Why do many African operators revert to dubious practices?

[VortexGen300]

Hi

I have followed the threads over the last few days on this forum with interest - being from Africa and looking at becoming an operator myself - what I have read is frustrating!

Almost every operator that is mentioned here has either been running dubious maintenance, or dubious business practices or has treated their personnel and especially pilots like crap - so they end in a business partner shutting them down or as often happens they close shop after what would be determined to be an avoidable incident.

Has everybody decided that Africa is the place to make big bucs at the expense of everybody else and now one will find that everybody is loosing at the expense of everybody else?

Is it an attitude that says: "The poor 'infidels' will never know so lets take them" or is it purely a lack of experience and being taken for a ride by the other operators in the industry?

I am learning and would appreciate input from the experienced guys without naming people as I don't want this to be a witch hunt but an attempt to learn and not do the same mistakes again.

If we all can learn from our mistakes the world will surely become a better place!

VG300

[Shrike200]

In my experience of several African operators, the following were just some of the pertinent points regarding the ultimate succes of the operation:

- Interpersonal/vertical communication: Management and employees tended to have an 'us and them' relationship, with neither party willing to communicate, or in general tending to have no respect for the other parties point of view. Employees did not trust management to act in their, or the companies best interest in the long term. Management tended to go for short term solutions that were sometimes obviously doomed to fail; that is, if anybody tasked with implementing the solution was asked for an opinion, which seldom happened in any case.

- Training: Companies viewed training as an absolute drain of resources, merely relying on individual skill when any problems arose, which is always a hit or miss affair, especially given the often random hiring process. Training was thus done to the barest minimum standard, often at the absolute last moment (type rating done two days before scheduled tour, who hasn't heard of that?), with no room for error. Any failures would be blamed on the individual concerned, with absolutely no introspection on the companies part, or any attempt to do better next time, or seek the root cause of the failure. Recurrency training was often a bit of a farce, again only complying with the barest of minimums.

- Documentation/Process: Whilst ops manuals could be full of good info and proper procedures, these kind of documents tended to be just a whole stack of paper that was ignored by management and personnel alike. Related to training. I had encountered pilots who had done several tours without even seeing the ops manual, let alone reading it.

- Career Plan: Again, management tended to view employees as a necessary evil, rather than a part of a successful company, and treated them like whiny children in many instances, or just ignored them completely. The attitude was 'I can treat these people in a way that I myself would hate to be treated, but that's life'. Related to this, was quality of life - doing a two month tour, and expecting a month off, often the month off would be cut to ten days or so due to 'operational demand'. Bear in mind that 'operational demand' usually meant the company had screwed up somehow, yet the employee was the one punished.

- Staffing levels: Management often seemed to think that one young girl just out of school could handle the training and recurrency admin of nearly 100 pilots (in one example). Naturally, the drain on personnel in positions such as this resulted in very high staff turnover (the salary was also abysmal), which meant that experience levels were always below standard, with resulting screwups. Often related to that 'operational demand' thing I mentioned previously.

- 'Nomalisation of Deviance': A lovely term, given to me by a good friend, which describes how companies and individual become accustomed to doing things 'out of spec', or in contravention of MEL's, Ops manuals etc. The attitude coming down from above is always 'Get the job done', rather than 'Safety First' (which they might pay lip service to, but never at the expense of getting the job done of course).

I could actually go on and on, but I realised I'm waffling a bit. Ultimately it was the management culture of running everything below par, on what seemed to be a shoestring budget - inadequate staffing levels, salary, maintenance, training, etc. Poor/random long term strategies, with blundering short term decisions, lack of management experience and training, combined with some kind of warped reality all didn't help either.

Call me a sceptic, but I find African operator's management skills to be very much below par. And I have past (and some current) experience of other industries (to add: one in particular, where management skills are regarded as specific skills, ie they receive training and are evaluated in how they manage), where management skills are considerably better. Put simply, if we flew like they managed, the ground would be full of craters lined with aluminium and blood.

Sounds like you have the right attitude though - don't let them drag you down! ;);)

[VAFFPAX]

I have found in Southern Africa that the view by management is often "we're management, we know what we're doing - you're supposed to do as we say, not question our decision process".

That that view is flawed is quite clear. This is not limited to the air industry only... it is quite alive and well in all sectors of industry. It's just that in others it might work, but in the airline industry it does not. Pilots are highly trained individuals and as such should be given the respect they are due.

When I look at some of the dubious decisions in management I've experienced in unrelated industries in Africa, I really wonder sometimes whether that's why Africa ended up where it ended up.

:sad: :( :oh:

S.

[south coast]

Shrike200 put it quite well.

I would add that while the vast majority of pilots were trained to a 'standard' ie. passing a CPL / ATPL and IR skills test on a regular basis, however, the management who made decisions and ran the contracts, and day to day business of the operations base were not trained to the standard, if at all in the job they were doing, is why I think so many SA operators ultimately failed.

These operators were awarded contracts from the likes of the UN, W.H.O and the ICRC etc and were paid very well and still opeartors paid staff poorly and eventually folded.

But, on the other side of the coin, directors and aircraft owners got very rich out of these contracts.

[Coppertop]

I know of a US engineering company that insists that all of it's people do a short course once a year that is not to do with their personal job, they believe that in this way erveryone gets to see someone elses point of view with regard to the company.

[Nickerbal]

l argely I agree what has been said:

1. Greed Factor = with the amount of money charged per contract and the regions operated in no contracting company can realistically make money.

2. The Crew = they end off being the ones that suffer and the schedules are always a mess, saw it at most of the SA Operators.

3. Hoplesly undertrained, underqulified staff at the head quasrters that are expected to "find crew" that does not exist.

4. Parts levels that can at best be described as "sufficient "O" Rings!

The only way is to charge more but you will always get a wild card turkey that underquotes and thereby all other operats follow suit, the price as it is now with the true dollar value is a joke = old story, you pay for what you get = sadly at the expense of the field staff.

[rabidpangolin]

Many moons ago when the luck bucket was still overflowing. And the experience bucket was...well, a bucket.

After putting together a two page snag sheet of things that made my aircraft non-airworthy.

Me: We need to fix these things to operate at a minimum safety level.

My Boss: We have bot zese airoplane, now you fly it to make money, then we look to feex it. :eek:

One thing that has kept me happy as an employee though is; even if the pay isn't great, do what you say you are going to do. Aviation promises just irritate people. Good Luck:ok:

Mind the tail!

[VortexGen300]

Well Guys the input was something special.

I have come to one conclusion:

YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH EXPERIENCE OF THIS FIELD - YOU ARE ONLY GOING TO GET HURT AND WILL PROBABLY HURT EVERYBODY THAT MIGHT HAVE TRUSTED YOU AS WELL. STAY OUT UNTILL YOU HAVE ENOUGH EXPERIENCE!

So I am going to just enjoy the jobs that might open up to me in the near future while learning and I will definitely not want to become involved with something that I have now found is coming towards me as a wolve in sheeps clothes without the right experience and tools.

I know that I am not willing to compromise on safety and that I would want to treat my people fair - but it seems there are too many sharks (not rugby players) out there just working to work others out of the market. Just to fold or be shut down themselves shortly thereafter?

Greetings
VG300

[SAT_BOSS]

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=305458&highlight=Sat_Boss

[VortexGen300]

Thanks I thought there had to be more to it than just stupidity and ignorance.

VG300

[flyhardmo]

Why do many African operators revert to dubious practices?

Because the CAA of every country is cheap. :ugh:

[NoMore206Pilot]

Hey Moe,

You got it right... oh, and some operators seem to like to screw unsuspecting pilots up the wazzooo:ugh:

[Lifes-a-Beech]

Operators screwing pilots may very well be true in some instances, maybe even most instances, however let's not misguide ourselves into believing that the pilots are devoid of any responsibility here - I know of a couple of instances where the pilots have wholly screwed the operators - just take a browse through this forum...

[Rat Catcher]

G'day Moe....and congrats!:D:D:D
A simple answer to the original post....
Because they can!:E:E:E

[flyhardmo]

Dead on Ratcatcher. Reminds me of that old story:
Pilot: 'You Cun+'
CAA: 'I can and I will' :p

G'day Moe....and congrats!

Thanks mate its a dream come true. There is always a place to stay if your in the neighbourhood. :ok: