RAK Airways Threads Merged

[ShinjukuHustler]

My 2c worth

Here’s a question that I was wondering about…

Of all the staff that were in RAK Airways in Dec 2006, how many were left by Dec 2007?
I’m not trying to be a smart a55, just curious.
From reading all of these posts all that seems to happen at RAK is that people come, they stay for a while, and then they get fired or in some cases they quit, or pretend to quit but are really fired, anyway, they never stay very long.

It really is a revolving door style system. At any rate, the trend seems to be well and truly set and it I sincerely hope it will stop but as each new CEO arrives, there always seems to be another one not far behind, and what a mixed bag they’ve been.

I’d love to know how much money has been poured down the potty, pun intended, since inception. I would bet that is was enough to start at least 2 well run airlines to date.
Considering that there was $250million in the pot-tee to begin with, I wonder how much is left before ‘doc pot’ decides that enough is enough, last one out flushes.

In hind sight, the right thing to do, with that amount of start up capital, would have been to ACMI some aircraft and then gradually move into self sufficient operations.

It could have and would have worked. It would have required less staff, would have taken less time to get started, and would have given them the opportunity to establish their name, their route network and their brand. They could have moved off the blocks slowly and experimented a little with scheduled as well as charter ops and when the time was right it would have been a far easier transition to being a regular carrier with their own aircraft, crew and support services.

Unfortunately wobbly decisions followed even wobblier management. The airline graveyard is chock full of glory hunters who tried to make a name for themselves and even more full of ones who operated ‘unsafely’. And that’s all that seems to be turning up at the RAK door, wannabe CEO’s with dubious records and crack pot theories, all trying to be the next Michael O’Leary or Richard Branson (If you don’t know these names then kindly leave the building…forever) One previous CEO has gone on the record as saying that the low cost model was a transient phase and would eventually die out in favour of the traditional full fare, full service theme. With oil passing up and down through the $100PB mark, I think this analysis was as flawed as the rest of his ideas.

I don’t know if the Pot-Meister will read this, I don’t really care if he does or not, it’s just a real travesty that so much money and effort has been laid on to get this off the ground but in reality it has amounted to squat.

You cannot run an airline with 1 aircraft, or 2, or 3 or even 4! They simply do not generate enough revenue to cover all the overheads. So, the people who write here and talk about achievements made so far are really not seeing the whole picture and unfortunately the hard work done by all the people who give a 5hit will amount to nothing unless there is a 180degree shift in the way business is conducted there.

Fact… in any JAR state or in US they’d have pulled your ticket some time ago.

I hope it works out but there’s a long hard road ahead…

My 2cents worth.

Hustle on...