Recruitment Do HR departments really help?
Throughout my career I have regarded Flight International as the recruiting vehicle of the aviation marketplace. And the editorial has been the guardian of the commonsense in an often irrational industry. As we enter a period of sustained growth, there is one area of our industry that cannot escape comment: that of human resources (HR).
When the marketplace has been rich with applicants, HR has acted with divine right. Job applicants have been expected to be subservient and often nepotism has been the only key to open otherwise locked doors. Unreturned calls, unanswered emails, unfulfilled promises and even petulance have been the hallmarks of HR. However, with the number of candidates in the marketplace dwindling, HR is now failing the very people who employ them.
As an example, a recent advertisement for a Boeing 777 fleet chief asked for a university degree. Why? Having dictated precise specialist requirements, has HR added the degree to supplement its weak understanding of the industry? In this case, is HR acting in the interests of the airline or for its own justification? Recent history shows HR rejecting candidates on grounds such as using the wrong coloured ink on application forms. Experienced candidates have also been rejected as the aircraft types have not been instantly recognisable.
HR has long been failing prospective employees and is now failing employers and the industry as a whole.
L S Tuckfield Hong Kong
Surpluses and subsidies I'm not confused over rail fares (Flight International, 11-17 January). I think John Kendal has confused the issue by introducing the idea of "commercial" and "promotional" fares. Airlines do sell surplus seats at low fares and that certainly applied to my flight from Geneva last year, which was half full and a lot cheaper than the equivalent flight from Zurich.
I do not think anyone can run a profitable airline with all prices so low. But what does John Kendal mean by "make money"? Are not flights such as the one we used still worthwhile financially, by making a contribution to cash flow even if they do not fully cover capital payments and the like? And the aircraft and its crew have to get back to base? And the extra fuel due to passengers' weight costs not a lot?
Airlines have surplus seats available on a per aircraft basis, but railways tend to have surplus seats in the form of train units available between daily/seasonal peaks, because train lengths can be reduced off peak. Available units attached to existing normal fare services can be run with minimal crew and infrastructure path costs. Both operators end up with more money in the bank if they sell available seats cheaply rather than not sell them at all. So in this sense they do "make money". But they will have to take more than this elsewhere to pay for overheads, capital charges and the like.
Peter Taylor Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, UK
Phantom enemy Your article (Flight International, 21 December 2004-3 January) on the purchase of the second tranche of Eurofighter Typhoons raised a question. When did the Royal Air Force last shoot down an enemy aircraft in air-to-air fighting? It is likely that the last RAF "kill" was in Burma in 1945.
This means that all those Hunters, Javelins, Lightnings, Phantoms and ADV Tornados purchased at vast cost were never used for the purpose for which they were built. They were in fact an insurance policy; necessary, but expensive.
One has to ask if we never used them in the past, when we faced a well armed real enemy, what is the likelihood of us having to use Tranche 2 Typhoons or the F-35 as an interceptor in the future? Who do we think we'll be fighting?
Rob Wallace Reading, Berkshire, UK
A350 focus The Airbus A350 is larger than the Boeing 7E7 and is focused solely on very long ranges. There is an emerging opportunity to replace several thousand 200- to 250-seat airliners, including Airbus A300s, A310s, Boeing 757s and 767s, with an aircraft optimised to fly up to 250 people on flights of less than 6,440km (4,000 miles). It seems that the 7E7 is better positioned to exploit this sector than the current A350 proposals.
The A350 long-range variants now proposed will offer effective twin-engined competition to certain Boeing 777 variants, but this will be a relatively smaller market. I would not have chosen to position the first A350 variants in this way.
Roger Young Hitchin, Hertfordshire, UK
Pointless denial In an article on Israeli unmanned air vehicles (Flight International, 7-13 December 2004) you wrote that Israel "does not acknowledge having armed any of its other [Harpy excluded] unmanned systems."
It is pointless making that sort of statement when news reports often refer to missiles being fired by UAVs at Palestinian terrorists.
Geoff Jacobs
Peterborough, Northamptonshire, UK
Source: Flight International
