Originally Posted by Ron & Edna Johns
the airline spent millions on refurbishing the Classics and now they are unsustainable $$-guzzlers
Sorry to spoil rumour with fact but senior management made the decision to refurbish the B743's instead of buying 6 more B744ER's because they needed some aircraft hulls to retire from the fleet when the A380 deliveries start. The 6 classics were the perfect age but needed an expensive refit. The economics of the decision was undone during the SARS crisis when a senior operations manager conspired with some engineering managers (who wanted to get rid of the classics) to misinform the CEO and the board about the time/hours remaining on the classics before their next major maintenance. The board made the decision to ground two of the classics pending the market returning to normal after the SARS crisis had passed. Many months later, when these aircraft went into maintenance to bring them back into service, GD discovered that they were not due (at the time of the grounding) for "D" checks and that millions of dollars worth of revenue potential had been wasted by their grounding - manager concerned was sacked on the spot. The economics of the decision was further undone by the subsequent failures of many can liners in the RB211-524D4 donks. Although a number of engines with significant hours remaining had been freighted back from the US desert when the -200's & SP's retired, the bean counters saw all this money tied up and promptly sold them (to Malaysian I believe) which left no spares when the can liner problem occurred. This resulted in VH-EBU (the painted one known as Jensen Dreaming) being grounded at Avalon to supply engines to keep the other five flying. This aircraft had already had the Flight Deck and Cabin refit so a large amount of money was spent for minimal revenue service. The original classic refurbishment included an engine upgrade (for 24 engines)which was guaranteed by Rolls Royce to significantly reduce fuel consumption and improve the reliability of the engines. Management elected not to take up this option, which they would probably regret as the can liner problem would not have happened and they would be consuming less of the currently expensive fuel.
When you look at decisions like this and the A330 floors, it really gets up your nose when management screw the staff to save money. A lot more money could be saved by getting the management decisions right.