However, never forget Management attitudes nor where they see their role.
The following illustrates clearly Management interest in the bottom line and I concur, as above, standards are, have been, will be adjusted in accordance with the Laws of Supply and Demand.
Qantas and the real lessons of QF32 and the rebuilt A380
Ben Sandilands Editor of Plane Talking
Amid the extensive, and accurate, reporting of the return to flight of the first Qantas A380, Nancy-Bird Walton, that was severely damaged by an engine disintegration operating QF32 on 4 November 2010 there is one sharp lesson for all airlines when it comes to maintenance and ‘care’.
And that isn’t the one that managements and unions argue about, which is outsourcing.
It is the lesson that says ‘keep in control and keep informed.’
In the considerable heat of events after the serious incident on 4 November 2010, which lead to Qantas undoubtedly correctly grounding its A380 fleet, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce made a number of statements which were repeated in the legal documentation that preceded a settlement of its claims against the engine maker Rolls-Royce.
Those claims were inter alia that Rolls-Royce did not tell Qantas about certain matters related to the upgrading or modification of the Trent 900 series engines fitted to its A380s, leaving it in the dark about certain issues that could affect its performance, and depriving it of relevant knowledge affecting its operations and also depriving it of information which had it possessed would have caused Qantas to seek prompt modification of its engines and been used by Qantas to assess whether or not to change the way it was using the engines.
Those claims were also correct, and acknowledged as correct by Rolls-Royce, in a process that was at times incredibly reluctant and unwilling from the perspective of those in Qantas and in its official guidance to media and investors.
It is reasonable to conclude that the manufacturing defect which directly caused the QF32 disintegration and inflight crisis would most likely have been rectified before the failure occurred in-flight had Qantas known in precise detail what Rolls-Royce was on about in its modifications of the engines.
But all of this leads to another matter.
Whatever the merits of outsourcing anything more complex or costly than regular operational or line maintenance of aircraft or engines, the QF32 incident ought to end forever the accountants dream that out of sight power-by-the-hour arrangements to let someone else, even the engine maker, assume responsibility for ‘total care’, is smart, when in reality it is ‘total stupidity’.
With the benefit of hindsight after what is probably the world’s most expensive repair of an airliner after an in-flight incident that scared the hell out of everyone, outsourcing ‘total care’ without retaining control and knowledge is fraught with brand threatening risks.
The foolish dumbing down of the airline game into ‘virtual airlines’, where everything that used to be integral to an airline’s performance, reputation and brand, gets shunted off to a shed somewhere run by whomever tenders the cheapest price, is a nasty, dangerous piece of work.
And, to be fair to some of the proponents of virtual airlines, that is not what they envisaged either. But the virtuality argument took on a life of its own once it escaped into the wild, and in the process, a great deal of sensible and rational work as to how to successfully run airlines in a world flying into open skies and fiercer competition was lost.
The magic combination of greed and stupidity came into play, especially in much of what passes for supposedly robust financial analysis of airline competition.
QF32 ought to be remembered for being a very loud wake-up call for airlines and air safety regulators worldwide. Airlines can’t afford to be inefficient. But they can’t afford to turn into killers either. In the world beyond Qantas we can find too many instances of airlines where no responsibility, no control, and indeed, no clue seems to summarise the parameters of managements that emerge from business school with a near total contempt for technical or specialised knowledge, and a focus on short term gain that is totally at odds with any industry in which skills have to valued, nurtured, recruited, retained and rewarded.
Qantas can, and no doubt will, continue to outsource just about everything that moves in order to save money. But it must not outsource its diligence, its attentions, and its knowledge of precisely what the engine maker, or airframe maker, or systems maker, is up to for a single minute, because their priorities are not the priorities of Qantas.
At the end of the day, whether it ends in a fireball and 469 dead passengers and crew, and a dead brand, or a superb recovery from a ‘tricky situation’, no airline, Qantas included, can outsource its responsibilities.