As has been seen in the reports back from Cho Oyu, Qatar Airways have been a huge help to the Xtreme Everest team. In the period between the heavy equipment leaving for the Himalayas and the departure of the team there was a security driven change in rules for carry on items.

The plan had to been to transport many of the sensitive and expensive items with the team members themselves. The staff at Qatar were extremely understanding of the predicament and effectively removed the hold baggage allowance restrictions and excess fees so that everything got away from Heathrow on time.

The most difficult items to transport were the Istat cartridges that measure blood oxygen levels. From the moment of their manufacture, they must remain between 2 and 8 degrees celcius - a difficult thing to do when transporting them half way around the world and up a very high mountain by Yak!

The Qatar ground staff and aircrew were extremely helpful in facilitating this requirement and even adjusted the aircraft's baggage hold temperature accordingly.

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