Culture and Life
by Rob Gowland
Exciting business opportunity
Capitalist commentators used to sneer at Aeroflot, the giant Soviet airline. It was in their view nothing but a poor imitation of Western airlines and epitomised the "inefficiency" of state-run enterprises (conveniently ignoring the fact that some of the best Western airlines were also state-run). Also conveniently ignored was the sheer magnitude of Aeroflot's vast enterprise. The world's biggest airline operation, it handled all civil aviation in the Soviet Union, a country covering one sixth of the world's land mass. Besides carrying all civil passenger and freight traffic, Aeroflot handled everything from ski landings at Arctic research stations to servicing Black Sea oil-rigs — it even had responsibility for "all" the USSR's crop-dusting requirements. In a country where people took the plane the way other people took the bus, Aeroflot's passenger traffic was considerable. It was also the USSR's international airline, but these services were maintained as just that — a service. There was no aggressive marketing, no fighting for "market share". To minimise the expenditure of foreign currency in a hugely expensive industry, Aeroflot abroad ran a relatively "no frills" operation. This "did" contrast with some of the more up-market Western airlines. There's no doubt that Aeroflot's flight attendants and check-in staff sometimes left something to be desired. Secure in their jobs and trained by people whose "parents" couldn't remember when you had been required to fawn over customers, they were noticeably less obsequious than their Western counterparts. But it was not its staff's brusqueness that drew the wrath and scorn of Aeroflot's Western critics. That honour went to what they considered to be the airline's profligate way with aircraft. Every sizeable Soviet airport resembled a giant parking lot for aircraft. Its perimeter would be littered with gleaming white aircraft, parked beside the runways until the next time they might be needed. Clearly, Aeroflot was not short of planes. Profit-conscious Western airline types stared aghast at this evidence of socialist "waste" and "inefficiency". Aeroflot's fleet, they cried shrilly, was as "bloated" as its staff numbers. When Aeroflot staff needed a plane, however, they knew they would always have plenty on hand. If there was a "dip in demand", and they did not need certain planes for a while, they simply parked them beside the tarmac, where there was plenty of room. Capitalist airlines, carrying huge debts for the purchase of airliners from US or French transnational plane-makers, simply cannot afford to have aircraft sitting around idle. If they do, they certainly cannot afford to have them parked (and maintained regularly) around airports, which are increasingly privately-owned. In the USA, home of the Jumbo jet, airlines have to pay commercial "aircraft storers" for the privilege of parking their surplus aircraft beside the tarmac of an airfield. Of course, it's a private airfield run for profit, so the practice is not deemed to be "efficient". The biggest such storer is Evergreen Air Centre, a 1600-acre former military base in Arizona. A report in the Daily Telegraph says there are at present 155 unwanted jet airliners, mostly Jumbos, parked there. The Telegraph says "Evergreen charges $1715 to $3428 to maintain aircraft that will fly again", but neglects to say whether that is an annual, monthly or weekly fee. Many of the aircraft are stripped for spares and then turned into scrap aluminium for beer cans. "Some of the multi-million-dollar aircaft", says the Tele, "are white-tail planes flown straight from the production line. "They have been put out to pasture before they have even been painted with the colours of the airlines that ordered them." Such is capitalist "efficiency". For Evergreen, and firms like it, "business" is currently booming. Prior to September, some 700 aircraft had been taken out of service world-wide as declining economic conditions hurt travel. Since the beginning of September, thanks to passengers' fears of terrorist attacks, continued economic decline and several airline collapses, US and European airlines have pulled no less than 1150 aircraft out of service. Considering the state of the global capitalist economy and the looming probability of a depression, the likelihood of an upturn in airline travel seems remote. So, if you know where to get a cheap ex-military airfield suitable for parking unwanted planes on, this could be your chance to get in on the ground floor of a growth industry. Although, when you think about it, only capitalism could classify such an activity as an "industry"!* * * Who's exploited?
The British Communist newspaper The New Worker reports that "a baker who received a bravery award after tackling three burglars at the Canterbury (UK) supermarket where he worked was docked two weeks' wages for taking time off to recover from his injuries". What's that you say? Workers under capitalism are exploited? I simply don't know where you get such outlandish notions, I really don't.