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Post by Ykato on Aug 23, 2013 13:54:18 GMT 12
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Post by lumpy on Aug 23, 2013 21:09:01 GMT 12
The first paragraph in the article goes "The loss of 180 highly-skilled jobs at Air New Zealand's Auckland engineering base shows the National Government is sitting on its hands, Labour's finance spokesman David Parker says."
Im personally not sure what David Parker means by that comment, is he advocating Air NZ using older , more maintaince intensive aircraft ?
In this modern , very small world , a lot of equipment ( and components ) are now cheaper and easier to replace than repair ,times change and will continue to do so . I dont think thats the National governments fault .( sorry , but I hate politicians trying to point score from events like these )
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Post by haughtney1 on Aug 24, 2013 22:06:43 GMT 12
I'm not an engineer and have never worked for Air NZ, I do know however a bit about currency and its effects as it fluctuates. The NZ dollar is still seriously over valued, it makes the cost of doing work in NZ despite the efficiency savings claimed, higher than elsewhere, yes some argue that quality suffers..but those are the engineering jobs that you retain. Simple component replacement in non critical areas can be done a lot cheaper elsewhere, don't also forget that modern aircraft have sophisticated self diagnosis tools that don't require as much trouble shooting or inspections to be carried out.
I have been told that the difference between a 744 and 777 in terms of maintenance man hours is in the order of 35-40% less, 737CL compared to the newer A320's is about 10-15% less, but then the A320 components cost a bit more.
Sad for all concerned, lets hope they can absorb the losses through retirements and voluntary redundancy.
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Post by harvard1041 on Aug 24, 2013 23:25:34 GMT 12
Hi - I'm an Engineer and worked for Air NZ many moons ago ..... and I think this latest Air NZ announcement doesn't ring true.
There is a world wide shortage of good MROs ( Maint. Repair Overhaul ) facilities ... sure, the newer generation of jets require less maintenance per airframe, but that has always been the case with each new generation, but there is also an overall increase in the number of aircraft which more than balances this out... short answer is good MROs do survive and do well.
Air NZ Engineering - in my opinion - has suffered from years of muddled thinking where they took in third party work ( ie non Air NZ work ), then didn't, and recently have been doing Hawaiian 767 work while sending their own aircraft up to China / Hong Kong. If they had a good long-term view of the industry and organised themselves well, looked after their well trained Engineers, and had a cooherent plan to get in long term work - they wouldn't be in this position. Too much short term thinking.
Their PR announcements are nothing short of spin.
Cheers
Hvd1041
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Post by Peter Lewis on Aug 24, 2013 23:29:37 GMT 12
The NZ dollar is still seriously over valued Any commodity - including a currency - that is freely traded cannot, by definition, be 'overvalued'. 'Value' is the price a willing seller and a willing buyer both accept. Some other third party may think, for their own reasons, that the price they both accept is too high (or too low) but at the given instant that the trade takes place that third party is wrong. |
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Post by haughtney1 on Aug 25, 2013 1:53:30 GMT 12
Respectfully Flyer, I disagree, yes currency is a commodity (and yes buyers and sellers may agree on a price..but many of the electronic trades are leveraged against a tiny % of the total amount..currency trading is about as far removed from simple buying and selling at it gets), it's also a long way from being traded freely, it is without doubt open to manipulation, perception and of course national control.
The NZD is overvalued by any measure you would care to measure it against, it will become a victim of its own relative success when the Fed scales back their buy back programme and interest rates rise in the US. It has clearly been manipulated beyond economic norms by the serious inflows of cash (mostly USD and Euro's) in a similar way to the Libor and short selling scandals over the last year or two...but serious deleveraging awaits.....just as the Oz dollar has fallen from its highs..the kiwi will inevitably follow.
From a purely technical standpoint (the only true measure of value) the Kiwi is presently 15-20% over-valued.....so my advice would be to buy as much USD as you can :-)
In an export led economy such as NZ, a competitive cross rate is imperative, regrettably the present environment exporters' goods are expensive and don't represent the value they once did, the upshot is the exporter receives less profit, they invest less, and the lower returns continue to contribute to a negative feedback loop putting the economy at serious risk.
I see such clear parallels between NZ now and what happened in the UK in 2008-2009 that it sends shivers up my spine, the loss of jobs at Air NZ might just be the start.
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Post by vansvilla on Aug 25, 2013 17:45:14 GMT 12
In the late 80,s, ANZ was known as 717 Sqn. So I am wondering how many of those 180 are due to retire by now anyway.
I can think of several guys working there who would be eligible to retire in the next year or so anyway.
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