Winning in the Heavy Charter Game

The Webster’s New World definition of a ‘rebel’ is ‘one who wages war, one in rebellion, one who feels or shows strong aversion’. For the past three years, Mr F. W. (Bill) Pike and his staff have operated Rebel Air DC-3 Charter from Sydney Airport, and have had quite a time achieving the acquisition of a fit and proper place in the industry. The fight has not yet been fully won.

‘Rebel Air’ is a catchy name, which tends to be remembered, and was chosen by Bill when the Department of Aviation told him he couldn’t have a Charter Licence based at Sydney Airport. The Department also wouldn’t allow him to import a DC-3, and he was told that he also could not operate a DC-3 out of Bankstown or Camden.

Bill asked ‘Where can I operate from?’ and was given the answer by the Department ‘that it wasn’t their place to tell him where he could operate from, only to reject the places they considered unsatisfactory when he had selected them. ‘ Bill became so frustrated, that he selected a name for his new company that would indicate that by persistence, he was going to operate a heavy charter aircraft out of Sydney Airport, no matter how hard it was. ‘Let me tell you it was hard,’ he reflects, ‘but I think some people misconstrue the name and think we’re cowboys. I don’t think we are, and I have yet to speak to a Departmental Officer who has ever disagreed with anything I’ve ever said. ‘ Whenever Bill has spoken across a table to officers of DofA, they’ve agreed that he should not have to pay four times the airline rate for Air Navigation Charges, and they’ve agreed that a commuter aircraft with four or five people on board should not take precedence over his aeroplane with its 32 passengers on board. With all this in mind, he just can’t see why DofA has not fully afforded him with the opportunity to assume a proper place in the industry. ‘I’m not a troublemaker, all I want is a fair go at reasonable charges!’

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