Did someone mention Beancounters?
It is obvious to those of us who work in the backrooms of the engineering departments of the world's airlines that the 'unjustified removal rate' is rising. On average, an avionics black box costs our airline US$2,700 per removal for the input bench test alone. Another US$300 for shipping costs brings the bill to US$3,000. Our NFF rate is over 45% and we calculate that the NFF removals cost us US$420,000 a week. Now US$420,000 buys an awful lot of trained avionic LAEs, Technicians or Mechanics, whatever you want to call them.
The beancounters are counting the wrong beans! The obvious cost (to them) is the wage bill and they direct all their efforts to reducing personnel costs. The Manager Training and Development over in the (Anti)personnel department said just the other day that he is not in the business of providing training, his job is to make sure that no-one receives any training that they don't need. It seems that we line managers put too many people forward for training courses and if they were sent on the courses personnel costs would rise too much.
So, we're on a downward spiral. Our working conditions will continue to decline, the quality of our work will inexorably drop. As will our wages. Costs will go on falling until we reach the final objective -- Universal Air Transport -- at minimum cost. Lager Louts in paradise. Mass migration of cheap labour.
Doom and Gloom from Blacksheep? Maybe. Have you been to Bali lately? Or shared a flight from Bangkok with a party of Thai labourers bound for a jungle-clearing camp in Borneo on a wage of US$50 a month? The objective is to get rid of all us expensive skilled people and create a cheap semi-skilled work force. Even the pilots are under threat, as they are just beginning to understand. Did any of you read the recent Wannabes thread about new entrants having to pay their own training costs? Avionic systems will inevitably send the co-pilot off to join the radio operators, navigators and flight engineers within 25 or 30 years, as single pilot flight decks become reality.
Welcome to the 21st century.
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Through difficulties to the cinema