Calling Anna
 

Hello Anna

After giving weekly updates as GMA are you going to talk to the troops about anything important in your new role? Apart from the weekly update - are you going to say anything important?

Why? Because after taking over the role as DFO, you as quiet as a stale piece of bread!!!

Are you hiding on the 9th floor or have you been told to keep quiet from the other Swire Directors on the 9th floor? What ever way you want to spin it.... I hate to say but even Dicky was more vocal.

Think she is sulking, her nasty pilots had the audacity to speak their minds and the truth :*

Anna has finally realized that the DFO position is the poisoned chalice of Swire. A graveyard for Swire managers who have no hope of progression within the ranks.

They are sent to the DFO spot to live out a 3-5 year contract where the failure rate is 100%. That is their glass ceiling. After which they either move sideways and become Manager Cargo or devise a new role for themselves - Manager People. For the older DFO, a choice of Retire of be Fired looms.

MH - Are you reading this? Apparently you are the next in line for DFO. Your ineptitude and incompetence has spoken volumes. When the call comes, that will be your realization of failure.

If they only gave you 80% of the fuel you needed (really needed) to make a flight would you go ? Or would you refuse to launch or let them know you'd be diverting to an alternate along the way ?

Would a USD 10,000 bonus for making the flight anyway affect your judgment (I would hope not) ? Or would you flatly refuse and let them know that YOU won't do this unless you're given the resources you need to make it happen ? And have the honesty to do so.

That's why it's nice to be a pilot.

Most experienced guys (and gals) have learned the valuable lesson that--absent good folks getting shot at and a willingness to lose the jet to help them--one isn't responsible for accomplishing a task unless given the resources to do so.

One has to look at chaotic rostering to FTL a lot like running engines absent from any forms of derates. You can do it for awhile, but it costs you more in the long run because it increases costs elsewhere.

Curtain Rod. Excellent post. Nails it, right between (her) eyes. It's curious that she seems to have gone to ground. I guess embarrassment and shame finally put people in their place. Frankly, I was sick of listening to her worthless bleatings. She has done NOTHING since she arrived, other than a big negative, the RP debacle. All I know is that I now take matters firmly into my own hands, and because of that I have a wonderful roster. She is a two-faced, lying, conniving failure. The fun thing is, I meet with her two to three times a week (in a group setting) smile and nod a lot when she speaks. Inside I want to throw up. Her day is coming. I hope she sleeps well knowing there are 3000+ pilots who loath her. Good riddance...and it can't come soon enough.

In reality, she has no power to "do something". She has no budget to recruit more pilots or improve housing/COS generally. All she can do is to put some kind of 'spin' on the cards she has been dealt. There is no way that spin can be positive unless she thinks we really are morons so silence is pretty much her only option.
If I were her, I'd get on the 251 and go and rattle some of the guilded cages in London because it all comes from them and will soon meltdown. Do they know how chaotic it has become? Who's to blame? Who's the DFO? Oh - It's YOU Anna!!
Earn your bonus - do SOMETHING!!!! Show some LEADERSHIP - a trait sadly lacking in your 'yes men' predecessors!!!
You're quite old and probably rich enough to survive a nice life after Cathay so if they don't listen - RESIGN!!!:E

Sounds like an AA meeting??

Oooohhhh!!! thats why the AOD testing is not for the grown ups :}

How can that be fun for you and why don't you speak up?

By not speaking up you're as culpable as she. You internally want to "throw up", yet you sit and nod and say nothing. Why? Speak your mind, and if needs be get out and resign from your post.

You won't achieve your goals via Prune.

By saying nothing that confirms the Cx way of intimidation is well and truly active.

Good luck.

Shame about your integrity Trafalgar:suspect:

CURTAIN ROD.

Best summary I've seen. I'd like to see it stuck on the notice board.

Anna, phone home, your abscense is poking us all in the eyes.

You are very 'brave' BusyB. You have no idea what I am doing, have done and will do. I can safely say I have done more to help the cause than you could ever dream of. I'm sure if you were sitting in front of Anna, Nick, Rupert et al you would tell them exactly what you think. Plonker.

When my kids were little and it was all quiet around the house I knew they were up to no good. So what is Anna up to. I think we will find out soon enough and it will not be good. And I don't think there will be any shame or embarrassment in evidence.

Rod, I hear you.

But as long as nobody walks away from this job, as long as recruitment gets thousands of application each year, and as long as we do not find effective industrial tools to really cause some damage to the operation, this is just pointless.

I also think we need to choose our battles. Does it really make sense to fight three men crew when ALL our competitors are operating this way? Safety as an argument for acars roster change? Really? Fighting an inevitable base closure caused by a legislation shift clearly out of the hands of the company? What was the offer on the table for HKPA, like plus 20 or 30 %, and that is not enough??

I say: let's get real and move on. Concentrate on what can be achieved and not what we dream of to have in a fantasy world. I am so sick of the the constant complaining on the flight deck,and then the same guys stay on until 65 and as soon as an outsider critisizes cx in the bar they are all over him. What a joke.

Anna is not talking to us because she doesn't take us seriously any more, that's why.

Sam. So you think that a 20 or 30% increase to HKPA is 'enough' do you? I'm sure you would enjoy living in HK, with a family on $13K a month. You and Anna planning a dinner date soon? With support from 'brothers' like you, Anna has little to do really...:ugh:

No, that is NOT what I said.

I say we need to be realistic and choose our battles, and I do not think HKPA will increase dramatically. Nor do I think lawyers fees for a long lost base are a good investment. In my 15 years in aviation I observed one constant: contracts and conditions get worse, not better. And I also said with applicants piling up in front of the door, why should they? Besides the fact that HKPA did not change after joining, it is what they signed up for after all. I never expected A scale when i joined, nor should C scale expect B, it just won't happen.

Again, I am not saying it is fair, not saying it is "enough" ( well, define enough. If people stay I guess from an employers view you could argue it is "enough", can't you?).

And for the record, under protest but as a union member, I do follow CC and do wear my red lanyard. Hope that makes you happy, because it sure will not do much else.

....glad you weren't in a place of power in the UK in the lead-up to WWII...

Funny you bring that up. The real motive of Chamberlain was that he knew Britain wasn't ready for battle in 1938, mentally nor physically . Yet.

That is why he (wisely) chose to try appeasement ( but really to win time).

Now, Trafalgar,how many troops do you have?

Your understanding of past history is as misguided as your understanding of the present. In everything you have said, defeatism is wholly evident. Unlike you, i'd rather die standing than on my knees. The only 'army' I need is that of my 3000 determined colleagues (minus one or two like yourself). The operation is drastically deteriorating, and can't be sustained much longer. Either there is a dramatic sea-change in attitude and policy from your 'leaders', or we will finally suffer an event that the airline will not recover from.

The problem is that the opposite is true.

You are NOT willing to die standing, because you, nor anybody else of your 3000 "comrades" is really willing to fight (= STRIKE).

CC and red lanyards do not match my definition of fighting, nor does complaining or making sad and angry faces in the street.

The inflationary use of safety as an argument is a tired one, no pun intended. (and plain ridiculous when talking about HKPA).

Nobody is listening.

Either you are willing to die in battle or you better not fight at all.

Sam. Sometimes the only option is asymmetric warfare. That is effectively what the AOA is engaged in. We are limited in the 'weapons' we can deploy, therefore we have to use other means, like strategic sickness, fatigue and other personal initiatives. The one thing we mustn't do is sound defeatist, or give even the slightest indication that we are 'beaten'. We are not. The operation IS suffering greatly, and is now being held desperately together day by day. We must police our own ranks, and stay committed to the long term. We will win a better contract if we keep highlighting the ineptitude of our 'leaders'. Don't provide succor for the likes of AT or anyone else on the 9th floor (or London).