Buerk's first flight came at a tender age: "When I was a kid, we went in a de Havilland Rapide - a bi-plane - from Elmden Airport (now Birmingham International). I can't remember anything about the flight except that I was given a peppermint to suck and I was terrified from beginning to end!"
Ever since that experience, he has never been at ease in small aircraft. "When I was posted in Africa with ITN, we chartered a Lear jet, and being a small plane, I got wound up about it. We had been doing a series or an assignment and were just raising a glass of wine to celebrate it's conclusion, when the pilot as a joke, did one of those four-point rolls. Suddenly I realised that the world was going round!"
It was in another small aircraft back in the late seventies, after his news team had covered a story that Buerk experienced his worst ever turbulence. Flying between Aberdeen and Glasgow, they were over the Grampian mountains when they hit a severe storm. "Being a bit of a white-knuckled flyer in small aircraft, I was absolutely terrified as the plane actually dropped a thousand or two thousand feet at a time, and on one occasion, nearly turned over. Normally in this situation, the pilot apologises at the end of the flight for the light turbulence, even though you know you've been through a typhoon! But this time, what was alarming was the fact that the pilot himself was fairly nervous and that made me even more frightened than anything else! When we landed, I knelt on the tarmac, terribly thankful that we had got there. After that, we went out for an extremely large meal and an awful lot of booze to help us get over it!"
Michael Buerk seems to have had more than his fair share of 'memorable' flights. On one occasion, in a south-eastern European country, he had to travel on an internal flight. He recalls: "Because of a free-seating system, there was this awful business of clawing your way to the front of this mob to get on the plane. As soon as it took off, the aircraft started to jerk violently, which caused a panic. The people were screaming and animals - chickens and things - were running up and down the aisle. Then the door to the flightdeck was thrown open and what I presume was the flight engineer emerged clutching a screwdriver or wrench or something. He walked down the aisle, ripped up the carpet and proceeded to bang crucially underneath the carpet. You just wouldn't believe it, but it actually happened!"
For Buerk, his most enjoyable flights have not stood out because of the service, but because they have taken him away from troubled spots. "I remember once leaving Beirut on a BA flight after going through a rather bad time, and celebrating the fact that we were getting away from it. Another pleasant flight was last year, after having been with the rebels in Ethiopia for a long time. We went to the Sudan where we couldn't even get a drink! At the end of it all it was nice to climb on board an aeroplane and be embraced by a familiar culture - a feeling you're home before you actually are home."
Buerk recalls another time when he was glad to get onto an aircraft, but on this occasion, he was on holiday in South America with his wife and twin sons who were then aged twelve. "We were in Cuzco in central Peru and were ready to leave when all the internal flights were cancelled. There seemed to be millions of tourists fighting and scrabbling - I mean actual fist fights breaking out! Having been stuck there without any accommodation for two days, out of sheer desperation I decided to take the matter into my own hands. So the four of us went out airside onto the tarmac - it's quite easy there - and hid until the plane from Lima landed. After watching all the passengers disembark, we rushed for the plane where we were physically thrown off the steps by a security guard. Pushing him aside, we raced onto the plane and bolted ourselves in! That way, we eventually got out. I mean, it's no war zone in central Peru but it can be as bad as one at the height of the tourist season, when they start cancelling internal flights!"
Like many seasoned travellers, Buerk has learned to cope with jet-lag. "I don't refrain from having a drink or anything like that. I find the best thing is to carry on as if it doesn't exist and try to keep going until the light fades wherever you've got to. It works with me quite well. I find jetlag is a function of how little you've got to do when you're not involved in any kind of compulsive occupation at the other end of the journey. It's alright for aircrew - when I get off the aircraft, I have to start working!" He admits to being able to sleep easily on flights: "I like to have a good meal with a bottle of wine and then when the movie starts, it's dark and I usually doze off."
However, the "good meal" has not always been forthcoming: "During the Cyprus conflict in 1974, Turkish airspace was closed so we had to get there via an eastern European country, using their national airline. All we got offered was a glass of water and a dry biscuit which was served by a stewardess who was obviously a shot-put champion! It was a fairly grim flight!"
During the conversation, it soon became apparent that in-flight catering is what Buerk describes as his "personal hobbyhorse". He explains: "I think that airlines have got things wrong. I think that rather than reheat a very nice piece of fillet steak so that it's like cardboard, a much greater feeling of luxury could be conveyed by serving something like cold smoked salmon, lobster or smoked mackerel. I was lucky enough to have my First Class fare paid for me to go to Australia and I was very disappointed with the standard of catering. Usually British Airways to be fair, are very good - I normally enjoy flying with them. But it occurred to me on that flight, how much nicer it would have been to have been served cold lobster mayonnaise instead of a piece of grey, unidentifiable meat."
Like most of us, Buerk dreads sitting next to talkative passengers, and unfortunately for him, his familiar face is even more likely to attract the unwanted attentions of his neighbour. "I try to ignore them completely! I don't mind having a chat to anybody for the first ten minutes of the flight, but the prospect of spending the next seven hours with someone like that is grim! I have to stick my head in a large book." He admits that it's even more embarrassing if members of the public confuse him for someone else like, Alistair Burnett. "You get used to it," he points out philosophically. What does happen quite often is that people half-recognise him: "They think you're their uncle Fred or their cousin Tom!" he laughs. Although it would appear that having a famous face has it's drawbacks, there are some benefits. "Normally cabin crew are marvellous from that point of view. They manage probably because they have these sorts of circumstances over and over again, so they behave with great warmth and tact."
I asked him if there is any particular aircraft he likes flying on. "I missed the opportunity to go on flying boats, which would have been quite nice. I like wide-bodied jets best, because as far as I'm concerned, the bigger they are, the more comfortable they are, affording as they do, more of an opportunity to wander around. Now I think the only thing that will change that is Concorde, because of the special thrill that goes with that. Now I have never ever been on Concorde, even though I did all the BBC's coverage on Concorde's first scheduled flight. What got me was that I did all the hard work for the reports, but it was the Air Correspondent at the time who was given a free flight to New York! I actually almost made it once when I was coming back from New York. The regular flight had been over-booked so the Club passengers were told that any volunteers willing to stay overnight at BA's expense would go on the supersonic flight in the morning. Of course, I instantly volunteered but I missed being selected by one or two."
Part of Buerk's job necessarily entails him visiting some remote places. He explains: "On various reporting exploits, I've been to the centre of the Kalahari and the Namib. There are parts of Mozambique I've been to that are remote because they have become disconnected due to the war, so they find themselves in an almost stone-age situation." But there is one place that he visited in his early days as a reporter that stands out in his memory: "I had to walk with a camera and tripod about ten miles to Britain's most remote community which was in the western coast of the isle of Lewis. It felt terribly remote walking ten miles in the rain over the mountains with all my gear!"
As far as places go, like anyone, Michael Buerk has his likes and dislikes: "I think I would rather be in Eritrea in northern Ethiopia than on the M25 in the rush hour! But as far as favourite places go, I tend to like the areas that produce wine, with nice scenery by the sea, like Cape Town, Vancouver, Sydney, Hong Kong and Rio. I think they are all rather stunning. The sea and the sunshine give those cities an added dimension."
As a foreign correspondent, getting to his destination is often the easy part - the circumstances and the accommodation that await him at the other end are, however, another matter. Buerk marvels at the way some hotels in troubled areas somehow manage to operate normally even though there may be a war going on outside the front door. He points out: "There's a whole army of these places - the Commodore in Beirut is a well-known example. It's a particular nature of my job that you tend to find yourself in hotels with the sound of gunfire in the distance. I stayed in a hotel called the Camino Royale in San Salvador which at particularly heavy times is really quite extraordinary, because you can hear gunfire about a hundred yards away and everyone carries on as normal."
Occasionally, things get just a little too close for comfort: "I once stayed in Kampala at the height of the troubles in Uganda, in a hotel which had a load of glass doors which looked out onto the street. There was an enormous amount of firing all night and at one particular stage, there was a knocking at my door (which was made of glass). Through it, I could just make out this bloke silhouetted against the flickering firelight outside, holding a gun. At that stage, I turned and ran into the bathroom and tried to climb out of the window, but it was too small. Eventually I made my way gingerly back to the bedroom and found he had gone. I felt quite silly really...
"I've stayed in some extraordinary hotels. I was in El Salvador during the elections in 1982 in a place which was under siege by the rebels, but we managed to get into the town and stay in the only hotel, which was built around a quadrangle. In the middle of the night, I was woken up by this heavy firing - I imagine that the army was out there keeping the rebels at bay. Anyway, there was a great rumbling noise out on the landing, so I went out to find out what was going on and found a queue of about five hundred soldiers winding all the way round this sort of balcony and down into the quadrangle. They were queuing for a lady who was busy in one of the rooms and it was then that I realised we were staying in a brothel!"
Travelling so much, a knowledge of languages is very useful. Were there any he would like to learn? "All languages really. I can get by in French and I can fiddle around in German, but like all good foreign correspondents, I can ask for a beer and the bill in most languages!"
When asked if any of the journeys he has undertaken really stand out in his memory, he became suddenly thoughtful. "Last year I went back to Ethiopia. Some of the long journeys into rebel territory are equal to the Khyber Pass if you do it at night along a rocketed road under the moonlight. It's really quite extraordinary." I got the distinct feeling that he was not at his happiest reading the BBC news at Television Centre, a question I put to him. "No, not really," he confirmed with a grin. "I mean, of all the places in the world to end up in, Shepherds Bush is not it!"