Do not personalize this as a purely "Anti-Joyce" campaign. That sells your own cause short and demonizes one when the root causes of the malaise are multi-faceted and complex.
A few milestones along the way to where Qantas (in particular) is now probably could usefully start with the Menzies government decision not to get behind Victa and its wonderful Air Tourer in the early 60's. Fast forward to Strong's decision (backed by government) not to do the A300B4 heavy maintenance in Australia and to fire all those apprentices. Then onto Hawke/Keating decisions not to build the second Sydney airport.
These are but a few little photo opportunities on a long journey.
The journey itself, since probably the late 70's has been one where the whole of Australian industry and the political climate has been toward abandonment of a decent secondary industry policy (who remembers "Australia Reconstructed"? in the 80's) and a "Less Tax is Always Better" Keating led race downwards to the populist vote that has gutted university and TAF spending, research etc. Add to that in our aviation world the lies and misinformation as DCA was gradually broken into constituent parts and the "User Pays" world came with promises by Hawke/Keating that core safety would be funded by the tax payers and never compromised. Then the world of corporatization and privatization which though potentially positive, was again done in many cases at the wrong times and for the wrong reasons. Complicit in this was the ACTU as, before our very eyes, the unconstitutional "Corporate State" grew and prospered. The 1989 dispute was a symptom of this, not an isolated event. Remember Hawke had a phone on his desk that only 3 people could call 24/7: Abeles, Murdoch and Kelty?
(I have mentioned Jonathan Raulston Saul before on these boards-Google that name and read books like "The Unconscious Civilization"....nothing new, just applied common sense and reality)
Then against this background add the "It can't happen to us" myopia of earlier QF pilots in leaving AFAP and turning their back on Impulse. The final demise of Ansett and Australian, already gutted in 1989 as ideologue management refused to address reality, the carcass of Australian going to Qantas as Ansett mis-managed its way to oblivion. All along the way a slick QF lobbying machine in the media (remember Jones and Laws “Cash for Comment”) and Canberra ensured that middle and senior management would always be protected, hard decisions avoided.
So Qantas never really broke free of the old paradigms. Look at ratios such as ASKs flown per real dollar of labour cost. Seats in the sky per employee. Layers of management per port served. Horrific! Just no identifiable brake with the past. Huge advances in technology and efficiency were squandered as department budgets and executive suites grew to soak up the surplus. Just look at the figures in the yaer by year Annual Reports on the QF website and you’ll see this tragic case of “Steady as she goes” in a world where change was the norm in every area but the Qantas Boardroom.
We too have been complicit. Listening to conspiracy theories, “Ansett was just fine and we wuz robbed”, "Jetstar is a problem not a solution", tolerating amateurism and adventurism(how could the old DCA ever have even countenanced a Dick Smith era?), avoiding solidarity, in a thousand subtle ways promoting a “me first” mentality. Believing that our own way of doing things was so special. How many AIPA check and training captains supported (by action or inaction) the demise of proper risk assessment processes in Flight Ops? How many individuals along the way supported the hideous QF pilot recruitment and internal transfer regime with its dark Orwellian overtones of “All pilots in the Group are equal but some are more equal”? How many questioned why it could be that a senior check captain on the Dash 8 could be paid less than a 747 S/O? or that indeed that senior check captain did not as a right, have the chance to qualify as an S/O if desired? This was long before Joyce remember.
How many of us failed to see that the price sensitive share of the markets was growing, in absolute and relative terms. That the old full service world was no longer appropriate and that hated or not, blue singlet travellers were here to stay. These boards here on Prune have had much rhetoric but little cold hard reality. Jetstar domestic may have been poorly sold to the Group, and management motives often hidden and devious, but it was a very necessary evil. Without it the Group would have been drowned in a sea of red ink years back. It could and should have been done better, with inclusiveness, explanation, trust and engagement, but the “do nothing” option meant corporate death.
Similarly, a relatively small amount of analysis will show that the Group decision not to build a new paradigm with a significant 777 fleet, as late as yesterday and as far back as 10 years ago, is probably the single greatest self-induced disaster in the Group’s 90 year history. If “Bench Marking” has ever meant anything it should have told government that protection was harming Qantas by allowing such things, not helping it. In fact of course this advice on the negative effects of protection for Qantas has often been given to Government but swamped by a slick Qantas lobbying effort “Give us more competition but not just yet”.
Yes by now, if not before, some readers are already turning red and reaching for their own “Reply” button. To bucket Sherm. But as front seat professionals it never hurts to look at inconvenient truths. You have a chance now, before things get even worse, to look at things as they are and need to be, not just nostalgically focus on the past.
No doubt many in Ansett/Australian management and as well in the AFAP, would give anything to have these few days before August 24, 1989 back again. Well as Davies said in “Handling the Big Jets” (paraphrased) in “Handling the Big Jets”…..”If you mess it up and go off the end of the runway and survive, you will say to yourself “what wouldn’t I give to have those last 30 seconds back again”. Well as you cross the threshold you have that option. Go-round, delay, divert-all are better options than disaster”
Well as August 24 approaches you do have that chance. Don’t waste it by focusing on one person or one set of decisions. There are real opportunities ahead. Hating Joyce, or Jetstar, or contracts, or Asian expansion is a distraction, not an answer.
Get behind a competition (like the Submarine programme competition) for city/state bids for a 767 heavy maintenance, refurbishment and winglet programme to get a top-class Cityflyer product in the skies for the next 5-7 years until enough A330 and 787s can take over. Imagine what that sort of work would do for the economy of Adelaide or Newcastle.
As a matter of urgency, whether QF management like it or not, blacklist all outside pilot recruitment into any part of the group while there are redundancies anywhere within the group. If that means check and training captains have to resign their duties so be it. This is something you could do with less anguish than a fully-fledged strike or drawn out industrial campaign. You may have to tolerate contracts etc in the short term but at least you would have internal unity. And public support too.
As for the 777…..it is never too late to get something right. The 777-300ER and -200LR and 777F (and new developments in the pipeline) will be produced for years yet. If you want to lobby the board, this is the centre of gravity. If you need to contemplate and offer a new Group wide EBA to get that fleet under way, so be it. Inconvenient truth is that neither a future 777 fleet nor a 787 fleet will ever be flown on the long-haul EBA, whatever AIPA’s dreams are.
Sorry this diatribe has gone on. I’ll stop now and just urge you all to take off the rose-coloured glasses, see the true nature of the ills that beset you and de-personalize your fight. History is full of folks who wanted to slay dragons. But history is made by cold eyed realists who identify real challenges and focus their energies and enthusiasm.
I wish you well. If you don't like my thoughts, ignore them. I don't need the vitriol as I once again contemplate the costs, joys, opportunities and challenges in my own life in the 22 years since 1989.
Last edited by Captain Sherm; 21st Aug 2011 at 13:30.