Since AN - Where are you working now?
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Since AN - Where are you working now?
Well many many PPRuNers have been affected by the collapse of AN, with many of my mates in KDs, the Duck, Hazos and (to a lesser extent) Pel Air left wondering about the future.
Many of them have been flying in GA again, doing bankruns or other jobs. My own career has taken a 4-year backwards step and I am doing a little instruction on weekends, the working Mon-Fri in the mining industry.
What other work have YOU found out there?
Many of them have been flying in GA again, doing bankruns or other jobs. My own career has taken a 4-year backwards step and I am doing a little instruction on weekends, the working Mon-Fri in the mining industry.
What other work have YOU found out there?
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OWL,
I'm far from sad and pathetic , although I will admit to being poor. For that part I can thank the very people my post was directed at. I assume you are one of them and for that reason your "kind regards"
are not welcome.
I'm far from sad and pathetic , although I will admit to being poor. For that part I can thank the very people my post was directed at. I assume you are one of them and for that reason your "kind regards"
are not welcome.
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MJMJKG:- Now then, sunshine, lesson #1- don't assume, CHECK. If your antipathy towards AN people is because you are an 89er, then it is misplaced in my case. I am not, never have been, nor will ever be, a pilot. Not because I can't, but 'cos I'm too bl***y old! I have been in aviation, both military and civil, since 1960, and am currently one of the VERY few AN people still working. I refuse ABSOLUTELY to take part in the "WAR of 89" argument, it was no business of mine then, and remains so. I'd love to debate the rights and wrongs, as I see them, with someone I could be sure of remaining rational for more than five minutes, but I am not convinced that such a creature exists.
My objection to your attacks on us is engendered by what I feel is righteous anger. I have watched the destruction of my Company, yes, MY Company, for the past fifteen years by self-serving management in one form or another, while I, along with all others, was incapable of stopping it. I have been re-organised, re-structured and re-aligned by trendy management techniques run by wet-behind-the-ears management graduates who knew little, and cared less, about the people affected by their inane decisions.
Not once in that time has we had a management led by anyone who had the ability to run an airline, as opposed to a business, and look at the result. The fact that the last lot came from across the ditch is irrelevant, the end is the same, 16,000 people out of work, with no entitlements protected by either management or government, both of whom had responsibility in one form or another. Now, I understand you will probably disagree with what I have written, but, PLEASE, do not vent your unhappy diatribe on people who do not deserve it, and who are trying to make the best of a s**thouse job they've been left with. If you see the Sunbury 2-day shindig as demeaning, then I can only say to you that your posts have demeaned yourself rather than us. The people who organised, as well as those from AN who benefitted, are to be congratulated rather than pilloried, so get back under your rock and leave us alone.
Kind regards, accepted or otherwise,
TheNightOwl.
My objection to your attacks on us is engendered by what I feel is righteous anger. I have watched the destruction of my Company, yes, MY Company, for the past fifteen years by self-serving management in one form or another, while I, along with all others, was incapable of stopping it. I have been re-organised, re-structured and re-aligned by trendy management techniques run by wet-behind-the-ears management graduates who knew little, and cared less, about the people affected by their inane decisions.
Not once in that time has we had a management led by anyone who had the ability to run an airline, as opposed to a business, and look at the result. The fact that the last lot came from across the ditch is irrelevant, the end is the same, 16,000 people out of work, with no entitlements protected by either management or government, both of whom had responsibility in one form or another. Now, I understand you will probably disagree with what I have written, but, PLEASE, do not vent your unhappy diatribe on people who do not deserve it, and who are trying to make the best of a s**thouse job they've been left with. If you see the Sunbury 2-day shindig as demeaning, then I can only say to you that your posts have demeaned yourself rather than us. The people who organised, as well as those from AN who benefitted, are to be congratulated rather than pilloried, so get back under your rock and leave us alone.
Kind regards, accepted or otherwise,
TheNightOwl.
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Workin as a teacher in a high school. Beats being broke, at $180 a day whos complaining!
Kids are driving me nuts which makes me appreciate the job I had. Can't wait to get it back.
Kids are driving me nuts which makes me appreciate the job I had. Can't wait to get it back.
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Owl Hard to argue with your post except the 16000 out of work - in fact the damage is much much more.Related businesses and families run the figure to far in excess of the figure you mention and I think The Johns are about to lose their jobs too but no one will consider the huge super and related payouts as being extremely generous as the Prime minister say,s about the road kill in this debacle.Well done Minister for Qantas,Where should I buy my next small business.
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I don't know any of my KD mates getting jobs with Virgin only FA's. I personally have been working nights in a factory (And Hate It)however, I have just been offered a flying job in Greece back on the old metros (so much for jet time). 
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One FO at Air Naru and several YOUNG Capts. at SilkAir, or so I am told. no word of any starts at QF yet. Quite a number of FOs have interviews at Emirates, so the rumour goes...
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RIVERVIEW1:- You are quite correct, of course, and I apologise profusely to anyone offended by my omission. It was not my intent to offend, and I must confess that my immediate thoughts were with my AN colleagues. Of course the dramas are way beyond only AN staff, I can't imagine the number of small businesses affected, and the total number of people must be astronomical. Everyone has my sympathies, even the original poster who invoked my angry response, although I cannot understand his reasoning which would wish to visit on others the very misery about which he complains. Again I say I will not enter the 89 debate here, God knows it has been done to death, but the never-ending vitriol and bitterness still astounds me. I know I was/am not part of it, but I observed the repercussions here at work, as well as the dreadful effects on some of our pilots, especially the up-and-coming ones, it was not a pleasant sight and I only wish the whole sorry episode could be laid to rest once and for all.
Kind regards to all,
TheNightOwl.
Kind regards to all,
TheNightOwl.
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TheNightOwl, you said it yourself: you weren’t involved in 89, so you can’t understand the depth of bitterness that still exists to this day that is directed towards the senior pilots you happily worked alongside these last 12 years. Accept, however, that’s it’s still there, for many, many people – as more than a few heroes are going to discover when they dip their pinkies into the big pond (and I suspect, when they try for work within Australia).
Good luck and best wishes to the rest of you, both AN and non-AN, who are affected by this sad, sorry mess. TheNightOwl, I can only agree 100% with your comments about the poor excuse of managers AN suffered under after 1979 with the arrival of the Fat Man. Can’t comment on the post-89 crop, at least not first hand, but it seems, looking in from outside, that they were every bit as bad as ‘the florid faced footballer’. (How long did he last after 89 before he was escorted to the door?)
The Fat Man promoted people who would tell him want he wanted to hear and who were willing, even eager, to ‘slash and burn’ staff and staff morale in their usually futile efforts to achieve another percentage point gain for the Fat Man’s coffers. There were many who saw what was happening and were as distressed as you were at the time and who said so. But they were cast aside, because there were always others willing to do the Fat Man’s bidding for their own short term gain despite (surely?) their knowing that they were destroying the company’s long term future.
Those sentiments could probably be transposed squarely onto the shoulders of most 89ers in describing their continuing deep antipathy towards the pilots who went back or ‘blew in’ in 89-90. The ‘went backs’ (if maybe not the ‘blow ins’) also knew they were joining a stricken ship with an insane ‘captain’, but took what they could get while the going was good. If they hadn’t gone back or blown in, the misled and misguided board members who precipitated 1989 just might have been forced to re-evaluate their attitudes towards the airline that they looked upon as little more than a ‘milk cow’.
Good luck and best wishes to the rest of you, both AN and non-AN, who are affected by this sad, sorry mess. TheNightOwl, I can only agree 100% with your comments about the poor excuse of managers AN suffered under after 1979 with the arrival of the Fat Man. Can’t comment on the post-89 crop, at least not first hand, but it seems, looking in from outside, that they were every bit as bad as ‘the florid faced footballer’. (How long did he last after 89 before he was escorted to the door?)
The Fat Man promoted people who would tell him want he wanted to hear and who were willing, even eager, to ‘slash and burn’ staff and staff morale in their usually futile efforts to achieve another percentage point gain for the Fat Man’s coffers. There were many who saw what was happening and were as distressed as you were at the time and who said so. But they were cast aside, because there were always others willing to do the Fat Man’s bidding for their own short term gain despite (surely?) their knowing that they were destroying the company’s long term future.
Those sentiments could probably be transposed squarely onto the shoulders of most 89ers in describing their continuing deep antipathy towards the pilots who went back or ‘blew in’ in 89-90. The ‘went backs’ (if maybe not the ‘blow ins’) also knew they were joining a stricken ship with an insane ‘captain’, but took what they could get while the going was good. If they hadn’t gone back or blown in, the misled and misguided board members who precipitated 1989 just might have been forced to re-evaluate their attitudes towards the airline that they looked upon as little more than a ‘milk cow’.
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SPAD:- Reading your post convinces me that I haven't made myself clear. When I said I wasn't involved in '89, I meant as a pilot. In my work here at the Simulator Centre, I was most definitely involved, we had to deal with the daily running the gauntlet of the pilots' barricade for a start. Not the most pleasant of pastimes but, I must admit, sometimes funny! It is/was impossible for me not to work "happily alongside pilots", as you put it, what would you have had me do? Resign my post in sympathy? Refuse to talk to visiting crews and Check Captains? I took the position of doing my job, keeping my mouth shut in spite of my opinion, and getting on with life in the forlorn hope that it would return to "normal" sooner rather than later. Some hope!!!
I'll tell you now of an incident or two which influenced my attitude:
1. I arrived for work one Saturday afternoon for a 15:00 start and discovered, in the car park, a young F/O who had just been sent home since the AFAP had used the resignation letter given by him (under duress) and he no longer had a job. This was the last straw; he owed in excess of $20,000 he had borrowed to get to his ATPL standard; he had a mortgage and a wife and very young baby at home depending on him. I had to take him inside until he calmed down sufficiently to drive the car he couldn't afford, to the home he could no longer afford, where waited the family depending on him. To this day I have never forgotten the utter despair on his face, and the tears running down his cheeks and I unable to help in any way. I swore then that NO ba****d in authority would EVER be given a hold like that over my life and future.
2. My daughter had a school friend whose dad worked for another airline as a pilot. One morning, while out shopping with my wife, we met him and his wife coming out of the bank as we went in. My usual greeting was rebuffed with the comment "I don't talk to f****ng scabs". My wife was in tears, she had NO part of the dispute at all and, to this day, they will not open their mouths to talk to us, as I still work for AN.
Now then, what is expected of me by '89ers? I hold no grudges but, equally, I still despise the AFAP for what appears to me to have been an underhanded way of dealing with their members, IF THE INFO FROM THE F/O WAS CORRECT. I have no problem dealing with pilots at work, 89er or "scab" or "blow-in", I have a job to do and a family to provide for. They are all customers, some are even friends, ALL have from me the respect they deserve from either status. I will freely admit that my "prejudice" against the AFAP may be misplaced, all I have to go on is my experiences, and I have no doubt that there will be plenty of "corrective" advice from this. I am currently watching some of them try for jobs overseas, being checked by foreigners in the very simulators they used to train in for AN, and I feel for every one of them. It makes me bloody furious to watch them, and the rest of us, have to deal with the results of the devious practices of our past management, but what are the options? I have had a great time with AN, doing a job I love, with and for people I admire, and I despair of the future for my company, for I can't see any brightness in it for any of us.
I'm off back to work, if anyone wants to reply to this, then PLEASE read it carefully first.
Kind regards to all,
TheNightOwl.
I'll tell you now of an incident or two which influenced my attitude:
1. I arrived for work one Saturday afternoon for a 15:00 start and discovered, in the car park, a young F/O who had just been sent home since the AFAP had used the resignation letter given by him (under duress) and he no longer had a job. This was the last straw; he owed in excess of $20,000 he had borrowed to get to his ATPL standard; he had a mortgage and a wife and very young baby at home depending on him. I had to take him inside until he calmed down sufficiently to drive the car he couldn't afford, to the home he could no longer afford, where waited the family depending on him. To this day I have never forgotten the utter despair on his face, and the tears running down his cheeks and I unable to help in any way. I swore then that NO ba****d in authority would EVER be given a hold like that over my life and future.
2. My daughter had a school friend whose dad worked for another airline as a pilot. One morning, while out shopping with my wife, we met him and his wife coming out of the bank as we went in. My usual greeting was rebuffed with the comment "I don't talk to f****ng scabs". My wife was in tears, she had NO part of the dispute at all and, to this day, they will not open their mouths to talk to us, as I still work for AN.
Now then, what is expected of me by '89ers? I hold no grudges but, equally, I still despise the AFAP for what appears to me to have been an underhanded way of dealing with their members, IF THE INFO FROM THE F/O WAS CORRECT. I have no problem dealing with pilots at work, 89er or "scab" or "blow-in", I have a job to do and a family to provide for. They are all customers, some are even friends, ALL have from me the respect they deserve from either status. I will freely admit that my "prejudice" against the AFAP may be misplaced, all I have to go on is my experiences, and I have no doubt that there will be plenty of "corrective" advice from this. I am currently watching some of them try for jobs overseas, being checked by foreigners in the very simulators they used to train in for AN, and I feel for every one of them. It makes me bloody furious to watch them, and the rest of us, have to deal with the results of the devious practices of our past management, but what are the options? I have had a great time with AN, doing a job I love, with and for people I admire, and I despair of the future for my company, for I can't see any brightness in it for any of us.
I'm off back to work, if anyone wants to reply to this, then PLEASE read it carefully first.
Kind regards to all,
TheNightOwl.
Moderate, Modest & Mild.
If I may reply, TNO - at the time of the dispute, I was a First Officer, probably in the same position as the chap you describe. A house with a horrific mortgage, a young family, and 2 cars - one on H.P., and the other a heap of sh!t that I used to get me to work - my wife was also working full time to pay the bills. And then the world fell in around us - however it happened to my peers as well, other guys who were in almost the same situation as I found myself, and in spite of finding alternative work (I worked as a process worker for Nobby's Nuts by day, and did bar work at night) we barely managed to keep the "wolves" from the door.
Then the writs started - I vividly recall eating dinner by candlelight, all doors and windows closed and locked, waiting for the writ for "undetermined damages" to be served on ME for working 9 to 5, because Abeles had told us that we were no different from any other worker (and as we all know, 9 to 5 are the hours for "any other worker"!)
But this was AUSTRALIA - the land of equal opportunity, where EVERYONE had the right to speak openly and democratically, and to be heard and judged FAIRLY!
The money offered was way beyond all expectations if we would only sign an "individual contract", the promotion instantaneous, and the future guaranteed by the Prime Minister himself in a letter delivered by courier - but the sacrifice was to relinquish all ties with an association that had successfully negotiated past contracts, and to overlook the fact that I would leapfrog colleagues years my senior in the company, to gain my promotion.
Somethings just didn't stand FAIR and RIGHT - but the enormous dollars being dangled were meant to soothe the soul and instil a sense of anasthaesia in that area. Add to this the "blow-ins" who were being brought in, and there was a sense of urgency for one to accept this "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity!
And THAT is where some people (about 22%) believed that it was worth betraying/selling their principles.
Perhaps YOU, The Night Owl were seen as aiding and abetting those weak ones. Certainly YOUR position was an invidious, and obviously a closely monitored one, as you were one of the first points of contact and a "lynchpin" - however you were only one in a chain of (giving) training (to) people who had ALREADY made their choice, and who would gladly have "dobbed" you, had you proffered any opinion at variance with their's!
[ 05 November 2001: Message edited by: Kaptin M ]
Then the writs started - I vividly recall eating dinner by candlelight, all doors and windows closed and locked, waiting for the writ for "undetermined damages" to be served on ME for working 9 to 5, because Abeles had told us that we were no different from any other worker (and as we all know, 9 to 5 are the hours for "any other worker"!)
But this was AUSTRALIA - the land of equal opportunity, where EVERYONE had the right to speak openly and democratically, and to be heard and judged FAIRLY!
The money offered was way beyond all expectations if we would only sign an "individual contract", the promotion instantaneous, and the future guaranteed by the Prime Minister himself in a letter delivered by courier - but the sacrifice was to relinquish all ties with an association that had successfully negotiated past contracts, and to overlook the fact that I would leapfrog colleagues years my senior in the company, to gain my promotion.
Somethings just didn't stand FAIR and RIGHT - but the enormous dollars being dangled were meant to soothe the soul and instil a sense of anasthaesia in that area. Add to this the "blow-ins" who were being brought in, and there was a sense of urgency for one to accept this "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity!
And THAT is where some people (about 22%) believed that it was worth betraying/selling their principles.
Perhaps YOU, The Night Owl were seen as aiding and abetting those weak ones. Certainly YOUR position was an invidious, and obviously a closely monitored one, as you were one of the first points of contact and a "lynchpin" - however you were only one in a chain of (giving) training (to) people who had ALREADY made their choice, and who would gladly have "dobbed" you, had you proffered any opinion at variance with their's!
[ 05 November 2001: Message edited by: Kaptin M ]