Morning Gents,
Makulu Baas
"The latest information that I now have is that under terms of the of the contracts signed with our friends AA and the UN they should have had all aircraft in place and ready to go by midnight last night."
Ooops
"So far they have 2 Kingairs in Angola ready for inspection without paperwork, and a small problem with import duties and insurance costs."
Not a particularly illustrious start then!
"Perhaps Polly should have done his homework more thoroughly on operating costs and conditions."
Would that be Polly the Belgian Waffle???
"they have another aircraft in position in Pakistan, however this is a Kenyan aircraft and crew, now would this mean they have the necessary permissions from the Kenyan authorities to operated on their operating certificate out of the country ?? I did think AA was a Danish company ? perhaps I am wrong here, but last time I looked they were."
I do believe you're correct, whilst they may well have a Kenyan subsidiary I'd be confident in guessing that it was AA Denmark which got the contracts, not AA Kenya........
"Perhaps we should also look closely at the insurance implications should they not have the aircraft on their operating certificate. How many of the organisations flying with them would be happy to find out in the event of an incident, that their personel were covered for zip. Kenyan or French register, its not Danish no matter how you look at it. "
I'd presume the UN would be more than a little miffed to find that out? Miffed enough to kick AA into touch???
"As for the remaining aircraft, are they to be pulled from the proverbial magicians hat or are they still sitting on the ground at home base ?"
Last info I had was about 24hrs ago when apparantly the other two aircraft for Afghanistan were still sitting in Denmark.
"I think maybe some interesting times are at hand, not only do they use unfair business practices to gain contracts , they are now not even sticking to the basic conditions outlined in the UN's contracts, Aircraft to be positioned at a given time to be able to take over from the existing operator. All aircraft to be on the same operating certificate. (this was a condition insisted on by the UN on a recent contract, where the operator had to replace several aircraft )."
Interesting times is one way of putting it!! I understand that the F-28 operated in Afghanistan is u/s at the moment...... By the looks of it tomorrow the UN will have a capacity of 19 seats there instead of 121..... I bet they enjoy that, not!
"Are we now going to see the UN as the toothless dinosaur it is, or are we going to be surprised and see them use the teeth they possess, or maybe just ask George Junior to put an addendum to the state of the union address to include "rogue operators".
The UN, an ironically named organisation........ One can only hope for them to be fair to all interested parties & to not stand for being messed around by 'rogue operators'. After all, if they can't get aeroplanes over there on time how will they perform the rest of the time?
"also rumoured is that the one aircraft on station for the UN is owned by no other than raytheon. bearing out the points made by current limiter."
Havn't Raytheon and / or another operator been bitten by that one in the past & been forced to pull aircraft off contract?
"As for AA treating well. "3 to 6 month on the off until they need you," and $3500 a month to work in the conditions they do, with nothing for the time you are not needed. Is this really treating employees "well" , I certainly think not."
Crap deal
. I reckon the way an operator treats it's crew is a fine barometer of their general attitude.
Anon