Red. anm.

Denne artikkelen har vi sakset fra medlemsbladet til våre engelske kollegaer "TECHLOG". Den er skrevet av Mike Newman som vi kjenner godt fra arbeidet i AEI. Artikkelen er høyst aktuell.

Vi kjenner oss godt igjen i de problemstillingene som trekkes opp. Artikkelen er skrevet med et godt islett av engelsk humor.

It came as a divine inspiration, like the conversion of St. Paul on the road to Tarsus. "Why do I need Quality Control when the European Authority, God blass them, give me the answeres I want", thought the MD of Mammoth Airlines as he read JAR Ops for the first time and only time. The Quality Manager has been badgering him to read the exposition that he had not yet signed. A quick speed read between meetings should do the trick, or since it was such a thick volume, (why can’t these quality people be more concise?) he would browse through the odd page here and there. What divine providence opened the book at page 45, the words should be written in burning gold, "personnel performing pre-flight inspections may not necessarily be maintenance personnel". The words of the prophet on profit indeed. The aeroplanes were full of company employees, surely common sense and a profit margin dictated that such people could be used to the company’s advantage?

Some careful thought was required, however, on how to accomplish this money saver. The engineering side was no problem, - recall all the station engineers and put them to work in the hangars. The cost of the hotel accommodation was saved and the expenses, - well, give them a little overtime and there should not be too many recriminations from that source. But who should do the pre-flight inspection? We don’t really want to give it to the pilots, - first thing they would want would be paying for the work that they probably wouldn’t do anyway. There had to be a way of using the gift proffered to all operators. Who else was available? How about cabin crew? That had to be the answer, - instead of pandering to the passengers and looking chic surely you could get a couple of the younger ones to look around the aeroplane. Anybody could do it! He never could understand why you had to pay highly trained engineers to do a job that anyone could do. All he needed to do was convince the Quality Manager it was feasible and get him to sell it to the authority. Some training would be required, but a couple of days should take care of things. After a lot of arguing with the Quality Department the deal was done. When you have control of pension rights it is surprising how you can talk people into accepting your ideals.

The Quality Department, who had amongst its few members a wizard with a dictionary and a way with the English language, put together a letter to the National Authority written in technical double speak and so flexible in its approach it could have beaten a jumpers bungee cord for stretching between two fixed points. The bewildered reader of the letter, after reading it for the tenth time thought it might be all right and put the stamp of approval on the scheme to use cabin crews for pre-flights down the route. Providing there was a signature in the tech. log and somebody was taking the responsibility, you could not really ask for much more, could you?

And so it came to pass that Mammoth Airlines used their cabin crew staff to the full. A smart tailored made set of overalls with the name of the young lady above the pocket and "Mammoth Airlines Engineer" in a tastefully coloured decal across the shoulders and with matching boots, was now to be seen at all turn rounds and stop overs. The payment for this added task was carried out by issuing vouchers which the recipient could use at a well known national fashion chain. A splendid flash of inspiration, again from the MD. As a part time director of the afore mentioned fashion chain he would have been foolish not to use that advantage. A number of photo shoots in fashion magazines of the "Mammoth Girls" did the airline no harm at all and was set to launch a fashion world wide.

So what sort of technical training did these icons of the fashion world receive so that they may sign for their aircraft as fit to fly? A two day course of fairly intensive but gentle amble through the basics. The number of wheels and where to find them. What a correctly inflated tyre looks like and, "No Shirley you don’t need to see how much air there is in the tyre using the stick thingy, we don’t give you enough time to do it and anyway, you don’t want to break your nails, do you? If they look like the picture in your handbag size manual, they will be O.K.". A look around the outside, "Look at your manual, it shows quite clearly where all the parts are that should be there. If anything is missing, please let the Captain know and he will deal with it. If you find any dents you will need to mark them so that our engineers can deal with them eventually". Some investigation had been carried out by the Mammoth Quality Department on the marking of dents or wrinkles encountered on route and it was discovered that "make up" was just as good as magic markers and was more readily available to the new bred of non-engineering inspectors. The brand names of lipsticks and mascara that lasted longest during flight were recommended for use by the cabin crew engineers, available at discount at a chain of stores that the MD had a casual acquaintance with as a part time director. (In fact, if you really looked at things realistically he was not employed by anybody, but that’s another story, not for this non political magazine. It does though make your ponder on the term "accountable".

The walk round inspection and how the quick reference manual worked took a half day. The rest of the two days, this was the intensive part, was on how to write, stamp and date the pre-flight inspection. This material was in the hand bag manual written up by the expert double speak member of the Quality Department. It was felt that teaching by writing would have a far more reaching effect and would please everyone. It was taught like chanting a mantra once learned, never forgotten. It mattered not what you were signing for providing the log entry was correct. As the girls were told, "all we really have to do is satisfy the audit. If you stick to your manuals then we can’t go wrong". This they did and all were happy.

No more excuses for Licensed Aircraft Engineers lying around in hotels for half a day. You could always send one away at a moments notice if they were really required. Send them down on the next aircraft and come back on the one that they fixed, meals and a correctly filled in by an authorised person, - perfectly. O.K. for the next Authority audit. No wonder that the share holders were happy. The maintenance carried out in the hangar where it should be, no short cuts on heavy maintenance and a good standard set. But that one sentence in JAR Ops 1, "Personnel performing pre-flight inspections may not necessarily be maintenance personnel" had not only saved the company thousands, it had also launched a fashion empire and increased the sales of certain proven long lasting beauty products. Who says you cannot win all of the time?