Sunday, October 07, 2007

MyTravel were Wrong

It was predictable that Captain Pablo Mason would be fired by his employer, the Mytravel airline, for disobeying a company rule. No doubt it was done in a fit of management spite since Captain Mason was that anathema to all modern management, an individualist.
The rule he broke was not, as the airline maintained, one imposed by the authorities but a piece of small print written into the company's own operating manual.
By allowing a passenger on to the flight deck of his aircraft he neither endangered the safety of the flight nor did he break any Aviation Authority rules since the ban applies only to Public flights and not to private charters.
That the whistle was blown by one of the superannuated trolley dolly coffee shop attendants down the back must add an Orwellian touch. Not only Big but Little Brother is now watching over you, rather as the Dog Patrol recently shopped a driver for lighting up a gasper in his truck.
Had Nelson obeyed instructions from head office, the Battle of Trafalgar would have been lost and had not the Light Brigade obeyed theirs, Lord Tennyson would never have written “Half a league, Half a league etc.”
And if Captain Smith had not been under instruction from his employer, the Titanic would, in all probability, have reached New York.
In those far off halcyon days of aviation it was assumed by many of us that, as captains, we were responsible for the safety of our aircraft and passengers and that this responsibility was not to be abrogated to some pen pusher in a distant back office.
Those of us who had the pleasure of flying for Sir Freddie Laker will probably agree that had Captain Mason performed the same way for that airline, the result would have been very different.
Sir Freddie would have fired the flight attendant and thanked Captain Mason for doing a good job of PR for the company.

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