You may recall this term used by management during the buggery campaign (BC) to forgo all customer contracts on the eastern seaboard.
It would appear these business guru's are in a legal bindi patch.
For those that haven't heard the term before Force Majeure is legal jargon.
Force Majeure
8.1 The company is not liable for any failure in performance of any obligations under the contract caused by factors outside its control. In the event of such failure, the company may terminate the contract without liability to the customer.
This option worked find during BC however since EBA settlement MACS's around the country have hinted at their desire to only have profitable contracts. Thus the transfer of labour from Int ramps to base maintenance etc to attend outstanding OSIP and repairs. Contracts supported by overtime due to misaligned rosters or license coverage would go and only profitable contracts kept. Good in theory but legally, it has it's problems.
Technically Force Majeure is over. The dispute is no longer, no more overtime bans and no more hindrance. That is from the union side, as we all know the BC continues on like a Spanish Armada.
So why are we not working the contracts and getting back to earning 3rd party revenue? ACS have a backlog of maintenance we know and can see that. They need available manpower. If ACS chose which customers they operated the complement of contract owners who were told "we can't (don't want to) do your aircraft" would have a field day.."Breach of contract" $$$$
We all know the truth. Three blokes hanging off a spanner doesn't make the job faster. It's paperwork, time on the ground, inventories etc and DC and MH in their wisdom to curtail Int customer contracts is just another revenue burning decision to come out of head office.
We've seen them waste 150m-200m on BC to save 2-3m in wage expense. We've seen them send aircraft to cheap MRO's only to spend $$$$'s getting them back to Aust standards after their return to service.
If the past performance of these inept business minded numskulls is any guide we will be 'productive time lost' for several months. At least until all backlog maintenance is cleared or unwanted contracts have lapsed. Whether ACS wants commercial relationships with other operators who knows. It's a global market and we are a small international operator, a reasonable person may consider commercial relationships important considering the remoteness of our markets.
Funny attitude. We went from overtime bans during the BC, now with work to be done they have created a ACS overtime ban to save money. Until this whole management is swept out, engineering will continue to be a inefficient, low moral, immovable cost burden for the parent company. One day senior corporate management will realise that engineering did not have a history like we have seen in the last 3 years. They are embarrassing.