The reality of the situation is that we have a system that has been under a lot of strain for a prolonged period with only bandaid stopgaps to address structural problems.
By this I mean:
- We have aircraft tooling spread around the country and rarely is it in the port it is needed. So when the tooling is in Avalon, for example, but is required in Sydney, it needs to be transported up.
- The same is true of spares.
- We have less manpower to work more aircraft (either through attrition or redeployment) The advent of the A330 crews in Sydney Base and now the construction of Team A380 have further reduced crew numbers. The A330 guys however, do work on the Boeings as well when their workload permits.
Go back 10 years and the average crew size was 1 + 10; now most crews are 1 + 5 or 6. (Good luck if you want leave with these crew numbers! Oh that's right...all leave has been cancelled until further notice!) But we don't need more people..just work more OT!
- We have aircraft that are getting older and therefore require more maintenance. Yet when we find defects we are accused of "Going Slow".
- We have an OHS system that commands us to work with two hands tied behind our backs and hopping on one foot... even though the way we have done things in the past has worked very well.
- We have programs like Lean Sigma and 5S foistered upon us because some boffin "learned about it at Uni so it must be good.. "
I could go on but I don't wish to bore you further.