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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 19, 2005 18:05:45 GMT 12
Teletext says that Air New Zealand Engineering is to axe around 600 jobs, and in future will outsource its own engineering work. This is very sad. Not too many years ago Air NZ Eng. had a stunning reputation for their work and did many other airlines' work, including for Singapore Airways, the RAAF and many more. I have toured the Auckland facilities twice at Mangere and it looked like a really top notch business with a very highly qualified team of innovative engineers (a good proportion of whom used to be RNZAF trained I might add, as well as Air New Zealand training their own staff to the same high level - unlike many other airlines). The reason they give for closing their superb engineering side is declining demand from overseas customers. A great pity. I understand it was the Engineering side of the business that often kept the company afloat through the troubled periods of the airline side. What will they have now to bolster revenue when times are hard to get bums on seats? I feel sorry for the many workers and their families who will now be seeking employment elsewhere.  |
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Post by DragonflyDH90 on Oct 19, 2005 18:15:04 GMT 12
I saw this on the news a few minutes ago, I am absolutely staggered.
As you mentioned Dave, the reputation AirNZ Engineering had world wide was/is fantastic.
Ah well, not sure if this will be of financial benefit but someone must have crunched some numbers and decided the axe must be swung.......
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 19, 2005 18:37:33 GMT 12
I have just looked intothis a bit further. It seems they plan to slash the 600 engineering jobs as part of a plan to cut NZ$100 Million from costs as it battles a slide in earnings.
They plan to outsource heavy maintenance of its long-haul aircraft and engines, reducing by 600 its 2,100-strong engineering unit. That's a huge chunk of their workforce and a lot of skill being lost. If business picks up again they may regret this.
I guess Mangere will have a massive hangar or two free then.
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bear
Leading Aircraftman
Posts: 7
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Post by bear on Oct 25, 2005 20:03:06 GMT 12
;DFirstly, check this out, it's great: www.trademe.co.nz/structure/auction_detail.asp?id=38710828 >:(Food for thought. I'll try to keep it brief. Three main causes are said, by management to have led to this: 1) High labour rate 2) Turntimes 3) Lack of capacity/ capability If ANZES senior management had spent the same amount of time and money investing in the place as they did 'anal'-izing overseas MROs (maintenance repair organisations) things wouldn't be as bad as they are today. Comparitively high labour costs (vs China, Phillipines etc!) are inflated because of excessive overheads that should be attached to the "Airline" part of ANZ, not engineering. The millions of bucks per year that Head Office siphons off doesn't help either. Turntimes and capacity/ capability could have been improved to the point where ANZES could compete with the big boys, if given half a chance. And finally, what better way to scare/ bully the workforce into accepting pay and condition cuts than the threat of redundancies! Watch this space...  |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 25, 2005 20:24:59 GMT 12
Good point about the money wasted on studying the situation. The money could have been invested to avoid the situation. Often the case though.
As for comparing with the engineering of airlines in China and the Phillipines, of course ANZES will be more costly, they're much more thorough. I've been told by several pilots how dangerously badly the engineering is in most Asian airlines, especially in those two countries. Just look at how many Chinese airliners crash a year for one thing, vs how many of ours do.
I saw a business analyst saying this was the direct result of the commerce commission not allowing Air NZ merging with QANTAS. The next day in the news QANTAS were also looking at axing hundreds of jobs. Hmmm.
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Post by Bruce on Oct 25, 2005 20:35:46 GMT 12
Pretty sick really, the axing of 600 jobs a couple of days after the new Zambezi designer wardrobes for aircrew were unvieled.
having been in the thick of maintenance control of an under resourced airline, I can say that a lot of our problems stemmed from outsourcing maintenance services. At CityJet we were about to open our own maintenance base to try and resolve the big issues we had with contractors (Mind you, we might also have resolved them if we paid more of thier bills....)
The problem is with outsourcing you are limited by the contactors timetables. If for example an airworthiness directive came out from CAA (Mandatory) requiring Mainspar inspections on the 747s for example, ANZ would have to join the queue of all the other Asia Pacific airlines at Haeco (Hong Kong) for example. You'd bet we wouldnt be top priority, so aircraft downtime becomes a big issue.
Another Scenario, Boeing 747 over rotates on takeoff from Auckland. damaging the tailcone and aft pressure bulkhead (as Singapore airlines have demonstrated). All heavy maintenance tooling and manpower is now overseas and the aircraft cant be ferried - Now what?
Sounds like modern "management" Practice of de - valuing staff and expertise and seeing only the numbers on the spreadsheet. flawed thinking completely, and as a Shareholder (like all NZers are) I'm kinda disgusted - we will have to bail them out again in the event of any of the above scenarios...... Boo Hiss!
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Post by Bruce on Oct 25, 2005 20:38:22 GMT 12
the other thing (forgot to rant about this....) is who will be the remaining line engineers, and where will they get thier "big picture" background experience to properly diagnose faults etc. Most Line engineers have done their time in the Heavy overhaul phases. I can see the safety standards pole forward for descent phase.......
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 25, 2005 21:03:05 GMT 12
As far as NZ aviation engineering goes (apart from the warbird sector where I've never heard of any problems) I have heard so much about how engineering is under-resourced and the bosses skimping on necessary standardsa nd practices. Air NZ Engineering is the only one I've heard a good reputation about. Some of the smaller airlines have proven to have terrible mainenance and safety records (all too often exposed only after the sad loss of aircraft and passengers).
And the ag aviation world is apparently much worse. I have a mate who works for a company that overhauls agricultural aircraft. He has told me some absolutely shocking stories about what their boss expects them to neglect!! Their safety practises are almost non-existent and would certainly be if he wasn't there as he often speaks up and makes sure things are done right when everyone else doesn't give a rats.
He told me that they have a painting booth but don't use it because the painters get uncomfortable in there, so he's constantly putting up with carcenogenic paint in his workshop!!!!! And there's much worse stories i cannot repeat.
This guy used to be a commercial pilot but when he recently tried to get back into flying and seek work as a pilot in a small airline, he found that most airlines pay pilots less than the dole, and it's merely a way for the pilots to get hours up before moving up the food chain to betetr paying jobs. As he has a family to feed he opted not to do this, and switched to aero maintenance as he had mechanical experience too. It has put him totally off flying! He s now thinking of chucking it all in and going to work at a dairy company because the stress he's put under to fiddle the maintenance is too much.
When we have this sort of crap going on everywhere, and the only truly respected aero maintenance training entities (Air NZ and the RNZAF) being forced down the tunbes by the Government, what hope has NZ aviation got? Our relatively good safety record will continue to slide till we meet China. Mind you, China is now flooding in to meet us anyway so...
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