Radio Australia Today Editorial

Air strikes and new planes. A day for aviators not.

16 December 2009

I don’t know if you believe in synergy and the cosmos, but as a watcher of news for many years, I’m becoming a believer.

Like today, when the neutrons and protons aligned to deem that if anything was going to happen in aviation, it would happen today.

First of all workers at British Airways announced that they would be on strike across the Christmas period, a strike that will affect not only BA passengers, but also people who fly on affiliated airlines, like our own Qantas (the airlines share aircraft, so often if BA doesn’t go, neither do the Qantas passengers).

Then here in Australia Virgin has been interrupted by a computer glitch which had holiday-makers stranded at Melbourne airport overnight. Everyone was confused: the computer, the passengers, and apparently the Virgin staff who didn’t seem to know whether they had organised accommodation for the unhappy little campers. In the end dozens of people slept under the malfunctioning departure signs. Frowny faces, even in their sleep.

Then we get the news that a timely strike is probably going to happen next week at the two major airports in Melbourne, Tullamarine and Avalon. Qantas and Jetstar security screening staff are upset about plans by their employer to introduce part-time casual labour.

On the positive side, we had the first flight today of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This is a plane that is much lighter than your usual plane, using a lot of carbon compositie materials, reducing its weight and cutting fuel costs by twenty percent.

A big news day for flying indeed, the overall ledger being that the news is bad.

I half expect to see a pelican fly into my window.

Hope not.

- Phil Kafcaloudes