President’s Opinion

Federal conference is not far away and preparations are in full swing to greet 60 delegates and national and international guests. There will be plenty to talk about.

Last month I attended a meeting of over 60 pilots in Brisbane to discuss current issues facing them including Jetstar and Jetconnect creation of offshore bases to assist in degradation of wages and conditions; and the recent standing down of first officers by Jetstar for ‘not observing the company’s media rules’, ie speaking out against the tyranny of their management.  

The meeting was attended by Scott Connolly from the TWU, Steve Anderson Secretary AIPA, ALPA officials and myself. I spoke at length to the pilots about our dispute of 2007/2008; the need to have each others’ backs regardless of the company or type of industry as one day the toecutters would emerge at their workplace.

I made the point that zero tolerance towards companies ‘picking’ on their members bolsters the membership’s confidence in the union and that fighting for what’s right at work doesn’t always have to involve industrial action – sometimes it’s more about the gradual choke rather than punching them on the nose.

The damage that both offshoring and outsourcing does to a business in terms of quality oversight, which we have seen firsthand now on too many occasions, also has very real connotations for engineer and pilot training in Australia.  

In regards to the grounding of the Qantas’ A380 fleet, our Senior Industrial Officer Gary Norris has written a comprehensive article outlining the history and safety concerns involved, which you can read below in this edition of e-torque. The ALAEA’s reaction was entirely appropriate. Within hours of initial reports of the mid-air incident the ALAEA called for the entire fleet to be grounded, we also suggested that all operators of that same configuration ground their fleets.

Qantas took the brave step of following that advice and grounded their fleet awaiting further investigation. Singapore Airlines carried out preliminary checks then put their aircraft back into service after approximately 48 hours. This judgment cost them dearly in the eyes of their customers, as within 72 hrs most of their fleet was grounded due to oil leaks found on pre-flight checks.  

The A380 / Rolls Royce worldwide fleet is expected to be earthbound until after Christmas with a severe shortage of modified Trent 900 engines including those already at the Airbus facility and Qantas requiring at least 14 engines to replace defective ones.

Finally, I offer my full support to our members at Sunstate / Qantaslink who have been disciplined and stood down for doing their job, that is, finding airworthiness defects on aircraft. I have written to the members involved to reassure them of the ALAEA’s full support. As I told them:

““Understand this very clearly for it is the character that all of you have shown possibly without even knowing it. At the core of every Licenced Aircraft Maintenance Engineer beats the heart of a man who stands up for the protection of all those who fly.

It is not in jest or a publicity stunt that I refer to LAMEs as the ‘Guardians of Air Safety’, for on a daily basis we stand up to enormous commercial pressures to ensure the lives of others are safe, we work long hours at arduous tasks, quite often through the dead of night to make this a fact.

Why? Because in the end we are not answerable to our employer or management for judgments of air safety or airworthiness; we are only answerable to governmental regulation, the people who put their trust in us every time they fly and the man we see in the mirror each morning.

Never lose hope and never give up, we have your back.”

Keep safe,

Paul Cousins, President

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