recently from Melbourne to Johannesburg then London - to seal deals with potential aircraft buyers and promote the business. A trip to Toronto this year was "just for lunch", he says, to grow business with a local firm.
"I learnt numerous things from Andy, probably the most important being that this business is as much about people as it is about aircraft. Sometimes more so," says Mark Hardman, who used to work for Mr Hoy at Bombardier Skyjet International and is now an ExecuJet colleague.
Over the years, Mr Hoy has spent countless hours with his head literally in the clouds.
He was just 14 when he joined the Royal Air Force cadets in Bedford, UK, where on Friday afternoons he took flying lessons. It was just as well, Mr Hoy says, given he was not the "brightest spark" in class and preferred chasing girls or playing rugby.
At 16, while singing What a Wonderful Worldand unable to wipe a smile from his face, Mr Hoy flew solo for the first time in a glider.
"That was the most amazing feeling, and I remember the freedom you get on your own," he says.
While Mr Hoy skipped university - "I didn't get the grades" - he did take some mechanical engineering courses. "It was fairly rubbish, except that's where I met my wife - at the library, and I only went every Wednesday," he says.
After a couple of odd jobs in the UK, Mr Hoy borrowed £35,000 (Dh198,701) from the bank, plus more from his grandfather, to pursue a licence to fly a helicopter. He banked hours in the skies then took to teaching students how to do the same.
"It was a dangerous business, because students are trying to kill you all day," says Mr Hoy, who recalls one botched landing where the helicopter bounced on the ground and sustained damage to the tail.
Soon after, Mr Hoy converted to a different type of licence but needed 700 hours of flying before he could write the proper exam. That is how he wound up in the US - in Illinois - with an unpaid job as a flight instructor.
One day, a wealthy heart surgeon turned up at the airport with a new aircraft.
"Within half an hour of chatting, he handed me the keys and his gold credit card and said 'deliver this home for me please, in Palm Springs, California'," says Mr Hoy.
He did. But working for the surgeon, unpaid, with thousands of dollars in debt inspired him to return home - via FedEx. Once back in the UK, he says, he continued to fly and started running a business that bought and sold spare aircraft parts he picked up by combing through accident sites.
"I did a couple that landed in the sea," he says. "It sounds morbid, but I had an absolute blast going through the wreckages trying to find what it was worth."
But in 2003, Mr Hoy's passion was grounded when a doctor gave him a diagnosis of Type I diabetes and said he could not fly commercial planes or those with passengers.
"That was the most difficult point in my life, by a long way," he says.
Which is how his career diverted into aircraft operations and sales, first at Bombardier, then at ExecuJet.
"He's one of those very multitalented players," says Ghouse Akbar, the chief executive of Princely Jets in Pakistan.
"He's sold helicopters, flown planes," says Mr Akbar, who got guidance from Mr Hoy while buying his first plane nearly a decade ago. "He can also play a piano; he did it on my yacht in the south of France."
Mr Hoy says playing the piano is how he unwinds while on the road - especially in a hotel lounge as guests lavish him with praise and drinks, like during his heyday as a pilot on layovers. Once he returns to Dubai, though, Mr Hoy stops the car 10 minutes from home to switch from executive mode to husband and father of two.
"I desperately try to avoid working in front of the children," he says.
Still, he rarely turns down an opportunity to return to the skies. Recently, he says, he found a way to fly a Gulfstream business jet from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur at the request of a client.
"The buyer had never seen the airplane before I delivered it to him," says Mr Hoy. "We had a ceremony, where the buyer brought serious dignitaries to a 'welcome to my new toy party'. Everyone was happy, then off I go straight [back] to Dubai."
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