Rough skies, tough questions

Transport reporter SCOTT MacLEOD observes Air New Zealand's damage control team atwork in Melbourne, where nine Boeing 767s sit grounded for safety checks.

It's Easter Monday, 9 am Melbourne time, and David Beatson has just stepped off a plane to join an Ansett Australia rescue team.

He rose at 5 am to catch Air New Zealand flight NZ121 from Auckland.

His jet slipped into Melbourne after a fine, sunny journey in which there was only one black cloud to be seen - over Melbourne, as it happened, perhaps right over the Ansett Australia head office in the central city.

The early-morning reception lounge is quiet, but a few people upstairs are reading newspapers. Each has a similar headline: Ansett head hits out at safety body; Heads roll over Ansett chaos; and the best, in the Herald Sun tabloid: Ansett chief says I'm really sorry.

The Ansett chief referred to is Gary Toomey, also the chief executive of Air New Zealand, who flew in from Auckland on Sunday night amid grumbles from media and a minister that he had taken too long to get there.

Together, he and Mr Beatson, Air New Zealand's spokesman, are poised to swing into damage-control mode.

The damage is less than 10km away, at an Ansett maintenance base.

There, nine Boeing 767s have been sitting on tarmac doing absolutely nothing for up to four days - during one of the busiest flying seasons of the year.

They are grounded, and will stay that way until Ansett convinces the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (Casa) that no more cracks will be found in engine mountings, that no more planes will fly with their emergency escape ramps deactivated, that none will have gaps under their doors.

The tenth Boeing is sitting in a shed at Auckland Airport for routine maintenance by engineers at Ansett Australia's parent company Air NZ.

Mr Beatson is sitting on a small seat tapping numbers into a cellphone. Standing in front of him are a New Zealand Herald reporter and photographer, who by sheer coincidence took the same flight to Melbourne, although seated in a more modest part of the aircraft.

The Herald staff had just passed through Customs, where an officer asked what they were doing in Melbourne.

"Ansett," was the reply.

The Australian's face broke into a mischievous grin. "Air New Zealand not telling you anything, eh?"

It was a sentiment that would be heard again during the day, from other Australians who felt they were hearing less about their second-biggest domestic airline from "those Kiwis" than the Kiwis were perhaps letting on.

But Mr Beatson shows no sign of having something to hide.

"We're hoping to roll out our first plane today," he says. "I'm just over here to lend a helping hand."

In the taxi to the Ansett maintenance base, he claims the airline has coped well during the crisis.

Ansett flew 135,000 passengers from Friday to Sunday using its fleet of smaller planes, and only 7500 people were carried by other airlines called in to help.

However, those airlines include rivals Qantas and Impulse. The Air NZ parent and Singapore Air also pitched in.

The taxi pulls into the base, past a Channel Seven television crew camped outside on a stakeout.

The Australian media have criticised Ansett for flying some of the oldest 767s in the world.

But Mr Beatson says the criticism is ill-founded. The planes have an "economic" life of 25 years, and the oldest is much younger than that.

Inside the compound, those nine big Boeings sit dormant. Eight squat in a parking area by themselves, shielded by a razor-wire fence, barely attended by engineers.

But a ninth sits in a big shed, where Casa officials plan to pore over it with a fine-tooth comb, looking for any fault they can find.

This plane is critical to Ansett's immediate future. If it passes the tests, the other planes will be examined less thoroughly and may be able to fly within three weeks. If not, Ansett faces big trouble.

Mr Beatson heads into an office, and a security official wanders over to check out the media.

"Nineteen hundred seats sitting vacant," he says, looking at the Boeings. "It should never have got to this."

He blames Casa for grounding the airline, right on Easter.

"There's eight planes been sitting there ready for inspection since, when, Thursday? And where is Casa? Still looking at paperwork."

In the office canteen, workers seem less worried. A gaggle of women staff walk in.

"I can't see any cracks," one quips, looking out the window at a 767 parked at least 100m away.

"Yeah, I can't see any cracks in it either," says another. "Actually, you drive in here now and it looks funny - those planes are all parked in the corner like naughty boys."

Then Mr Toomey emerges. He has faced an ordeal by media since arriving in Australia the night before, including a press conference that must have been pretty unpleasant - the one in which he apparently said I'm Really Sorry.

He says he hopes Casa will clear one of the planes by late afternoon.

He even offers the Herald duo a joyride when it is cleared for takeoff.

It seems that a lot of Ansett and Air NZ chiefs are very keen to be nice to the media.

Mr Toomey seems less well informed than some journalists on what Casa is up to.

Casa said on Sunday night that it would take all of Monday to check maintenance papers, and the physical safety checks would not start until Tuesday.

When Mr Toomey hears that Casa now wants maintenance papers for the planes going right back to when they were made, he says, "Huh!" and puts his hands on his hips. "Well, I'm glad they're throwing everything at it ... "

He defends the way Ansett has handled the crisis. "Today we've had only one delay of 30 minutes, one of 40 minutes, and we're shifting 37,000 passengers."

Now he's standing in front of a Channel Ten television crew, who have also gained access to the compound.

He answers a barrage of questions.

No, he won't get drawn into criticising Casa. No, the four engineers suspended after the safety problems emerged are not in immediate danger of being sacked.

Yes, all this business is a setback, but the airline was going to be relaunched this year anyway - "We always knew we would need new aircraft, better aircraft."

The Herald decides it is time to visit Casa, who are holed up in an Ansett building nearby.

Mr Toomey says: "Good luck, give them our best. Anything to speed things up."

Casa and Ansett relations have sunk even lower since Friday and Saturday, when there was a 24-hour delay in starting the investigation.

Casa said it was waiting for Ansett to deliver papers so it could start its inspections. But Ansett said the papers had been ready for Casa to pick up - which it had failed to do.

In the two glass-walled Casa offices, four grim-faced men bend over folders of paperwork. They refuse access. They will not answer questions.

The Herald wants to know how there could be such confusion with paperwork for 24 hours when Casa is working in an Ansett building, within 10 paces of Ansett offices. But that question will not be answered today.

Ansett's 767s will not fly this Easter Monday either, that much seems certain. So the Herald heads back to the airport.

The Silver Top Taxi driver's first name is Cengiz.

"The public image is the main thing about this," he says. "Nobody really knows about Air New Zealand, but Ansett is losing people's trust.

"They're such a big company. They should carry out their maintenance."

As Cengiz pulls out of the compound, he sees Mr Toomey walk past, and recognises him from his Herald Sun newspaper: "He must be a man under pressure. I wouldn't like to be in his shoes."

At the airport, travellers arriving on Ansett flights seem quite indifferent to the whole mess.

One says he has just flown in from Perth, and all Ansett flights seemed to be running fine.

Thirty-two-year-old Peter Ilott says he is stoked at the grounding because he ended up on a Singapore Airlines flight from Sydney in which he was upgraded from cattle-class to business. "It's fantastic."

But Angus Lawrence, a soldier, is not very happy at all.

He was supposed to fly from Melbourne to Sydney on Thursday night, but was forced to take a later flight after the 767s were grounded.

He was again forced to take a late flight on Easter Monday after delays at Ansett, who "didn't tell me what was going on - I had to ring them."

Mr Lawrence is an important man to Ansett. He embodies the disillusionment of many Australians with what they used to see as their own airline - before it sold out to Air NZ.

Mr Lawrence vents his spleen about Ansett while standing outside the airline's domestic reception area - about the same time that the Air NZ-Ansett chiefs are due to hold a conference for the nation's media.

Maybe they should be talking to Mr Lawrence instead.