It has taken for me a few days to sink in. I worked for European in the operations department leaving late last year. When I left it seemed the company was growing larger and from what I thought stronger. New investment and new ideas seemed to be arriving. But due personal unhappiness in my job I thought it best to move on. This news has me gutted for all the crew and ops staff I worked with over the years and I hope they find something else soon.
BUT WHY?!?
The company always seemed to have financial troubles first with the 1-11 being phased out then Sep 11th. Which caused redundancies on both occassions, but within months it seemed people we re-employed when the sticky patch came to a end.
It makes me think why money always seemed tight? Was it mis-management or PGS interest in his cars? Was the biggest mistake of all the 747s? I remember the day XH arrived on a murky day in BOH. You could see the pride on everyone faces. The six month of hard work seemed all worth while. It always amazed me the amount of work and effort that went into the AOC, but like always we got the job done.
As an airline it was always ran on "good will" rather then good planning. The good will came to an end when the "new batch" of staff arrived for the 747. The crew were mainly ex BA and Virgin and I dont think they realised the concept of a Charter airline, especially European...
Taxis instead of hire cars, business instead of economy travel, payments for days off all pushed costs higher and higher. This had a domino effect with the 737 crews also demanding more from a company which did not have the resources to meet the new demands. Along with ACMI rates lowering after Sep 11th, I can see why financial problems occured.
The change of Director of operations I also feel had a detremental effect on the airline (jobs for the boys comes to mind) It only took a few weeks to realise he was not up to the task in hand.
Finally who should be held responsible PGS or TCD and SW? The original contract for SFB was set up by broker contracted to EAAC, who in my opinion only had the lining of his pockets in mind (hence the days notice of termination) The JED contract in 2002/3 with saudi was also set up by a contracted broker, which again cost more than it was worth.
I never thought PGS would ever sell up, but did TCD have the final say either sell for less than the markert price or lose our business??? And now hundreds of people are paying the price.
Have the right staff been left to sort out this mess? only time will tell, there is always hope.
Hopefully it will all come out, but as always with European you will be the last to know.
The Gimp
