The Flying Kangaroo

by Jim Eames

  Integration of the two pilot bodies of the airlines too had its problems, although these had more to do with sensitivities related to the lingering bitterness created by the 1989 domestic airline pilots’ dispute. While the Qantas pilots had not been part of the 1989 dispute, many of them regarded the small group of Australian Airlines senior management pilots who had continued to keep the airline flying during the dispute as little more than ‘strike breakers’, and the pilots subsequently recruited by Australian Airlines as ‘below standard’.

  From their viewpoint, Australian’s management pilots maintained they weren’t ‘strike breakers’, claiming, as the AFAP’s pilots had resigned, there was no strike to break. The differences had a direct bearing on two extremely sensitive issues among pilots—seniority and a proprietary belief in their respective training regimes.

  It’s probably reasonable to suggest that, when it comes to the place they occupy in an airline’s structure, pilots have a fairly well-developed sense of their importance in the scheme of things, not only because without them an airline cannot fly, but also because airline flying is a very professional business that is unforgiving of mistakes. Training standards are high and monitoring of those standards tough and persistent throughout the whole of a pilot’s career. It’s also probably safe to say that, generally speaking, Qantas pilots considered themselves without peer in the Australian industry, a belief that was naturally reflected in any negotiations in the merging of the two groups.

  As for seniority: it’s a very hard-won promotional right that relates to both the type of aircraft and the roster pattern a pilot will fly. In this respect the bulk of the Australian Airlines pilots were at a distinct disadvantage, their seniority only dating from their hiring during the pilots’ strike in 1989, therefore creating a vast seniority gap between the two groups.

  Even from a distance of more than a quarter of a century, it is difficult to appreciate the intense animosity that existed as a result of the strike, perhaps partly illustrated by a comment from one senior Qantas captain in the earliest days of the merger that ‘no Australian Airlines pilot will ever sit in the left-hand [captain’s] seat of a Qantas aircraft.’

  Early feelings were raw. At one stage, when it was decided to move an Australian Airlines management pilot to Sydney, several members of the Qantas pilots’ union refused to fly with him, prompting Qantas’s senior management pilot, Ray Heiniger, to call a meeting of several hundred of his crews at the Cooks River Rowers Club where he told them it was a management decision and nothing to do with them or their union. Subsequently one pilot did refuse to fly with the transferee but, after that, the problem went away. Other decisions had positive effects, particularly when Qantas deputy chief pilot Ian Lucas volunteered to move to Melbourne and join the ranks of the domestic pilots.

  Like many of his colleagues Lucas had concerns that his move wouldn’t work but considered it essential that such steps be taken as soon as possible. Lucas set out to assure his domestic colleagues he ‘was not there to change the world’.

  ‘My idea was to encourage the young fellows. I kept insisting that in twenty years time no one will remember who was red and who was blue,’ he says. Lucas credits James Strong with giving him maximum support during his twelve months flying domestic routes, although the flying itself was totally different in some respects. ‘Changing from flying a 747-400 on long international sectors to short hops in a 737 took a little getting used to initially. It was like jumping from a marathon to a sprint!’

  The Australian Airlines management pilots responsible for the overseas recruiting during the strike still reject any suggestion from their Qantas counterparts that their pilots were ‘substandard’. Former captain Ray Baker, Australian Airlines’ manager flight standards at the time of the strike, was responsible for much of the recruiting that took place in the UK, the United States, Japan and South Africa. Baker says the standards demanded were so high that out of a total of more than 200 on the interview list for the UK alone, Australian chose fifteen. From the United States the airline took only twelve of those on offer and among the total batch hired were chief pilots and check and training captains from world-class airlines, including South Africa Airways. ‘Even though they already held Boeing 727 and 737 endorsements, had done simulator checks and were the pilots we wanted, they still had to go through our ground school on their particular aircraft type,’ says Baker.

  Such were the difficulties faced when Qantas Boeing 767 fleet manager Wayne Kearns began to bring the two groups together into an eventual structure that basically resulted in the two pilot streams flying their respective fleets on domestic and international operations.

  Fortunately, the vexed question of seniority and which pilots would be chosen to fly any new aircraft introduced to the Qantas fleet didn’t have to be faced until the introduction of the Airbus A330-200 over a decade later but nonetheless a residual bitterness between the two groups continued to linger for years to come.

  By mid-1993, with the merger well under way, two other significant factors had a marked impact on the process. The first was the influence of British Airways as a 25 per cent shareholder; the second was Bill Dix’s replacement as chairman by highly regarded Australian businessman Gary Pemberton.

  It was no secret that, for the Dix–Ward team, British Airways had not been the preferred choice. Both believed Singapore Airlines offered Qantas better strategic options, with larger long-term cost and network synergies and valuable future regional alliance prospects, but the $665 million on offer was too good for the Australian government to resist.

  One of the two British Airways executives to take up a board seat was Sir Colin Marshall, that airline’s chief executive. Although not widely circulated at the time, the fact was that their 25 per cent ownership also provided British Airways with right of refusal when it came to the appointment of a Qantas chairman. Marshall played a key role in what was to come, particularly when it came to the final ‘name-branding’ of the merged airline.

  With Pemberton now in the chairman’s role, extensive surveys had been done on brand identification and all had come up with the recommendation that, when it came to the airline’s name, it should remain Qantas. But, when the day came for the board decision, it became obvious that not all board members were necessarily in agreement. James Strong, for one, is reported to have argued that Australian and Qantas were both ‘very strong brands in their own right’, intimating whether the ‘Qantas’ conclusion had been reached with ‘undue haste’.

  Importantly, it was the first meeting to involve the towering presence of Marshall, who left no doubt it was Qantas that the world recognised as the Australian airline, while Australian was, as Marshall rather bluntly put it, ‘a relatively recent re-branding of an entity formerly known as Trans-Australia Airlines.’

  ‘Whether James seriously wanted another name or not, Marshall effectively squashed anything which might have followed,’ was how one board member summed up the discussion.

  It was not an easy time for Qantas chief executive Ward, particularly when rumours began to circulate that his replacement was being sought by the board, rumours that eventually forced him to broach the subject with Pemberton who confirmed that a search was on for someone else to take the airline towards privatisation. By now several names, including Strong’s, were the subject of press speculation but, as it turned out, he would not be the first choice with rumours circulating that another Australian with exemplary airline credentials, Rod Eddington, then running Cathay Pacific, had been the preferred candidate but had declined to accept the job. Initially too, when Strong’s name was put forward it was not a welcome choice by some sections of the Labor government, forcing Pemberton to stand firm, insisting the appointment was not a government but a board decision.

  So began a process that many in Qantas itself saw as ‘re-balancing’ the red tail-versus-blue tail scenario, with Strong going on to use his not inconsiderable presentational skills to take the airline towards priv
atisation in 1995.

  By then most of the original Qantas senior executive level had been swept away, many replaced by former Australian Airlines personnel. Some outside commentators noted that it appeared to be a ‘takeover in reverse’, with the blue tails achieving ascendancy over the red tails in many parts of the airline.

  Although only at the top of the airline for a brief period, and lacking the public persona and presentational skills of his successor, Ward would nevertheless be remembered for an unparalleled knowledge of the industry and for having inherited the running of the airline during one of its most difficult periods. In an address to staff in the early days of the merger, he drew on the timing of his own appointment and encouraged them to look to the future.

  ‘We have to make this merger work. We have to bring it off as creatively, intelligently and as sensibly as we can.

  ‘Some have suggested I was unlucky enough to get the job of running Qantas during just about its most difficult period. I drew the trifecta: a pilots’ strike, the Gulf War and the recession.’

  But he saw it as a challenge, urging them to do the same with the merger.

  The circumstances of Ward’s departure and Strong’s succession received wide media comment, with one travel trade newspaper running adjoining cartoons—one depicting Ward going out a door saying, ‘Now the company is merged and profitable, it’s time to go’, alongside another with the image of Strong entering the doorway with, ‘Now the company is merged and profitable, it’s time for someone to take the credit.’

  There were other examples of how things would quickly change. Ward’s annual salary when he left the company in 1993 was around $320,000. Within three years International Air Transport Association documents would list James Strong’s remuneration at around $1.3 million, although it is not known whether that included bonuses. Still other aspects rankled with some of those in Ward’s former team in the airline, particularly early criticism by their successors that the airline had too many new aircraft in its fleet that weren’t achieving an adequate return on assets. Within months, as privatisation approached, they watched with irony as a new team took the airline to the market—highlighting the fact that it was offering shareholders ‘the youngest fleet in the world’. It would be years before the company needed to buy new aircraft, certainly making a privatised Qantas a very attractive proposition.

  Privatisation brought with it a new direction for the airline, one certainly free of government financial and policy oversight but where a marketplace of virtual ‘open skies’ brought new challenges. Further expansion took place with the introduction of a low-cost carrier, Jetstar, which would not only supplement the airline’s domestic services but gradually encroach onto the regional overseas routes for so long the preserve of the Qantas Australia once knew.

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  REFLECTIONS

  While there remains an obvious temptation to compare the Qantas of today to the Qantas we once knew, such comparisons have limited validity. The industry has changed so much as to render any benchmarks almost meaningless.

  Society too has changed. Today it’s hard to imagine management tolerance with characters like Ross Biddulph. Even turning the camel train around in Cairo would probably have won him a place on Twitter or Facebook and a serious reprimand, not to mention the company’s reaction to his crews’ impersonation of a ‘study group’ to gain entry to a religious museum in Italy.

  Likewise it’s hard to perceive the ramifications for Hugh Birch and Mick Mather had they delayed a Boeing rather than a Sandringham flying boat when Mather jammed the oversize billiard ball in his mouth in Noumea.

  And imagine the furore that would follow when Qantas public relations man John Fordham was asked by his boss John Rowe to find some way to ensure his colleagues weren’t dozing off during the post-lunch sessions of their marketing conference in San Francisco in the 1970s. Rowe was as surprised as the rest of the attendees when the auditorium’s entrance door burst open and a naked female sprinted down the aisle and out a side exit.

  The Qantas presented to us through the media today is an airline struggling through a series of ‘near-death’ financial crises, reports of the uncertainty of the future of its full-service international arm, union confrontations leading to the grounding of the fleet and the stranding of thousands of passengers worldwide and a constant struggle to remain profitable. Several of the traditional problems remain unchanged. While in the past the competitive battles revolved around protecting the airline’s existence by holding back the giant US carriers from ‘dumping’ their excess seats onto the Pacific or calls for ‘open skies’ from Asian airlines, those open skies have arrived with a vengeance, largely led by airlines from the Middle East, China and other parts of Asia that didn’t even exist in those days.

  Also largely gone is a time when Qantas reputation for safety was a significant factor in the reason for purchasing a ticket on the Australian airline, an incentive long lost in an era where hundreds of dollars can be saved buying a seat on an alternative carrier.

  Despite its enviable safety reputation and its exemplary performance in time of war and other emergencies, there can be no guarantees that even an airline such as Qantas will survive and one only has to look back to 2006–07, when a private equity takeover appeared likely. It would hardly have had time to establish itself when the global financial crisis hit in 2008. Just what impact the GFC would have had on the privately owned Qantas we know today will be the subject of speculation for years to come.

  It could also be said it was an airline that was by no means perfect, and one that at times could demonstrate an arrogance and superiority—along with a belief it was always right—which detracted from its many virtues. But Qantas still retains a special place in the loyalties and collective memories of those who worked for it in past years whenever they gather to reminisce, inevitably however, with one oft-stated proviso: ‘We’re glad we saw the good years.’

  Passengers and cargo are transferred between a motor launch and a Qantas Catalina flying boat. Not an unusual sight in Papua New Guinea in the 1950s where Catalinas were used to service remote areas without airstrips. Photo: Charles Wade

  Qantas captain Mal Shannon (left) and Gordon Power standing under the wing of their DC-3 in Papua New Guinea in 1958. Power described Shannon as one of the best ‘bush pilots’ he had ever flown with because of his uncanny ability to handle Papua New Guinea’s weather and dangerous terrain. Photo: Gordon Power

  A typical flying scene in Papua New Guinea in the 1950s as a Qantas DC-3 slips through the Bena Gap before it is closed completely by gathering clouds. On seeing this photograph one old Qantas pilot was heard to mutter: ‘I think I can recognise some of those trees.’ Photo: Qantas

  Romney Marsh sheep are jammed into a single engine Qantas de Havilland Beaver in 1955 for a flight from Lae, New Guinea into a patrol post at Menyamya, 95 miles away. With few roads throughout Papua New Guinea all such cargos went by air. Photo: Qantas

  An aircraft interior familiar to anyone who flew in the Qantas DC-3s in Papua New Guinea in the fifties. The ex-wartime DC-3s boasted what were known as ‘hard arse’ seats along the inside of the fuselage. Note also the lack of interior cabin lining. Photo: origin unknown

  The converted Lancastrian became known as ‘Yates’ Pregnant Pup’ after Qantas engineer Ron Yates. He designed the original bomb bay hinged faring to enable the aircraft to carry spare engines up the Kangaroo Route to replace the frequent engine failures experienced by Lockheed Constellations in the late 1940s. Unfortunately the addition of the faring created dangerous instability in the Lancastrian and was soon abandoned. Photo: Qantas

  This photo, taken by an engineer inside Boeing test pilot Tex Johnston’s prototype Boeing 707, shows the aircraft in the middle of a barrel roll over Seattle’s Puget Sound in 1954. Johnston’s unscripted aerobatics, performed in front of a gathering of airline chiefs, horrified his boss, Boeing Chairman Bill Allen. Photo: source unknown

  The Qantas Royal
Flight crew parting with Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother at Malta in 1958 after the oft-delayed journey home to England from Australia in 1958. The aircraft captain Fred Phillips stands on the right behind the Queen Mother. Photo: Elyse Phillips

  One of the most recognisable Qantas captains of the post World War II era, R.F. ‘Torchy’ Uren OBE. DFC. While serving with the RAAF’s No 30 Beaufighter squadron on Papua New Guinea, Uren featured prominently in cinematographer Damien Parer’s footage of the squadron’s low level attacks on a Japanese convoy during the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in 1942. Parer filmed the action from behind Uren in the cockpit. Photo: Qantas

  An unusually formal photograph of Captain Ross Biddulph, one of the characters of the Qantas post war era, renowned for his antics in the air and his imaginative practical jokes on the crews of other airlines. Photo: Norm Field

  A Qantas Constellation on the tarmac at Iwakuni, Japan, during the Korean war. Photo: Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria

  As seen through Qantas captain Norm Field’s 707 cockpit window, the flight line at Saigon’s wartime Tan Son Nhut airport in December 1970 with its array of military helicopters, C-54 transports and a Douglas Skyraider ground attack aircraft. Photo: Norm Field

  A great character of Qantas’s 707 days, Captain Stu Archbold poses with son Jim’s assault rifle during one of Stu’s flights into Saigon airport. Jim, second from left, would occasionally arrange to meet his father’s charter flights while serving in South Vietnam. Photo: Jim Archbold