A Milestone Day

Over the last few years I have mentioned from time to time the number of days to retirement. Well today is day zero and I have wrapped up 25 years and five days at Air New Zealand. 

It had been the intention to retire eighteen months ago when I hit 65, but in 2020-21 I voluntarily reduced my hours by one day a week for a year during the pandemic with the intention of preserving someone's job at a time when the Company was downsizing. That 20% of the year's salary had to be made up somehow, so the extra year was required. Then I figured well why not see out 25 years service and added another six months.

My involvement with the airline began in January 2000 in what was originally called the publications section where I started as a desktop publisher, formatting documents for use by pilots, cabin crew and ground staff. Airline documentation is quite niche area, with complex document structures. At that time we were beginning to migrate from paper to digital media. There were some interesting technical challenges to overcome.

In my first year Air New Zealand took over Ansett Australia and attempted to merge the two airlines. The merger ended disastrously with the collapse of Ansett and impending bankruptcy for Air New Zealand, forcing a Government bail out of the national carrier, all of this occurring just as the 9/11 attacks happened. Because much of the management of the airline had been moved to Australia I inherited the management of the section.

In my time I was involved the introduction of three new aircraft types and four sub-types to the airline fleet. In 2004 I oversaw the introduction of  the Electronic Flight Bag, a certified touch screen computer installed in the B777 aircraft that digitally displayed operational documentation and navigation charts allowing the removal of as much as 25Kg of paperwork from every aircraft saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel burn every year. That project then extended to other aircraft types in the fleet. It also saw ended the distribution of individual paper documents to crew and ground stations, slashing the number of individual printed copies in circulation from 96,000 in 2002 to less than 1,000 by 2020.

The move to digital also saw the change from traditional desktop publishing solutions to complex xml authoring environments and the need to rapidly upskill. This provided a strong intellectual stimulus cooperatively resolving complex operational problems on an almost daily basis and working with a wide variety of skilled individuals from across the business. I have also been fortunate over the years to be involved in various industry groups, conferences and training courses that took me to a wide variety of destinations: Seattle, Atlanta, Toulouse, Stockholm, Lisbon, Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Tokyo.

Recent years have seen much of the challenge that had kept things fresh diminish. The COVID years with its the subsequent industry downsizing and loss of institutional knowledge, combined with a higher proportion of people working from home, has seen the workplace dynamics change. Problems that used to be resolved by gathering a few knowledgeable people around a table for a hour, now involve a series of online meetings with a cast of thousands (all of whom have to have their say whether knowledgeable or not) and drag on for weeks if not months to find a resolution.

And so it became time to call time.  I have been immensely privileged to have worked with some highly skilled and dedicated professionals and I will miss that, but escaping the Corporate BS will be a definite relief.

Prior to my involvement with the airline I spent eleven years in the stationery trade and thirteen years in the wargames industry.

And what does retirement hold in store for me? Initially a bunch of chores to be done around the property that I have been putting off for a long time. There probably won't be a lot of figure painting (unless someone wants some contract painting done) but there is some painting and general touch up work to be done around the house. There will be some gaming, some of which you will see on these pages very soon - I expect to be more active on the blog since my recent hand-over activity at work has kept me away from it of late.

But first there is a 2021 single vineyard Otago pinot noir waiting to be poured then I am going to put my feet up and enjoy some summer weather that they tell us will be here next week...if we are lucky.