Any such Royal Commission’s terms of reference should include the period from the purchase of AN by Murdoch and Abeles in 1979. That’s when the widespread asset-stripping of the company started, including the usually totally inappropriate purchasing (or usually leasing) of two or three examples of damn near every civil passenger aircraft available on the market at the time, which led in no small part to the so-called inefficiency of the AN pilot workforce – they were almost constantly doing conversion courses. (Another question they could seek to have answered is where the substantial commissions for these many leases went – I’d be willing to bet not into any AN main account.)
Then of course, long before they’d be forced to deal with the convoluted paths surrounding SQ’s attempted purchase, then Air New Zealand’s successful(!) purchase, Lindsay and Sollie and their ‘let’s-buy-a-terminal.. . I-mean-an-airline’, the short-lived ACTU-(dis)approved administrators, Mark and Mark and the costly, utterly ridiculous, pyrrhic final gesture of Tesna, was ‘that’ year twelve years earlier.
Before the ‘put all that 89er rubbish behind you’ brigade go into knee jerk mode, don’t for one minute imagine that 89 didn’t have a major impact on the airline’s final demise. And it wasn’t just that 89 stripped AN of its cash reserves, which it surely did, but, as unpleasant as this might be to accept by many of the post 89 staff, far more importantly, the events of that year stripped AN of much of its most important asset – capable people who knew their jobs and were willing to tell the emperor he was wearing no clothes. (And I’m not just referring to the pilot group here. 89 sent a clear message to all and everyone within AN that you toed the company line or you weren’t part of the team. Admittedly, under Abeles and the unspeakable ‘Bomber’ footballer, this was the way things were well before 89, which was one of the many reasons AN was losing so many of its best check and training pilots to overseas jobs.)
I won’t even enter in to what any such Royal Commission would find regarding the actions of one silver-haired gentleman who now enjoys a rich, waterfront retirement with all sorts of ‘consultancy fees’ to top up his parliamentary pension.
Before September 2001, I was frequently bemused (and just as frequently amused) after reading posts from two or three new joiners to the AN ranks who would vigorously defend the AN leadership (usually the pilot leadership) with a convert’s zeal, telling the PPrune readers what wonderful and thoroughly professional fellows these saviours of the new ‘lean, mean’ AN and of the Australian Aviation industry were. Frequently, these same writers would quote chapter and verse about how greedy, lazy and unreasonable the pre 89 pilot workforce had been. (One can only guess at the source of this information that the newcomers had gleaned about people and company practises most of them had never experienced first hand.)
I think many saw that they had at least got the ‘mean’ part right regarding their leaders when the time came to man the proverbial lifeboats after Sept 14th 2001. The events surrounding the many non A320-endorsed pilots TESNA ‘simply had to have’ immediately rather than employ already well qualified and A320-endorsed pilots from within AN might have opened a few eyes that much of what these newcomers ‘knew’ to be true about the pre-89 AN might in fact have been slightly skewed in the telling. The Royal Commission (or those investigating these people’s claims for wages from TESNA for the period of their A320 simulator training and endorsements) might also like to ask how much unnecessary expense that might have placed at TESNA’s door at a time when its operating expenses were being met by funds that should have been ear-marked for the (partial) payouts to hapless ex-AN staff.
Sadly, I don’t believe any such Royal Commission is ever likely to take place, for too many people still in high places on both sides of politics (or with mates in high places) would not be comfortable with the results, so simply put, it ain’t gunna happen.