GAM Cairns gone under today [Archive]

spirax

5th May 2010, 10:41

No spin!

CPA does not operate the airport any more - Cairns Airport P/L - Qld Govt sold it to pay for a new hospital, which is not yet in the planning stage and not likely to be!:mad:

Rent up x 4times - what do you expect?:eek::eek:

GA is dead at CNS if this policy continues. Only a few have long term leases now.:eek:

Slim chance the airport authority might revisit decision post media coverage, but that is what happens when accountants with no aviation knowledge run airports.... Lack of Govt support at any level does not help!

We have seen it before and will no doubt see it again. Only when GA is dead will someone realise what they have done!

:mad::mad::mad:

av8trflying

5th May 2010, 10:59

Spirax
what I meant was.... The rent isn't the only reason why it has gone under. In fact I would say it is only a small part.

spirax

5th May 2010, 11:50

Sorry Av8, but the company has not "gone under"... it has decided to close a base on the basis of the large rent increase on the airport premises, which I suggest none of the GA companies either at CNS or anywhere else for that matter could accept.

av8trflying

5th May 2010, 12:03

GAM sold pauls last year. It is now part of skydiving Australia.

Spirax, what about the rumour then that Weipa Air is up for sale?

spirax

5th May 2010, 13:42

Everything is usually for sale ... at a price!

Depends which crystal ball you use as to what you might see.... who knows?

The issue here is not GAM, but the future of GA under airport owners that only see $$$'s and know nothing about aviation and GA in particular.

topdrop

5th May 2010, 22:04

As I heard it, the rents went up astronomically to help pay for that f..kup of a terminal on the RPT side of the airport - lot of use to GA :ugh::ugh::ugh:

come fly

5th May 2010, 22:21

So who is going to win their contracts, going to be good to see who does???

hardNfast

5th May 2010, 23:13

How much work were the Dorniers doing??

Looked like there were some1900s and Brazs not doing a huge amount of flying. Those operators must be happy to get a bit more work.

Heard the airport had put up rent 3 or 4 times. Good stuff Cairns Airport!! :ugh:

Rich-Fine-Green

6th May 2010, 01:06

GAM closing due to airport costs.....

Brindabella closing their flight school due to airport costs.....

3 large schools bankrupt at YSBK.....(OK - maybe more to do with bad management than YSBK costs)

Hmmmm. Is GA destined to only survive at country airports?.

Trojan1981

6th May 2010, 01:07

Gone by the 28th of May. All to be bulldozed. The aircraft still have a substantial amount of work at the moment but will be based elsewhere. More to go aparrently. GA is dying...

hussler

6th May 2010, 01:24

Cairns Airport rise clips firm's wings- Local Cairns News | cairns.com.au (http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2010/05/06/108591_local-news.html)

Blueskymine

6th May 2010, 01:59

What a joke :ugh:

General Aviation will go back to being a sport for the wealthy.

The main problem I see is the price of land in Australia is unaffordable, small airports occupy large portions of it that greedy developers would love to get their hands on it. Capitalism requires unsustainable growth for the shareholders and they want to squeeze every penny out of the operators for the privilege of using this expensive land. The operators are trying to compete for work with each other often doing things at cost to find work for the aeroplane in the hope of other charters supplying the income once the bread and butter is taken care of. These charters are few and far between.

From what I have seen, most of these operators last 5 years or so, then the next one comes in and does the same thing.

Airports should not be privatized full stop. Do we allow the same thing to happen to ports and bus and train stations?

The government should never have sold off the telcos, the power companies or the airports as now big business squeezes every last drop out of the average Australian and the rich and big business keep getting richer, while our conditions are eroded to compete with third world countries where the cost of living and wages are a pittance.

Jabawocky

6th May 2010, 02:10

Airports should not be privatized full stop. Do we allow the same thing to happen to ports and bus and train stations?Yes :ugh::ugh::ugh:

Welcome to Anna Bligh's Queensland. Closely modelled on other states run by the same lot! :mad:

PA39

6th May 2010, 04:49

Jaba.....Anna will succumb to the same fate as Capt Bligh of the Bounty! Its only a matter of a short time mate. Again the question is raised...who picks up the tab for the mess?? one guess!!

feetonthedash

6th May 2010, 04:50

If Cairns GA disappears who will fly medical assistance,food,legal help etc to the aboriginal communities?
Indeed the cape?
Have not seen to many community airstrips that will fit a 737 or A320?
Also the local pollies when you need them are no where to be found!

:ugh::ugh::ugh::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Jabawocky

6th May 2010, 05:43

Jaba.....Anna will succumb to the same fate as Capt Bligh of the Bounty! Its only a matter of a short time mate. Again the question is raised...who picks up the tab for the mess?? one guess!!

Mate...no need to guess! :mad:

The pollies are hiding under the bed hoping not to be found!

Ops Normal you would say for this current lot. I can not recall such a large lot of morons ingovernment as we have now on all levels. I think the industrial boom took anyone out of the running. And even in the private business world the number of morons who made it in where years ago they would have not had a resume looked at is alarming.

Time I got off my soap box for a while I think!:oh:

Ultralights

6th May 2010, 07:55

GA is dying...

GA is dead, its just the last few twitches still going...

YSBk is an aircraft ghost town now. and after recently ferring my new aircraft from the soon to be closed Caloundra airport, its obvious to me GA is past the point of no return.

on the 6 hr flight to Wollongong, on a saturday, with perfect weather from the sunshine coast to the Illawarra, i heard less the 10 GA aircraft at any/all airports on the way down, a cherokee departed Kempsey for a local flight, 1 C172 doing circuits at Ballina, 1 Tiger moth doing a scenic at Southport, about 5 total between Caboulture and Redcliff, mostly gliders, one cessna on the V1. and about 2 choppers over the harbour. THATS IT!

apart from the usual RPT traffic, the radio was sadly silent for the entire trip... the flying doesnt get better than the weather last weekend, yet the skies were deserted. :{

Horatio Leafblower

6th May 2010, 08:13

apart from ...RPT traffic, the radio was ...silent for the entire trip

Dick Smith's version of heaven!

...now if only those lazy RPT pilots would just downgrade to VFR, stop reading their newspapers and look outside like all the far-more-professional VFR PPLs do! :ugh:

AirJing

6th May 2010, 11:11

AFAIK - and this may not be true, I just heard it through the grapevine - is that one of the YSBK operators (since we were talking about Bankstown as well above), Aerospace Aviation went under partly because Bankstown Airport refused to transfer the lease to a new buyer who was willing to buy Aerospace Aviation at the time.

This was illegal, but the legal costs in forcing Bankstown Airport to transfer the lease made the sale commercially non viable.

So now Bankstown Airport are making zero rent from Aerospace Aviation, since they have gone under. Although this may be part of the master plan of Bankstown Airport, who knows.

Jabawocky

6th May 2010, 11:23

After reading about C&H's run in it would be nothing unusual:=

Cactusjack

6th May 2010, 11:24

Cairns has only just come into the eyesight of Anna Bligh. Next step is you will have a useless overpriced tunnel (or two)connecting the CBD to the airport.Then you will have hidden speed traps located around the airport perimiter desperately trying to bust rampies fanging it around the tarmac. If you have any valuable assets remaining up north you should hide them, Anna will hunt them down and sell them. Then finally she will allow greedy developers to destroy your mangroves and develop thousands of new dwellings so that you too can receive hundreds of thousands more people into your community, destroy all your infrastructure and create traffic congestion worse than Sydney in peak hour.She did it for Brisbane !
Welcome.

DaisyDuck

20th May 2010, 10:07

Packing up the GAM hangar this week in CS and the 'notice of demolition' sign gone up :ouch:....

spirax

24th May 2010, 14:07

Seems Cairns Airport had a change of heart and made a 11th hour offer to GAM most likely with their cheque book so that the hangar would stay.

GAM still moving out of hangar but keeping a presence at the airport. Rumour is that a freight company have done a deal with the airport to use the hangar ??

Does not do much for GA though!:ugh:

Charlie Foxtrot India

24th May 2010, 15:15

I had problems trying to get Jandakot Airport Holdings to assign the lease when I bought a building. They tried change a 23 year lease into a 5 year one, then tried other extraordinary tactics to stop the assignment. I won, but it cost me a LOT in legal bills to do what should have been straightforward and was the most unpleasant business experience I have ever had. That was during the "We're going to move Jandakot Airport" fiasco which also made getting finance impossible.

steelcraft

31st May 2010, 07:52

I presume it all ended on Friday, Good luck to all the staff in getting new employment, another era comes to an end. Wonder who will take there place?

cogwheel

2nd Jun 2010, 07:32

Not quite!

Hangar packed up on Friday and most of the staff have found other positions on the 'drome. Flying ops continue thru June using AC500/690/Do228. New office near RFDS opens later in month and ops will continue out of CNS, tho' on a smaller scale. Do228 will be working out of BNE. Essendon ops as usual.

Good luck! :ok:

DaisyDuck

2nd Jun 2010, 08:33

Toll is the word.

PaulDamian

3rd Jun 2010, 07:30

What are GAM minimums?
Is it harder to get a job at Essendon?

j3pipercub

3rd Jun 2010, 08:46

I think they'll be a bit fat with pilots for a while. As far as minimums are concerned, depends if you worked in ops or not :}

j3

herostratus

8th Jun 2010, 07:32

Anyone have any idea what GAMs likely involvment with toll is going to be, maintenance wise?

eocvictim

8th Jun 2010, 08:02

How do you mean? GAM have never had anything to do with toll maint wise. I dont think they've ever touched the metro's garretts let alone anything else.

The expansion into using the Do228s for freight was brought about by the poor standard of Jetcrafts Metro fleet. Toll bought Jetcraft out and restructured the runs and aircraft operations as a method to "bid" out the 228s. As a lot of Cadbury employees are finding out, Toll are very good at destroying competition by simply introducing alternatives and pushing down prices and delaying contracts until they're able to buy them out a "reasonable" price.

All fell flat on its face when they realised how tightly strung bank running is and opted not to go ahead with that take over.

herostratus

8th Jun 2010, 15:31

Cadbury employees? I was wondering more along the lines of toll engineering serviceing the GAM fleet, and what interest Toll might have with GAM. Heard they might be running a dornier out of the BNE hanger.

Hasselhof

17th May 2011, 00:28

Sorry to bring up an old thread but what was the final result with GAM/Reefwatch in Cairns? I notice that the Reefwatch website is still operating and it indicates that they are still going at Cairns GA. Am heading up that way looking for work and trying to find out any local goss on who to go in and say hi to.

scarediecat

18th May 2011, 06:10

Last time I looked (2 months ago) the Cairns hanger was all closed up. Im pretty sure BN base is going strong. Your best dropping into the Essendon hanger to get a better gauge of where they are at for pilot requirements. Good luck.