Never have so many owed so much to so few
Great to hear the voice of reason with so few dissenting opinions. Maybe people are starting to realise what it is that we're giving away. The relentless push of economic rationalism seems to make special interest groups or individuals have a disproportionally loud voice. Kitchen cabinets are formed - people are appointed to boards and change for the sake of change becomes the order of the day.
Remember the olden days when we had DCA, DOT, DOTC, DOA etc.? Then the razor gangs came through and gutted the service provider in the name of a more efficient industry (with the blessing of politicians slavering at the thought of being associated with reducing the bureaucratic overheads in the eyes of a public fed by media spin from people like Dick).
In the end we provide less service - it's certainly cheaper per movement but did we really save anything or was it a volume based change due to happen anyway? AsA is now much slimmer. I just wonder what the balance sheet looks like if you add together Airservices, CASA, DOTARS, CAGROs, contract maintenance staff (Navaiads, runways etc.) and all the airport staff around the country that used be DCA before the sell-off. I think the actual price the travelling public pays wouldn't be that much better.
Add to this the turmoil in the industry across the past 15 years and personal costs borne to the public in hidden expense such as welfare management for the massive redundancies as people were drummed out of (previously) public services and employed in private industry to perform the same tasks (often at a higher pay rate). Have we backed a winner at all?
I'd be interested to see if anyone has the wherewithall to gather some figures.
PS I didn't mind the Nomad - it's just that it was supposed to be a learjet!