The Ron Walker Story

Is that setting the pattern for many of our non-trunk routes in the 1980s, particularly in Queensland?

The man who is doing this is interesting in himself – Ronald R. Walker, who runs Bizjets at Essendon. In the later 1960s and early 1970s, he was operating luxury French VIP jets with gourmet meals and, to coin a phrase, gourmet hostesses. Being ahead of his time, he had to abandon the whole opera­tion, pay off his debts and start again. That is quite a career and at 59 he is as full of plans and ideas as he ever was. Other 59s can think of full-time golf.

The man who set the pattern for the current expansion of executive jet operations in this country is now among those blazing the Metro trail. He is back with million-dollar aeroplanes. It is quite a story.

It began in 1965 when he failed to sell Mr Ansett that while the two airlines gave Australia fine service, there was one shortcoming. The mining industry was developing out­ side the main cities, beyond the main routes. To get up to the North West one had to jet to Perth and then Friendship up the coast. It was worn on overweight gents. Existing charter operations flew what they could afford, which largely drank avgas, and the big executives did not like much, either. This was an area for great development, he argued.

At the time, he was one of the Ansett Bright Boys, ranking as one of ATl’s four Executive Directors, 45, the world in his lap. He had flown Liberators in the RAAF and had a useful Bachelor of Commerce degree from Melbourne. He was the Director of Aviation at ATI, well-known and respected. Good pension.

R. M. wasn’t buying the idea of a VIP charter. Little air­ craft just did not interest him. Maybe he was too cunning, for as it transpired Ron Walker was a few years ahead of himself, as we now see in the late 1970s. Ron Walker sat down to work out that if he got several big firms to guarantee the purchase of a stated number of flying hours per year on discount com­pared with the off-the-street customer, he was in business. Utilisation was the name of the game and capital investment was second.

He worked out that he needed an aircraft with jet engines, long-range to complete coast-to-coast, trans­ Tasman, etc, keen economy, as dulcet on engineers as possi­ ble, and able to get in and out of not-too-long and not-too­ perfect airstrips even of grass and gravel. So off he went that May of 1965 to the Paris Air Show.

At Le Bourget that fine spring morning he saw all the business jets of the day standing around him – and at that time Lear Jets, HS-125s, Jet Stars and the rest of them were new and shiny and exciting. What thrilled him was the French Dassault twin, which had 30 seats. He had proposed in his talks with R. M. the standard version of Falcon, and this seemed to have the economy and range he needed to speed American executives around Australia and nearby parts, or it would be right if the tyre pressures were right. At 135psi they were too high.

Dassault agreed this was too high for what Ron Walker needed and decided to develop lower psi tyres if he chipped in part of the cost, several hundred thousand dollars. It was costly because it meant changing the size of the wheel housings as well as changing the wheels and because somebody had to pay for the work entailed in getting the Australian C of A.

Back home, he resigned from ATl to form Business Jets Pty Ltd, with a registered capital of $400,000. He and his wife took up most of the Ordinary Shares, being the only Directors. Then he went around the big-money firms to sell his idea. Two firms took share – A. V. Jennings, builders, and Consolidated Goldfields, with other investments by staff, friends, etc.

In mid-1966 the Department permitted him to operate executive charter services to the Northern Territory and New Guinea, as well as around the rest of Australia. He had the aircraft here in mid-1967, for $1,350,000 plus nearly $300,000 in spares. By the time he started operations, he was committed for the best part of two million. Of course, he did not pay for the aircraft outright.

Dassault was very keen to see the new venture move: they gave him wonderful support at the start, anxious to prove that the Mystere20, or Falcon as it was known, was just what Australia needed. Dassault had not only done what Ron Walker wanted regarding the wheels (psi down by half), but they had installed their new braking system. The Business Jets Falcon 20 could land on grass better than the standard aircraft could on sealed surfaces. But this delayed the start of operations. A whole year had passed getting the tyre business right, going through the Department’s hoops for certification, delay in delivery, etc.

Ron Walker had a first-class team; his Operations Manager coming from the same job with Queensland Airlines, headed a fine group of pilots, and there was an able and enthusiastic bunch of engineers. The organisation was self-contained. Money was spent on VIP-style frontmanship, with expensive offices and publicity. It was not sensible to confront millionaires with a shoe-string-looking set-up.

Operations started on July 26, 1967, with a flight to Tom Price, setting a standard for safety and regularity. There is no questioning the fact that Business Jets was an impressive operational organisation.

VH-BIZ took 1400 hours in 1967/8, 1372 the following year, and 1448 in 1969/70, including such non-revenue flying as positioning. But the charge was half what the American operators were charging their clients. At a dollar per aircraft­ mile, this was not enough utilisation. He would be better off with two aircraft flying a total of over 2000 hours because he was losing a good deal of work through a lack of available air­ craft, particularly if the second Falcon were based in Sydney.

He started a regular airline service from Essendon to Goldsworthy in the far NW of Western Australia via Adelaide, Perth and Port Hedland every Monday – the first ever jet service operated on Australian domestic routes to the NW. MMA had F-27s running up the coast. The department did not protest, even though he issued a timetable. The people that did not like it were Ansett and TAA, the former taking over MMA about that time and TAA wanting to operate Perth-Darwin. Perth businessmen were pressuring Ansett for jets on the WA coast. I know that the Department was happy to use Ron Walker’s operations as a sort of irritant in this whole messy political situation.

By this time, the sands were running out: he was a wasting asset. A temporary saviour was Rupert Murdoch, who used the service and liked it, and when Jennings and other in­vestors (but not the faithful Consolidated Gold) wanted out Murdoch bought their stock. Off Ron Walker went to Paris, where Dassault said he could have his second Falcon. He applied to DCA to import it but events caught up with him before it came. The regular NW service died, which cut down the utilisation. Though the Murdoch Press got right behind Business Jets it did not change the situation.

The mining boom burst in 1969 and that was the end of it. He saw his Falcon grounded for one six-day period without a moment’s work. Murdoch got into his overseas interests and sold his shares to the Walker family.

Then Nauru. Chief Hammer de Roburt, a character out of a Michener novel yet to be written, ran the independent state of Nauru at that time and had received one of Ron Walker’s routine mail ads. To his surprise, the Chief chose him to run his airline though dozens of real and imaginary airlines from all over the world were queued up before the Chief. But de Robert liked the Australians and he did not want to spend millions on aircraft while learning the business. He realised Business Jets needed the work, too.

So Ron Walker ran a weekend overseas airline called Air Nauru, painting the logo over his own on Friday nights and repainting his own on Sunday nights. It was a luxury ser­vice, with wines, good food, and the lot. He also had a regular Monday service to Gove and flew completely around Australia when customers justified it. He also picked up hours offered on a German firm’s locally based Grand Commander, which was doing only 300 hours a year for its owners. He had a lot of mining work for the two aircraft. The second Falcon looked right.

Then Nauru went nationalistic. The airline decided to buy an F28 and hire crews, giving Ansett the engineering con­tract. Early 1972 was a bad time. Various ideas came to nothing. The Gove failed him. Cash flow was bad.

To make it short, Mobil appointed a receiver and was paid. In the finish, to pay off secured creditors, Ron Walker sold his home and everything. Staff holiday funds were paid for everything. It impressed Dassault and the Director General of Civil Aviation.

The word went around the industry he was through, but Sir Donald did not think so. He told Ron Walker he could have Melbourne/Warrnambool/Portland with a new com­ pany: it was up to Ron Walker to get this going. He did. He first chartered Piaggios and crews from Forrester Stephen (now Forrester) and then a 402B from Les Toohey, one of two brothers who were big quarrymen and had delved into avia­tion. He again hired pilots and engineers. This was sober work, not the spectacular and exciting executive jet stuff, but it was bringing him back into the industry.

He tried Swan Hill, Horsham and Broken Hill without success. Warrnambool and Portland were just right five days a week, that was the rub. It was businessmen who flew with him and so the business was dead from Saturday morning to Sun­ day night, not good for utilisation, the name of the game.

So he applied for holiday trip flights from Warrnambool to Hobart and to most peoples’ surprise got the nod. In came another 402B, on lease-purchase. He organised buses and other trips for the passengers.

It was slow work. The holiday idea went well, however, so he flew into Strahan, a west coast town, from Melbourne, organising one and two-day trips by boat and car. Last January he carried 4500 passengers in the 402s to the West Coast from Melbourne. He is now a big tour operator for North and West Tasmania. Last November he introduced a third 402B and was operating the equivalent of 5000 hours a year for the three­ plane fleet before he lost one of the Cessnas on the West Coast. There were no casualties but the aircraft was not recoverable from the remote area. He has not replaced it as he sees no future in drinking avgas.

He had known all along he must get into larger and better aircraft when the time was right – he had earlier thought of a Friendship, but this would have been too big, as it turned out. Early this year traffic growth seemed right. The start of the great Alcoa development at Portland will soon be a boom business, while Tasmania is growing fast, as far as he is concerned. He wanted to take the new aircraft into Smithton, where he was doing well.

He had been watching the commuter industry in the USA for years and has always been greatly impressed by AirWisconsin, which now has a big Metro fleet. Under 20 seats seemed about the right size for him.

He liked Swearingen, whom he had represented a decade ago, but he went to the USA and looked over the field. He rejected the Bandeirante because it had no pressurisation. The Super King Air was too small. The Short 330 was too big. The Metroliner was just right, pressurised and for one pilot at 12,50016 gross, with 15 passenger seats and cargo space. In time, this will go to 13,00016 – this has been under test in the USA – to allow 19 seats and two pilots.

When he talked to the Tasmanian Government he found they did not want to update Smithton to the Metro requirements and said he should go into Devonport, from Melbourne. Smithton needs navigation lights and sealing. He believes these will be granted before long to allow him into Smithton.

Everybody remembers what happened when he started his Metro services. Ansett and TAA protested the Department’s permission to operate regular services in Devonport. A fare war started and he had to inaugurate a no­ frill (no food, no hostess, no smoking, no booking) at his low fare of $39 each way. When TAA and Ansett raised their fares throughout Australia, they did not raise them on the routes on which they competed with Ron Walker. So much for com­petition.

He is frank he gets business because some people will always want to save money. He takes passengers into Devon­ port and then road-buses them onto other Tasmanian cities at fares lower than the Ansett-TAA rates. He has applied for Metro services to Launceston and Hobart (he might get Launceston but hardly Hobart) for this year and is ready to in­troduce a second Metro.

He has a good name among the finance companies as an honest man – they had no qualms about backing him for the $1,500,000 Metroliner and he knows he can get the same backing for his second aircraft. And he must have that second aircraft if only because no operator had ever made a success of flying one aeroplane for long. In mid-year he struck real trouble when he had an engine fire on the metro which kept it out of operation for days, and then another minor trouble in which the spare had to come from the maker abroad. For several weeks he had the agonising experience of putting his passengers on TAA and Ansett F-27s. And keeping a Metro just on the ground without flying costs $1000 a day. For a small firm, this is murder.

He now has 42 employees, including seven pilots and seven engineers. (Operations Manager, Keith Powles. Engineer Manager, Barde! Rose, an Indian who has worked a lot in Papua New Guinea). His son, Ross, is his deputy, a happy circumstance he does not stress but of which he is ob­viously proud.

The Metro flies four times a day to Devonport and three to Portland via Warrnambool, and return, while the 402s fly weekends to Queensland and Strahan and Smithton. He had only one 402 operating when I was out at Essendon, the other being at Alice Springs with Connair doing a 10,000 hourly. All those 10,000 hours were flown with Bizjets.

His idea is to have no avgas in the system, just two and later three Metros. He believes they are ideal for his operation. He does a deal of charter with both types and some charter cargo flying to Tasmania for Wards, who hire the whole Metro and stuff 1500kg into it. General cargo brings $2500 a week on average apart from these all-cargo operations, which he welcomes.

Jets? Well, he is so well thought of abroad that the Canadair people happily gave him the Australian franchise to sell their Challenger, the king of all the VIP jets by general consensus opinion. This multi-million dollar, inter­ continental jet is being seriously considered by several operators here. I know from personal discussions that Jet Charter of Wollongong and Essendon like it very much and the first sale could well go to them.

Does Ron Walker see himself operating such a sophisticated jet in the 1980s out here? Has he purged himself of the jet VIP charter idea that so gripped him in the mid-1960s? Good question. Recent developments here prove he was right but his timing was a few years out. He has the right experience. Canadair has judged his experience with the Falcon very valuable and is developing a low-psi version for such countries as Australia where this is necessary- using his Falcon experience for this development.

Is he making money? It is starting now. He told me that 1,399,118 plus $229,554 from 402s, plus $62,400 from other businesses. That makes $1,691,072, while total operating costs will be $1,492,111. Is that losing money?

Perhaps even more fascinating than the mere fact of his return to a profitable airline operation that has a future is the way Ron Walker is proving that customers will accept a smaller no-frills aircraft if the fares are lower. He is getting good load factors in competition with F-27 Friendships on the Tasmanian run and he believes that the Metro would attract similar business on the mainline runs to Hobart and Launceston with no-frills and 80 per cent of the jet fare charg­ed by the big airlines.

Is that an indication that BPA could attract customers to their Metroliners in Queensland if they were given the op­portunity to fight the big airlines and their jets and F-27s?

What Ron Walker is doing on Hass Strait may be regarded in future years as a test case. Maybe he was ahead of his time with VIP Jets, but he is certainly timing it right with his Metros.