The rude mechanics and evil management stooges at Qantas are at it again at Qantaslink, this time with folded boarding passes and paddle pop sticks.
They really are. (For overseas readers, a paddle pop stick is normally stuck into a frozen confectionery, see exhibit B and lower inset).
Exhibit A: A Qantaslink turboprop (foreground) in Queensland, photo David Blackwell
Exhibit B, an upmarket paddle pop stick application, photo Streets ice cream
According to the Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) Qantas should ground 21 of its assorted Bombardier Dash 8 family turbo props because the doors can be opened with paddle pop sticks, a claim that Qantas hasn’t actually rejected outright.
This is what the ALAEA says:
Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association
Media Release
Tuesday 26 October 2010
Qantas planes breaching safety standards with faulty
cockpit doors
Qantas are continuing to operate aircraft that have faulty security locks on cockpit
doors, putting the safety of pilots and passengers at risk, engineers said today.
Sunstate Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qantas, operates 21 Qantas Link
planes flying to 23 destinations all over regional Queensland, and between
Brisbane and Canberra and Sydney and Canberra.
The Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) said Sunstate
staff had identified the problem and reported it to management. But despite new
locks being fitted, the doors can still easily be opened with anything from paddle
pop sticks to rolled up boarding passes.
“Management are aware of the problem, have provided no solution and the aircraft
continue to fly in breach of the Department of Transport regulations,” ALAEA
Federal Secretary Stephen Purvinas said.
“Qantas Link opted for cheaper versions of doors that are required to be bullet proof and on the larger aircraft they fly, resistant to grenade shrapnel.”
Compounding the problem are orders issued last Wednesday, at Sunstate’s request, by Fair Work Australia, which put Licenced Aircraft Engineers in an impossible position.
“Qantas Link engineers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they look at the cockpit doors they risk being hauled back into Fair Work Australia by Sunstate, but if they don’t report any problems they could be subject to fines by the Department of Transport,” Mr Purvinas said.
“In May 2003 a passenger on Qantas flight 1737 Melbourne to Launceston and armed with 15cm wooden stakes overpowered flight attendants and tried to enter the cockpit before being subdued by crew and passengers.
“All it takes is one passenger to get past flight crew and force their way into the cockpit where anything could happen.”
The ALAEA is calling on the aircraft to be grounded immediately until the airline is able to comply with the legislation.
This is what Qantas says:
This is what neither of them has said:
- The ALAEA’s Queensland members are refusing to approval an EBA already agreed to by union members in other states. Thus the union is in the position of supporting them in their bid for more money than the union apparently regarded as a victory for its members in other states.
- And Qantas is ‘upgrading’ the cockpit doors, and started doing so several days before the QLD EBA went gnarly, because although they met all the required safety standards they met them so superbly well that they are now replacing them.
Enter the safety ‘n terr’rism, total beat up factor.
There is ample anecdotal evidence that Qantas underpays its mechanics, starting with the fact that they are Qantas employees, and the airline can’t ever scrape together a dividend, and struggles to make as much money from actually flying (rather than selling ‘loyalty’ frequent flyer points) as Virgin Blue does with about one quarter the fleet.
But it wouldn’t matter if they were paid $1000 a day when it comes to management choosing to buy the cheapest possible legal doors for its cockpits. It is disingenuous to raise the lockability of the cockpit doors on Qantaslink flights when the more pressing question seems to be what goes on behind them.
In fact anyone who is A, very observant, or B, tipped off, would know how to readily unlock the supposedly secure doors to a cockpit without resorting to confectionery sticks or those boarding passes still printed on sturdier grades of thick paper.
How to use a paddle pop stick to eat an iced confectionery
Cabin security on airlines is in part as much a sham as is associating the issues with the determination of Queensland ALAEA members to get a better deal for their ‘unique circumstances’ than their interstate colleagues.
Update, October 28, 8.47 am
Steve Purvinas, the Federal Secretary of the ALAEA says:
Just a few points I’d like to make Ben.
The Engineers in Qld are being offered less than their interstate counterparts.
Negotiations have been ongoing for 18 months and this has not been an unusual length of time to negotiate a wage agreement with a Qantas group.
The Agreements usually run for 3 years meaning “wage negotiations” are usually in progress 50% of the time.
The ALAEA makes all safety issues public after we have tried to resolve them in house regardless of whether negotiations are taking place or not. Our record stands.
The “Industrial tactic” comments from Qantas always come out if we go public with a safety issue and are negotiating a wage agreement so this is their excuse about 50% of the time.
Because we may be negotiating at any point in time, does this mean Qantas can ignore safety issues during this period?
If these doors met the requirements, it may pay to ask the airline why they are in a mad rush modifying them all as we speak. Then have a look at the Aviation Security Regulations and note that they are only allowed to fly them back to a maintenance facility with special approval for that maintenance. They can’t continue to fly whilst they are waiting to fix the faults.
On a side note, Qantas link have stood down 6 Engineers for disciplinary reasons because they found the faults in the first place. Qantaslink claim that they should not have been looking there because they weren’t asked to. CASA’s CAR 51 makes it mandatory for Engineers to report any defect they become aware of. It’s a sad day when a Licenced Aircraft Engineer who is your on the job airworthiness inspector faces the sack because they report a identified defect on an aircraft that is in breach of Aviation Security Legislation.
Update October 28, 5.48 pm
From Qantas Group Executive Government and Corporate Affairs, David Epstein:
Steve Purvinas’ comments warrant a response.
A small number of ALAEA members in Brisbane have decided not to accept an EBA offer proposed by QantasLink. This was the same offer endorsed by ALAEA members in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney earlier this year and QantasLink will continue to negotiate in good faith with this small minority.
The Brisbane employees have already taken protected industrial action on two occasions. A number of employees have also taken illegal action outside the protected action, deliberately designed to disrupt QantasLink operations and inconvenience our customers.
The issue was referred to Fair Work Australia which, on 20 October, ruled the employees were involved in illegal action and that this must cease.
Six Brisbane engineers were directed not to attend work on 26 October while alleged unprotected industrial involving activities outside the normal scope of their work, and intended to place aircraft out of service, is investigated.
We regret having to do this, but cannot allow our operations to be impacted by the actions of this small group of employees.
We totally reject any suggestion that this direction was a result of any public claims the union might have been planning or has since made. Recent public statements by Steve Purvinas on this matter post date Qantas first considering this action.
QantasLink has made cockpit door modifications, which commenced prior to the union publicly raising the matter, and we remain confident in the security of the aircraft in question. Work on the final aircraft will be completed tomorrow.
It is irresponsible for the ALAEA to use this matter for industrial bargaining and irresponsible to try and scare the travelling public who have no reason for concerned with our security arrangements.
Our Dash 8 cockpit doors meet all regulatory and manufacturer requirements, compliance that was validated after consultation with the Office of Transport Security and CASA.
While the doors have always been compliant with the relevant regulations, if an issue is brought to our attention, and even though this does not compromise compliance, we were still obliged to take action to address the issue and further strengthen our aviation security. This is what we have done.
16 Comments
Good story Ben, except the ALAEA members have agreed to settle the dispute by accepting some roster changes and backpay. Qantas have refused the backpay.
Go figure.
…interesting, seems SP from the ALAEA only knows one tactic when negotiating new EBAs… the scare campaign! Didn’t he say that all Virgin aircraft wheels were going to fall off? This coincidnetly happened during EBA negotiations…draw your own conclusions… http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2009/10/21/the-wheel-of-fortune-as-played-by-virgin-blue-and-the-engineers-union/
Surely shares in Streets should be skyrocketing today ahah.
The Virgin wheels falling off started an ongoing regular inspection process for all operators of the aircraft. Why? Because of the very reasons the ALAEA put into the public domain. They are likely to have hidden flaws causing them to fall off. Increase inspections whilst they look for a more permanent fix.
Alan Joyce has always had difficulty in paying backpay. Unsure why given the time frame agreements take in QANTAS. Cannot always be the union fault they take so long (look at the history of mainline engineers and tech salary staff EA’s).
This appears to be a union storm in a cockpit security door teacup and Steve Purvis may need to resort to Laura Sparks again on Today Tonight to develop a passenger scare campaign in a similar mould as his favourite old chestnut of QF aircraft defects caused by overseas maintenance contractors.
My view is that the ALAEA has a case when it comes to pay and conditions, however might it not be better to say ‘Qantas welched on a deal’ rather than try to pinch relevancy off the flight attendants who were attacked back in 2003, which had nothing to do with maintenance, or beat up on the cockpit doors when the more worrying safety risk to Qantaslink customers may well be on the other side of said doors.
Interesting comments from David Klein.
If this is the attitude he exhibited towards Qantas in his years as CASA’schief auditor in charge of teh flying kangaroo then no wonder the Qantas group thinks it can get away with anything.
To David Epstein – If as you say “Our Dash 8 cockpit doors meet all regulatory and manufacturer requirements, compliance that was validated after consultation with the Office of Transport Security and CASA.
While the doors have always been compliant with the relevant regulations, if an issue is brought to our attention, and even though this does not compromise compliance, we were still obliged to take action to address the issue and further strengthen our aviation security. This is what we have done.”
If it wasn’t broke as you say, why fix it? What was the issue that you were obliged to address. It either met the requirements or it didn’t.
Those who are allegedly so concerned about safety should not publicize an alleged flaw, which could be exploited by the public, as a negotiating tactic. That puts the lie to their alleged concern.
Management, for its part, should respond to such an issue by fixing the problem, if it exists, regardless if regulations written years ago cover the instance or not.
And stop serving paddle pops on these flights – let’s see somebody break into the cockpit with a chocolate chip cookie.
Cannot condone any wilful or malicious practices towards company property. However, it is extremely concerning if the Engineers found a problem and after reporting it to the company, have been stood down whilst an investigation takes place. Keep your sight on this story Ben, it could be big. QANTAS IR are very unforgiving in their actions towards other employees. As for the ALAEA, if as you say the employees were doing their job, a line must be drawn in the sand on this one. Is there a transcript of the FWA hearing available on the web? I would be interested to read it. I hope I don’t go to work one day, find a politically incorrect aircraft defect and find myself stood down awaiting the IR wolves at the door. If the company can hold that threat above an Engineers head, the whole Safety Managemnt System will crumble and CASA will have to be very concerned because why would a person report a problem if he knew it could cost him his job? Can I expect my colleagues to follow me out the door because they believe what I did was right? Principles only go so far for people who need to put food on their families table. I truely believe I would be a very loney Engineer eating in the gutter. I admit, I have been threatened by management before, but the act has never been carried out. Seems this week it was. Ben keep us informed please.
@Casual Observer.
“If it wasn’t broke as you say, why fix it?” is probably the worst attitude to have when it comes the safety. Qantas was compliant with all CASA req’s, is it not a good idea to continue to upgrade aircraft?
Even if Qantas had not been in the process of upgrading its doors, following the claims by the union they would have been obligated to meet such claims with action, yes even if the doors met all safety requirements.
Lastly, from my experience flying in regional Australia, there is often very little or no security at regional airports. Lets upgrade that, you know prevent the paddle-pop stick bandits from boarding….. not sure what we will do if a real terrorist targets QantasLink because surely their weapons will be of much higher caliber.
A quick response to Dashing. You are 100% right. Aircraft should always be upgraded as a matter of good practice, this isn’t however an “obligation”. The point of my previous comment was that one one hand David Epstein says that there is no problem “Our Dash 8 cockpit doors meet all regulatory and manufacturer requirements, compliance that was validated after consultation with the Office of Transport Security and CASA.”
But on the other hands says they had an obligation to rectify the doors.” we were still obliged to take action to address the issue and further strengthen our aviation security”.
This case is an example of an aircraft component design flaw being discovered in service. Thus is meets the regulatory and manufacturer design standards. The components did not perform the task they were required to do. The fact that they didn’t do their primary purpose which was to secure the aircraft cockpit against forced entry means that they were incorrectly designed.
Once this flaw had been identified Qantas link had a very real “obligation” under the Aviation Security Regulations to rectify each latch that did not perform its primary function immediately. The regulations allow the aircraft to be flown only to a place that the defects can be rectified and that the secretary of the OTS is to be informed of the security measures taken to mitigate the door defect.
The onus was on Qantas link once it was made aware of the lock design flaw to inspect all of the locks – despite any inconvenience this may have caused its operations and rectify them before futher flight, or fly them to a place to be repaired with extra security measures taken for that flight.
The engineers that reported the defects were simply doing their jobs, in the manner that the Australian public expect. If Qantaslink was doing their job properly the six engineers in question would never have been in the positions they found themselves in the first place of having to report defective locks on an adhoc basis.
There is also the bigger question of what actions are the manufacturer and the Airworthiness regulator that approved the design standard for that particular latch taking to rectify these doors world wide. I can only assume that these are not Australian made components supplied only to the Qantaslink fleet.
Well said, but QantasLink was already aware of the defect and in the process of rectifying it before the engineers in Sunstate went AWAL with this. QantasLink already fulfilling their “obligation” under the Aviation Security Regulations. The engineers were not reporting a new “defects” or one that was unknown. It’s my suspension that they were insisting that the A/C be grounded. To which Qantas replied in kind saying all A/C were serviceable and none were in breach of CASA safety directives. The engineers are basically trying disrupt operations as much as possible in light of the failing award negotiations
Casual Observer,
Sorry if my comments have given you the perception I was lax in my years of the regulatory oversight of Qantas, as it was not intended. Technically the cockpit door is not safety significant in terms of airworthiness and the aircraft will happily fly without it, however the security aspects under Department of Transport legislation obviously have to be met. Unfortunately CASA management has never allocated sufficient resources to the Sydney office for a realistic sample of audit on Qantas, as I presented in my submission to the Senate Inquiry in 2008. However from my previous experience, with the limited resources available, the safety significant findings of QF B747 aircraft after heavy maintenance overseas were well exposed to the media, whilst the numerous critical findings of maintenance error following heavy maintenance at QF Avalon were kept well under wraps by the ALEA.
So from the comment made by Dashing and David is it fare to say that;
1)Casa did not inspect the doors properly before approving there installation?
2)Qantaslink found out that the doors were not secure and decided to fix them on the quiet without telling the engineers or Casa?
3)When the engineers found that the doors were not secure they continued to defect them even though Qantaslink management told them that they were secure?
Were the 6 engineers suspended for not believing their management or were they suspended for not believing their management during an EBA period?
If it’s Casa’s mess why aren’t they standing up for the engineers that they licence?