Contrary to what many provincial pilots or aspirant flyers might think, South African Airways is not now nor ever has been the ne plus ultra of airlines. That is most unfortunate for certain human elements of the company ego structure.
In aviation career application, there are many who have taken other very successful and rewarding paths in aviation, who have never even considered applying to Spoories and who are now far too experienced to reduce themselves to the ranks of an African airline F/O, no matter how worthy those flying individuals might be.
Virgin Atlantic, as one good example for instance, is a serious piece of flying kit with beautifully talented hostesses to match the accomplishments of management. That seems, on at least one aspect, to be something that might be in less than vast supply at SAA; one speaks here of course only, and with great diffidence of management. There are many professional pilots out there who simply don't want to work for what they might perceive to be a badly run outfit, no matter what the short term wonga might be.
The back to be got off (sic), which is not very good English I admit, is of course that of the SA government which persists in subsidizing a company which might perhaps, in the climate of the private sector, sink with a rate of acceleration greater than that of the Titanic hurtling towards its watery doom. Salaries are a matter of significant importance relevant to the extent to which they are subsidized by the tax payer. That would include the consideration of any public funded pension schemes which might or might not apply. The SAA pilot's collective did indeed do very well for themselves at the time of the great negotiation and they are to be commended for having done so. Corporate financial history however is littered with the desiccated skeletons of companies who thought they were above the exigencies of financial restructuring necessitated by a changing economic situation whether global, domestic, parastatal, parasitic or private.
Now for a quick venture into a teeny digression in the face of some slightly hysterical personal criticism. Everyone interested in South African aviation was aware of the SA pilots salary structure campaign some years ago. It would not however be politic to reproduce certain letters which appeared in Flight International at that time. Flight International is a pretty decent sort of aviation magazine but it is an unhappy truth that many pilots do not more than read the back six pages or so at a news stand and so many would have missed the fun and games in the letters pages.
A Partaga Lusitania or a Cohiba Espendido is an indulgence. Tonight my total extent of self flattery would be that I can tell the difference between the two on aroma alone.
As for psychometrics, I can fiddle a Rorschach test blindfolded, having had the benefit of a virtual degree in practical clinical psychology from the Tavistock Clinic, Portman Square, London which used to process, among other oddities, those who would be pilots when their fathers wanted them to become bankers and their mothers wanted them to wear uniforms.
Totsiens.