Firstly Bob M have no idea of any post re policy as attached our technical people send time responding to many issus and these are regularly communicated to members on our webpage. I will say that our members in the Regional Airline sector were and still are concerned with the actions and tactics of some to change air space rules without considering the impact upon those using it.
VirginBlueDriver thanks for identifying one of the major problems. If pilots cannot use current organisations to achieve change what does trying to form a new one do? Waste a lot more resources which are better placed trying to do the job that the registered rules provide for that is looking after your members.
The attack that the Federation is close to management is the standard response of those who wish to disparage the efforts of those pilots who put in significant effort to get a positive outcome. It may come as huge surprise to you the fact that you ask for something in a negotiation does not automatically mean that you will get it without question.
Same goes for the direction of negotiations I understand a couple of you are frustrated because you feel you are not getting your own way; guess what that happens in every negotiation. Be it Virgin; Qantas; Jetstar; Eastern; Sunstate; REX; CHC Helicopters; Bristow Helicopters; and the list goes on. I can say it because I have been through that process time after time as have my colleagues and the pilot representatives who volunteer to do the job.
What is dissappointing is the attacks against those individuals who have been working long and hard to get a positive outcome having rocks thrown at them based on an agenda to set up a new group.
As for your solution someone thinks this is new?
An AIRC commissioner in the mid-ninties once commented that a new pilot group doing the same thing has as much relevance as the "Bunbury Basket Weavers Association".
I do not feel that we are full of our own self importance nor do we take our members for granted. But equally I will not trade on falsehoods to justify my existence as I have seen in the publications supporting an alternate body.
Please note that registration of an organisation takes a lot of money, time and you actually have to comply with some rules of the real world not just some wish lists (many of which we would all like).
The door is open to bring about unity of pilots that means a body involving all not just some and a protection that it cannot be dominated by one group but the actions of some leave little hope of that in the near future.
Lawrie Cox
Last edited by Lawrie Cox; 21st May 2007 at 05:20.