Reece

The Amann Aviation situation (p10 May AA) is certainly unusual – a well-known and respected GA and airline operator, Skywest, has operated the littoral surveillance task for three years. By all accounts their performance was highly thought of and professionally executed. Based on their known performance and a viable quote you would have thought that they would have looked good to have won a contract renewal when this came due earlier this year. Not so.

In from nowhere came literally a one man band backed by a group of unidentified financiers, with no planes, no ground assets, no operating licences and no experience in the demanding task at hand. That vastly inexperienced and ill equipped group then proceeded to win a three-year Coastwatch contract on the basis that they were around $2. 3m cheaper ($17. 7m v $20. 0m) over three years than the existing fully proven operator. Operator credibility obviously accounted for nothing! When Coastwatch announced their decision to replace Skywest with Amann Aviation in March, the aviation industry was collectively astonished as almost nobody had heard of the fledgling operator at that time. So startling was the decision that it has even been a constant source of questions in the Senate and Parliament since then, with regrettably little in the way of coherent answers coming from the Minister for Aviation, Mr Peter Morris, Amann’s contract winning quote was based on using normally aspirated piston-engined Rockwell 680 aircraft. These have now been discarded for a number of reasons and replaced reportedly with turboprop 690 Commanders. Anybody who has spent any time in GA will appreciate the ramifications of the change and how it would give even the most sophisticated accountant à fiscal nightmare of epic proportions.

From speaking with experienced Commander and strike operators, it would seem conservative to report that the new Amann fleet will require a minimum of a 100% increase in engine maintenance costs alone in addition to a 50% increase in fuel usage for a given task. In the littoral surveillance role the high. altitude cruise speed of the jetprop Commander is useless as the aircraft personifies the ultimate fuel guzzler idling around a thousand feet above our coastline. Additionally, the overall avionics maintenance requirement is vastly in excess of that required for the simpler to maintain piston engined Rockwell twin and there is not even an FAA-approved mod for the necessary Stment of bubble surveillance windows on the pressurised 690. Added to this is the fact that most of the ex-Skywest pilots that Amann hoped to sign up do not have turbine experience and that one or two junior pilots in that environment could cause hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of engine damage through rough handling in minutes! Now we ask you, the reader, does this sound like a proposition that will be able to keep to its contracted operating budget? Amann was originally slated by the Coastwatch division of Transport and Aviation to have officially taken over from Skywest this June 1, that has already been extended to September and many observers feel the new fleet won’t be operational even before year end owing to the need to get them through the maze of DolA certification paperwork that is part and parcel of bringing such aircraft en masse into the country.

Many within the industry have their reservations as to the commercial and operational validity of this unusual and difficult to comprehend decision.

Is it that unusual though? Unfortunately, we think not.

If, as stated by senior Coastwatch officials, the primary ultimate basis of accepting a tender is the cost in dollars and cents then what value is operator integrity, credibility or the fact that you have performed the task to specification in the past? We are not pushing a barrow for Skywest, what we are saying is that if operator credibility has no bearing on a tenderer’s submission to the growing number of government-backed contracts then, is it really worth chasing them in the first place? Let us look at the scoreboard.

Back in the early eighties the government of the day launched the initial Coastwatch operation using civilian aircraft. Only problem was that you must have a Nomad if you were to be seriously considered. Many firms went out and acquired Nomads on the basis that they would be operating them for a number of years, certainly long enough to commercially amortise the high cost of acquiring such aircraft. Enter a new government and a directive that new tenders would be issued on a best price basis using much cheaper to operate Shrike aircraft. The Nomad operators were virtually out of business overnight.

Since then we have had the present RAN Fleet Support (p20 Mar AA) fiasco where several companies have put hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own capital into providing a professional submission on what will be a very expensive to establish operation. If, after establishing this expensive base, they have to amortise the entire investment over two or three years then the ultimate cost saving to Navy won’t be as great as it could have been if the tenderer felt sufficiently confident to have felt his credibility, and a fair quote, would have probably granted him contract renewal. Like everything in life, you only get what you pay for and quite often the cheapest option is not the most cost efficient in the longer term. Today, the Fleet Support project is steaming ahead, albeit slowly, though we seriously question whether it is worth the bother tendering for same considering the almost standard litany of hassles, delays and changes in senior personnel that confronts all potential tenderers.

Today, GA operators can tender for the maintenance of the expanding RAAF FTS operation at Point Cook, in addition to SAR helo support at jet fighter bases. The Army has made it clear that it wants to use private contractors for pilot training, support and maintenance of its new found rotary wing assets while the RAAF VIP Flight is also destined for a similar fate. Whether or not it is seriously worth the bother of dealing with the government bureaucracy to win these contracts is now being called into question. From where we stand, you would want to have a substantial bankroll and a very strong sense of humour to be chasing such contracts in a serious fashion.