ANOTHER QANTAS RB211 ENGINE FAILURE
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Mach082........nope, sorry to disappoint you but it's a worldwide ad campaign and the folks in hello kitty city wouldn't care about any QF staff issue.
The idea of highlighting one's 'people' seems to be a trend among airlines at the moment. BA, Cathay, Virgin and Delta all have ads at the moment focussing on their 'people' which surely aren't all aimed at Qantas, although Virgin and Cathay appear to be capitalising on the current unrest.
It doesn't mean any airline's management actually believes it, it just means they're all trying to sell the same line of BS... with one obvious exception, which in a way is at least a little more honest in one respect!
It doesn't mean any airline's management actually believes it, it just means they're all trying to sell the same line of BS... with one obvious exception, which in a way is at least a little more honest in one respect!
Ah yes! The maintenance engineers lament - we have all sung it:
A salesman brings in a million dollar client and he is rewarded by champagne and bonuses. An Engineer saves the airline a million dollars and....nothing except maybe another kick in the arse.
It actually takes time and quite a bit of statistical research and computation to place a financial value on maintenance engineering that allows you to determine what you should be spending each year to maximise value because you have to do the risk management numbers (annual cost to avoid catastrophic failure), the cost of maintenance related delays (commercial risk management) and finally arrive at a life cycle cost of the aircraft. Doing all that and more kept me gainfully employed at Ansett for a few years.
Tax comes into it as well. U.S. airlines used to benefit from accelerated depreciation which led them to turn over their aircraft fleet and buy new ones every Ten years or so. The Boeing maintenance and overhaul schedules are based on this "buy it and fly it" model, and they are the minimum you need to achieve this in a North American environment. Now fast track to Australia where aircraft used to be depreciated over Twenty years (?) and hence fleets are going to have an older average age.
Now when you know you are going to keep something longer than the North American cousins, then if you are smart you think ahead when you buy the aircraft rather like when you buy a new car. For example, Boeing used to offer an optional "Coroguard' proprietary top wing skin coating that reduced corrosion damage significantly, it was expensive and added weight, but it paid off Ten years down the track. Then of course there are the thousands of other options they offer for each aircraft type, not to mention the whole provisioning jungle of which spares to buy and how many.
What is killing Qantas is the same thing that killed Ansett - short term bonus driven management decision making in a business that requires long term thinking and planning. At Ansett the managers cut out its brain by getting rid of all the little old guys in grey cardigans who dealt with such things as maintenance planning, unscheduled repairs and airworthiness directives. The airline stumbled along for a few years while the backlog of things not attended to slowly grew.
Then one day there was the discovery of an Airworthiness directive not completed and the B767 fleet had to be grounded. I challenged Twoomey on ABC talk radio that this was symptomatic of deeper problems. He denied it. Then the ATSB looked further and discovered that Ansett could not prove that ANY of its aircraft were being maintained properly anymore and CASA took away its AOC.
To put that in terms a journalist might understand; Imagine that you could not drive your car unless you could prove that it had been serviced exactly in accordance with the manufacturers instructions, by an authorised service center, by certified employees and at exactly the required service intervals.
Now imagine that you had lost or mislaid all the documentation that proved it. What can you tell the Police officer?
To put that another way; you know what a luxury sports car like a Ferrari is worth without its service manuals? - a lot less. That is why Ansetts B767s were broken up for scrap at Melbourne airport. They couldn't be sold as a flyable aircraft, even to some Third rate African country, because they didn't have the documentation to prove they were safe.
This is where Qantas is heading. The Qantas engine shop shutdown is symptomatic of this type of thinking "we know the cost of everything and the value of nothing". There are endless examples on Pprune of misplaced priorities and stupid decisions clouded by short term bonus driven management culture.
Keep cutting boys! One of these days you are going to have a structural failure, hopefully not in flight, and the ATSB will determine that the required inspection and repair that should have prevented it was signed off by some little Asian guy at midnight somewhere in deepest China Six years ago.... Then the ATSB finds that this little guy has signed off on a lot of other work on many other aircraft in your fleet for the last Six years...and when that is randomly checked by the ATSB, they find none of it has been done, or if it has been done, it's been done incorrectly. At that point it's too late for Qantas. Lets just hope it all happens on the ground.
Of course the managers who lit the fuse on the airlines demise through thoughtless short term planning have taken their annual bonuses and are long gone.
A salesman brings in a million dollar client and he is rewarded by champagne and bonuses. An Engineer saves the airline a million dollars and....nothing except maybe another kick in the arse.
It actually takes time and quite a bit of statistical research and computation to place a financial value on maintenance engineering that allows you to determine what you should be spending each year to maximise value because you have to do the risk management numbers (annual cost to avoid catastrophic failure), the cost of maintenance related delays (commercial risk management) and finally arrive at a life cycle cost of the aircraft. Doing all that and more kept me gainfully employed at Ansett for a few years.
Tax comes into it as well. U.S. airlines used to benefit from accelerated depreciation which led them to turn over their aircraft fleet and buy new ones every Ten years or so. The Boeing maintenance and overhaul schedules are based on this "buy it and fly it" model, and they are the minimum you need to achieve this in a North American environment. Now fast track to Australia where aircraft used to be depreciated over Twenty years (?) and hence fleets are going to have an older average age.
Now when you know you are going to keep something longer than the North American cousins, then if you are smart you think ahead when you buy the aircraft rather like when you buy a new car. For example, Boeing used to offer an optional "Coroguard' proprietary top wing skin coating that reduced corrosion damage significantly, it was expensive and added weight, but it paid off Ten years down the track. Then of course there are the thousands of other options they offer for each aircraft type, not to mention the whole provisioning jungle of which spares to buy and how many.
What is killing Qantas is the same thing that killed Ansett - short term bonus driven management decision making in a business that requires long term thinking and planning. At Ansett the managers cut out its brain by getting rid of all the little old guys in grey cardigans who dealt with such things as maintenance planning, unscheduled repairs and airworthiness directives. The airline stumbled along for a few years while the backlog of things not attended to slowly grew.
Then one day there was the discovery of an Airworthiness directive not completed and the B767 fleet had to be grounded. I challenged Twoomey on ABC talk radio that this was symptomatic of deeper problems. He denied it. Then the ATSB looked further and discovered that Ansett could not prove that ANY of its aircraft were being maintained properly anymore and CASA took away its AOC.
To put that in terms a journalist might understand; Imagine that you could not drive your car unless you could prove that it had been serviced exactly in accordance with the manufacturers instructions, by an authorised service center, by certified employees and at exactly the required service intervals.
Now imagine that you had lost or mislaid all the documentation that proved it. What can you tell the Police officer?
To put that another way; you know what a luxury sports car like a Ferrari is worth without its service manuals? - a lot less. That is why Ansetts B767s were broken up for scrap at Melbourne airport. They couldn't be sold as a flyable aircraft, even to some Third rate African country, because they didn't have the documentation to prove they were safe.
This is where Qantas is heading. The Qantas engine shop shutdown is symptomatic of this type of thinking "we know the cost of everything and the value of nothing". There are endless examples on Pprune of misplaced priorities and stupid decisions clouded by short term bonus driven management culture.
Keep cutting boys! One of these days you are going to have a structural failure, hopefully not in flight, and the ATSB will determine that the required inspection and repair that should have prevented it was signed off by some little Asian guy at midnight somewhere in deepest China Six years ago.... Then the ATSB finds that this little guy has signed off on a lot of other work on many other aircraft in your fleet for the last Six years...and when that is randomly checked by the ATSB, they find none of it has been done, or if it has been done, it's been done incorrectly. At that point it's too late for Qantas. Lets just hope it all happens on the ground.
Of course the managers who lit the fuse on the airlines demise through thoughtless short term planning have taken their annual bonuses and are long gone.
Last edited by Sunfish; 17th Oct 2011 at 16:56.
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LETS RUN THE AIRLINE INTO THE GROUND
Executive Management have GOT TO BE DOING ALL THIS STUFF ON PURPOSE .
IT'S as if they don't want QF to be around for much longer .... JETSTAR can take all the flying .
I'm surprised the BOARD have not said anything or fired the retards.
IT'S as if they don't want QF to be around for much longer .... JETSTAR can take all the flying .
I'm surprised the BOARD have not said anything or fired the retards.
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After reading Sunfishs' post, can the rot be cut out? Can things be turned around?
I bet it would take large amounts of capital investment to regain our engineering supremacy/efficiency.
God help the long term loyal Qantas employee and damn those short term parasitical vermin who currently preside over us.
The fight is goood!
I bet it would take large amounts of capital investment to regain our engineering supremacy/efficiency.
God help the long term loyal Qantas employee and damn those short term parasitical vermin who currently preside over us.
The fight is goood!
You would do well to see if BA is having its RB211s falling to bits. I dont think so is the answer. Mind you l am not sure where they get overhauled, its either in taffyland (cardiff) or by rolls themselves.
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Both BA and CX have had problems with these engines.
The ratio of unmodified/modded engines in their fleets and the high average thrust on take-off of Qantas aircraft [due to longer average sector length] the likely-hood of a QF failure.
Fact is : they need to be modified, Qantas can't do it anymore and the engine shops in Asia who do it for QF now are busy!
The ratio of unmodified/modded engines in their fleets and the high average thrust on take-off of Qantas aircraft [due to longer average sector length] the likely-hood of a QF failure.
Fact is : they need to be modified, Qantas can't do it anymore and the engine shops in Asia who do it for QF now are busy!
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But you all must be mistaken, a failure is not a safety issue, and the failure rate of Qantas' RB211's is entirely normal.
Direct quotes as reported to ABC PM in this link
Fed Sec surely you have the figures to prove another BIG FAT LIE I presume, go get him!
ALAN MILNE: The Qantas 2 on climb out of Bangkok last night, the pilot's experienced some engine vibration and a higher than normal temperature. They shut the engine down, safetied it, returned to Bangkok for a normal landing.
No safety issue.
No safety issue.
ALAN MILNE: Any of the maintenance providers that Qantas uses are world standard, world class. All of the providers have been endorsed by the manufacturer so we ensure that we always use highest quality standard.
The failure rate for these engines has been the same and as I said we're using world class facilities here.
The failure rate for these engines has been the same and as I said we're using world class facilities here.
Fed Sec surely you have the figures to prove another BIG FAT LIE I presume, go get him!
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Imagine what the impact on the share price would be if they really had a safety issue. These comments must be getting very close to the wind in terms of public disclosures by this company.
This is undoubtedly price sensitive material that the market has a right to know to be properly informed.
There is never a corporate regulator around when you need them.
This is undoubtedly price sensitive material that the market has a right to know to be properly informed.
There is never a corporate regulator around when you need them.
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Qantas have been operating the 747-400 with RB211 engines since 1989. In that time the aircraft has been flying essentially the same routes using more or less the same operating techniques.
It seems more than a coincidence that failure/IFSD events have been on the increase since the Qantas engine facility was shut down and the work sent overseas.
It seems more than a coincidence that failure/IFSD events have been on the increase since the Qantas engine facility was shut down and the work sent overseas.
What is killing Qantas is the same thing that killed Ansett - short term bonus driven management decision making in a business that requires long term thinking and planning.
Comment of the year goes to Sunfish. Hit the nail fairly and squarely on the proverbial.
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Executive Management have GOT TO BE DOING ALL THIS STUFF ON PURPOSE .
IT'S as if they don't want QF to be around for much longer .... JETSTAR can take all the flying .
I'm surprised the BOARD have not said anything or fired the retards. ]
IT'S as if they don't want QF to be around for much longer .... JETSTAR can take all the flying .
I'm surprised the BOARD have not said anything or fired the retards.
]
"I don't know how common this knowledge is, but former QF CEO Dixon and CFO Peter Gregg both served as Chairman and directors of Orange Star Investment Holdings, based in Singapore that owned Jetstar Asia and Valuair. Alan Joyce was also a director of Orange Star Investment Holdings, which is now Newstar Investment Holdings.
Here are some articles showing the "relationship" between these people and what is now becoming QF's International Airline based in Asia.
Infratil - Airport Industry News: Jetstar Asia, Valuair bring no cheer to Qantas (5 September 2008)
Asia Times Online :: Southeast Asia news and business from Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam (Asia Times July 2005)
Jetstar Asia still flying at a loss | CAPA (September 2009)
Jetstar to take on Tiger with revamp (The Age April 2009)
Bruce Buchannan, CEO of Jetstar Group is a director of Newstar Investment Holdings as is David Hall, former IT Chief in QF and now CEO of Jetstar Australia/NZ.
This is more than QF engineers or pilots being the best in the world. This is more than Geoff Thomas' reporting skills.
This is more about the systematic dismantling and shrinking of QANTAS and the labour force within Australia and shifting it offshore, so as to maintain the bonuses and outrageous payments to these individuals while they grow "their" airline at the expense of Australia's airline and jobs.
Alan milne's slip the other day on Lateline is the first of many. Hopefully the slip will become a slide down a steep gradient and make the management of QF accountable for their actions and hoepfully save what's left of QANTAS."
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AIPA ought take a stand. Whilst RW was correct in stating pilots are well trained to handle these events. This is clearly a safety issue. The fact remains that as other posters stated, these engines need the modifications NOW.
That the overseas contractors cannot do them as quickly as required should indicate that these engines are not suitable for long isolated over water flights.These are the flights at risk. This is where there is maximum stress on the engines as the operate close to their certified limit, hence higher risk of failure.
Flying to London presents the pilot with plenty of land based alternatives. South Africa, Argentina and Los Angeles do not.
As a safety imperative AIPA should decree in the interest of customer care, these engines are not suitable for long over water sectors, until they are modified.
That the overseas contractors cannot do them as quickly as required should indicate that these engines are not suitable for long isolated over water flights.These are the flights at risk. This is where there is maximum stress on the engines as the operate close to their certified limit, hence higher risk of failure.
Flying to London presents the pilot with plenty of land based alternatives. South Africa, Argentina and Los Angeles do not.
As a safety imperative AIPA should decree in the interest of customer care, these engines are not suitable for long over water sectors, until they are modified.
