GHANA AIRWAYS incident in DUS

[ChiefT]

Yesterdays Flight from Ghana Airways overshot the runway in Düsseldorf/Germany (DUS).

DC-10 9G-ANE landed at 09:00lcl.

The pilots first claimed a technical fault, but then admitted that they touched down 1,500m too late because they came in too high.

Landing gear was damaged, was obviously repaired, but the aircraft left DUS with an 11 hour delay.

Airport is aking GH to pay for the damaged lights

Will GH be able to pay for the damage? :-(

[ChiefT]

After the aircraft has left DUS it flew to HAM and stranded there last night again.
Obviously an engine problem occured, so that the aircraft will only leave tonight.
100 passengers are waiting since Thursday night in the waiting room in HAM airport.

Origianlly the flight was scheduled for last Tuesday!

[Gunship]

I have flown many an hour on th Ghana Scareways DC-10's and oh my how brighter was the day I chose to fly via London back to SA. $ 1500.00 more expensive but who cares.

Fly with them is not an option any more ... :uhoh:

[Wizard]

How Ghanair Lost ¢121 Billion - see

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=56647

The Roadmap to Recovery report for Ghana Airways, which was conducted by Brian Davies in late 2003, but was boycotted by the Roads and Transport Ministry and the Ghanair Board, has revealed that the financial fortunes of the airline have deteriorated rapidly after the 2002 Price Water House (PWC) audit with losses averaging about $1.5m a month.

Ghana Airways, the report said, has lost money every year over the last 10 years, apart from 1997 and 1998.

Similarly, it has been revealed that the airline spent a whopping $13.5 million dollars, which is equivalent to ¢121.5 billion, to purchase a DC10 from Malaysia, but used the aircraft for only 3,745 hours because of disputes over final payments which eventually led to the confiscation of the aircraft by other creditors of the airline.

According to the report, the airline has been insolvent since 1999 but has continued operations in contravention of the Companies Code of Ghana. An insolvent company, according to experts, is a company which cannot pay its debt as they fall due in the usual course of business or a company whose liabilities are in excess of a reasonable market value of assets held.

“Ultimately, it will be lack of cash that will ground the airline, but surprisingly, there is no forecast of cash flow available to the board or senior management to assist in planning how payments are to be covered in the coming months,” the report said.

The boycotted report indicates that the board and management of Ghana Airways are aware of the rapidly deteriorating financial condition of the airline because of the daily calls from creditors threatening to ground the airline and consequent pleas for cash to cover the most urgent payments.

The report further warned that the directors of the Ghana Airways could be held personally liable if by continuing to trade, while insolvent, the position of the creditors is worsened, adding that the Government of Ghana (GoG) had urged the airline to continue trading so that it could be held liable for any liabilities created after identifying that the company is insolvent.

According to the report, the only reason for the continued operation of Ghana Airways is for the airline to improve the prospects of creditors being paid, and “therefore management should not be doing anything that makes the debt situation worse.”

The Brian Davies report observed that late last year, when the investigations were underway, plans were at an advanced stage to dry lease two DC 10 aircraft for a period of six months, even though there were credible indications that the airline could lose close to $9 million.

“At a fairly late stage in the process, the Finance Department had produced a business plan for this period that showed the company would lose approximately $9 million if the leases went ahead, before taking royalties into account. There was no indication how these increases were going to be funded. The rationale for this action was simply that it would cost less than wet leasing,” Brian Davies noted.

The report also noted that there were no up-to-date financial statements that include balance sheets or cash flow information, a situation, it said, makes it impossible to provide an accurate assessment of the current financial condition of the airline.

According to the report, the only financial information, which came from the Finance Department, was an un-audited financial performance up to the end of the year 2002 and a management report showing financial performance for the first six months of 2003. The report lamented that even information on payables and receivables up to August 2003 was limited.

On the aspect of the airline’s financial performance, the report noted that it was difficult to properly assess the financial performance of the airline at the operating level owing to lack of audited accounts and massive distortions caused by trading while insolvent.

HOW TO LOSE MONEY

Brian Davies, the man credited in aviation circles as the one who turned Kenyan Airways from a useless and highly indebted airline to a profit making one, said that the true impact of defective decision-making is also buried under the formal accounting conventions, adding that the best illustration is the purchase of one of the DC10 aircraft According to his report, Ghana Airways purchased a DC10 9G-ANC from Malaysian Airline System (MAS) in May 2000 for a reported sum of $13.5 million, but there appeared to have been a dispute over the final payment of the aircraft so MAS kept part of the aircraft records as a lien on outstanding payments.

“This meant that, the aircraft was grounded in November 2001 because the ‘C’ check could not be carried without the records.

The aircraft was finally ferried to Alitalia in January 2003, only to be impounded by Alitalia for non-payment of maintenance support fees,” it said.

Brian Davies observed that, it is almost certain that the aircraft will never fly again because the outstanding amounts are now greater than the market value of the aircraft. The report also revealed that since the aircraft was purchased in May 2000, it has flown a total of 3,754 hours, the equivalent of only one year’s revenue service.

“Although the acquisition cost of this aircraft will be amortised over 10 years (in accordance with normal accounting rules) the real cost has been an additional $13.5 million to fly only 3,754 hours. This amounts to an additional ownership cost of $3,596 per hour,” the report revealed.

This situation, according to the report, has “more than doubled the effective cost of operating this aircraft.”

Continuing with the appalling revelations, the Brian Davies report noted the above story can be repeated at varying degrees in Ghanair purchases and leases of almost every aircraft in Ghana Airways’ fleet, adding that the entire fleet is prematurely out of service for non-payment of bills or lack of funds to carry out essential maintenance.
The report observed that, in order to maintain operations, the airline had begun wet leasing wide-body aircraft and dry leasing two replacement DC-9 aircraft, leaving in-house resources idle and further increasing the effective cost of operations.

Ghanair: The excess luggage saga
A passenger on board the Ghana Airways 1 March 2004 Flight GH0170, from Accra to Baltimore, which was reported to have $100,000 excess baggage cash unaccounted for, confirmed “The Chronicle” newspaper story.

The passenger, who pleaded for anonymity, said Ghanair had to delay for four hours in Banjul, the Gambian capital, to offload and reload all the baggage before it could take off.

The passenger, who was in the Business Class, said the overloading of the plane was no secret to everyone on board, as the passengers were informed that their delay in Banjul was as a result of the baggage “flying all over the compartment” and that they were repacking them.

The Chronicle in its March 15, lead story captioned “Ghanair’s Baltimore flight Scandal…All airport staff face arrest,” reported how the manifest, which provided information on the list of passengers with the total baggage weight on board the flight, indicated that the weight of checked-in baggage was 6.76 tonnes.

This, the paper reported, was in contrast to the load sheet, which indicated that the weight of checked-in baggage of all persons on the aircraft that day was 16 tonnes, revealing that 9.3 tonnes of baggage was unaccounted for. A charge per kilogram is put at $12.00, given that the total loss of revenue on the day in question was about $100.000.

Explaining further, our source said it all started after they had checked in the previous day. “After the check-in we went up to the departure hall where there was a long queue. They had some passengers coming from Monrovia, who were also to join the flight to Washington.

However, when they got in, instead of staying in the transit lounge they went out to town and before they came their seats on board had been sold out, the source explained. He said this generated a little commotion, which was later settled.

According to the passenger, the first irregularity witnessed at the terminal was to see a few people who had economy class tickets pay $100.00 and had them upgraded to Business Class. As to whose pocket that money went to nobody knows. “And out of the Business Class passengers, there were about five members of Ghanair staff,” our source continued.

The passenger said after an hour and half delay, just before the flight could take off, two three year-old unaccompanied Liberian children were found in the Business Class.

As to how the children were deposited in the Business Class, the passenger said, was a mystery. This, the insider said, created a lot of controversy as to whether they should be taken on or disembarked. “Fortunately there was a Liberian on board who had something to do with the UN refugee agency, he even offered them the number to the Liberian Embassy in Accra so that they could get in touch with the Ambassador,” the passenger said.

However, according to the insider, it was then dawn so the children were finally put down with the knowledge that they would have to contact the Liberian Embassy the next day. The insider said when Ghanair got to the Banjul airport passengers were again taken aboard. But the plane had to be delayed for four hours for the baggage to be removed, taken to the terminal and repackaged.

This again generated a little scene in the aircraft but “when we were taking off after the delay I, sitting at seat number one, did not think the plane would be moving because you could see that the plane was actually overloaded,” the insider said.

The passenger said when Ghanair finally landed at Baltimore, one Ghanaian passenger was arrested for possessing fake traveling documents. Meanwhile the Ministry of Roads and Transport is yet to come out with its investigation into the matter.

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=56648

[Gunship]

Why am I not at all surprised ?

We used to have 40 kg (normal economy) .. they start to complain at 60 kg ...

I am (very) embarressed to say I was never below 100 kg ... :bored:

But then who would stop the other 200 odd pax ...

Sad .. sad state of affairs but Ghana Airways will NEVER see me again. They might as well stop their flights to the West Coast as people here do not use them anymore (whenever they arrive)

:8

[TimS]

QUOTE .... " it was then dawn so the children were finally put down " (Wizard)

Now that's what I call a creative resolution to an otherwise ongoing problem !!!

Interesting posting - I hadn't seen the one about Brian Davies report before.

Hey Gunship !!! That\'s US$ 6,384 you owe me for the excess bagagge then !!

[Gunship]

:ok: Hey Tim mate ... long time ! :D

I just knew this post will attract "you bean counter types" :p

Seriously I feel ashame sometimes ... but then again to p ay so much is crazy .. even Ct these days you just "slip a R100.00" and the overwieght dissapears.

Yes guys I know I am wrong ... sorry ..

But what SHOULD happen is that ALL pax should be weighed .. easy as that ... my kiddo weighs 25 kg and me weighs 112 kg *yes vis and increasing * ... it just aint right that an "average" should be taken on pax weights ..

Gunss is slowly trying to get himslef out of this tangle .. :p

;)

CHeers

(Overweight) Gunsss :E