Hamburg and the A380
Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mothwingArticle in the Guardian.
Die Zeit: "Das ist wohl das Ende für den A380 als Frachtflugzeug: UPS will ihn nicht mehr - als letzter noch verbliebener Käufer. Die IG Metall kündigte harte Proteste an."
It's not as though there haven't been enough people telling the guys who desperately wanted to build the A380 in my city that there were not enough people interested in purchasing the blasted thing. Now it seems as though the last customer interested in using the plane as a freighter, UPS, has also abandoned the idea of buying the megalomaniac cargo superjumbo. The union said they were going to protest against it.
Of course, it's always bad when jobs are in danger, but in this particular case I find it very, very hard not to be inappropriately gleeful and very cynical about the entire affair. (Sorry,angie_21_237. Of course I hope that the Resco jobs are safe. :( )
To be able to build that blasted thing, a nature protection area protected both by Hamburg local nature conservation law, federal nature conservation law, EU nature conservation law AND international nature conservation law, the last remaining freshwater tideland in the world, was destroyed.
Without thinking, without questioning, before they even had permission to do so. Before there was word even on how many people were even interested in buying the planes and before the project had even been permitted by various courts and government agencies, they filled in the tideland and started working.
And Hamburg was not even the most ideal location for the construction of that blasted thing in the first place. Before there senate took it into their heads to get this plane to Hamburg instead of Tolouse, where they already have suitable production halls and heck, the necessary airstrip, we had neither. But of course, it is always sensible to build new things in conservation areas than to build things in areas which already have most of the things necessary, and who's interested in a poxy unique natural conservatory, anyway.
Of course, it cost immense amounts of money, they managed to build an airstrip that was TOO FUCKING SHORT and they want to add a couple of kilometres, which would destroy the ONLY fruit-growing areas in Germany not receiving EU sanctions ( well, those were done for before, as curiously, no one is too keen on kerosene on their apples) and hundreds of jobs, they had to relocate a couple of people and they destroyed the only freshwater tideland in the world forever and drove several species into or to the verge of extinction.
Well done, Hamburg senate.
And now, no one even wants to buy the thing, which could have been clear from the beginning because no one had ever professed a tremendous amount of interest in buying the thing FROM THE BEGINNING. There were only a couple of individual interested buyers all over the world who said they might be interested. If that's not mystical economic code language for "Hell, yeah, I want that plane! I hereby place an order for three dozen of the things!!", I really don't see why they went ahead with their plans at all.
Well done.
It's not as though there haven't been enough people telling the guys who desperately wanted to build the A380 in my city that there were not enough people interested in purchasing the blasted thing. Now it seems as though the last customer interested in using the plane as a freighter, UPS, has also abandoned the idea of buying the megalomaniac cargo superjumbo. The union said they were going to protest against it.
Of course, it's always bad when jobs are in danger, but in this particular case I find it very, very hard not to be inappropriately gleeful and very cynical about the entire affair. (Sorry,
angie_21_237. Of course I hope that the Resco jobs are safe. :( )To be able to build that blasted thing, a nature protection area protected both by Hamburg local nature conservation law, federal nature conservation law, EU nature conservation law AND international nature conservation law, the last remaining freshwater tideland in the world, was destroyed.
Without thinking, without questioning, before they even had permission to do so. Before there was word even on how many people were even interested in buying the planes and before the project had even been permitted by various courts and government agencies, they filled in the tideland and started working.
And Hamburg was not even the most ideal location for the construction of that blasted thing in the first place. Before there senate took it into their heads to get this plane to Hamburg instead of Tolouse, where they already have suitable production halls and heck, the necessary airstrip, we had neither. But of course, it is always sensible to build new things in conservation areas than to build things in areas which already have most of the things necessary, and who's interested in a poxy unique natural conservatory, anyway.
Of course, it cost immense amounts of money, they managed to build an airstrip that was TOO FUCKING SHORT and they want to add a couple of kilometres, which would destroy the ONLY fruit-growing areas in Germany not receiving EU sanctions ( well, those were done for before, as curiously, no one is too keen on kerosene on their apples) and hundreds of jobs, they had to relocate a couple of people and they destroyed the only freshwater tideland in the world forever and drove several species into or to the verge of extinction.
Well done, Hamburg senate.
And now, no one even wants to buy the thing, which could have been clear from the beginning because no one had ever professed a tremendous amount of interest in buying the thing FROM THE BEGINNING. There were only a couple of individual interested buyers all over the world who said they might be interested. If that's not mystical economic code language for "Hell, yeah, I want that plane! I hereby place an order for three dozen of the things!!", I really don't see why they went ahead with their plans at all.
Well done.
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Date: Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 03:24 pm (UTC)