It???s hard to believe that a year has passed by already since the last address and that true to form, AirSource has had another successful period of contribution by our pilots. This year, like in 2009, the address will serve the purpose of outlining achievements in addition to prospects for the future of our Union as we embark on another period of virtual airline stability.
The 1st of June this year marked the 10th anniversary of our Union and this is a huge achievement.
I have seen many virtual airline sites pop up and disappear within a year, or just a few months, and that AirSource has reached 10 years since inception is an incredible indictment on those that have supported AirSource throughout the years since 2001. The Founders of AirSource, headed up by Tom Little, certainly had the vision, energy and sense of creativity to be able to put it all together back in 2001 and without the hard work back then, you wouldn???t be enjoying the fruits of their labour now. On behalf of AirSource members Tom, thank you for making this happen ??? and thank you to all those that helped you put what was a small idea into a big concept. On the 1st of June, all members that were serving on the roster on that date were issued with a commemorative medallion to signify the 10th anniversary. This was placed in each pilot???s logbook.
I see AirSource as a living Union. What that means is that it continually seeks to improve upon itself to the benefit of its members. I???m constantly amazed by the enthusiasm that is displayed by our pilots and although some people join up and leave just as quickly, there has always been a solid base of dedicated pilots which keep the Union as a viable entity. A big thanks goes out therefore to those that continue to contribute to the Union either by filling management positions, posting in the forums or just flying under the AirSource banner.
We have had just a small number of cases where some members have got out of hand either by not following the rules or behaving in a manner that is contrary to good order. Action has been swift in dealing with such matters and will continue to be the case in the future. We do have an Employee Handbook, and it is the responsibility of all members to read it and seek clarification when needed. The Handbook is currently under its annual review, and when that has finished an announcement will be made. Members are therefore strongly encouraged to read it either to refresh your memory or to remind you of your responsibilities as a member of the Union.
On behalf of the Executive Management Team (EMT), I want to wish all members a continued success, enjoyment and fun at AirSource - there are many more good things to come.
As with the 2009 State of the Union address, each member of the EMT has provided the following contributions to this address.
Norm Edwards
AirSource President
AIRSOURCE CHIEF ??? TOM LITTLE
What a year it has been, most of us have participated in the most exciting AirSource event yet, the 7x7x7 for 10 event, as we watched our organization turn 10. We've also seen changes to the myAAS program, not only bringing it to function as online or offline but improving other functions and security. In addition, we recently added member Christian Nielson to head up our VP Programming/Development area. Christian will help write and in some cases re-write our AAS system to become more functional and efficient. Speaking of functional and efficient, a huge THANK YOU goes out to our always hard working EMT team and flight managers, from Norm who is our President, to Roy, Mark and Jim and all associated flight managers from each Division who continue to offer stability and interest to all of our divisions.
On the subject of development, our new GA Division is slowly progressing, and one of my goals for this upcoming year is to have this area finished. Dev time has been sporadic at best for me, and much of the time that I did get was dedicated to the myAAS program updates. Now that there is more stability in the program and I have some dev help my hopes are high to get the web side of things rolling.
What got us to the 10 year mark is dedicated members. Without all of you none of this could be! Thank you for being here whether long or short term, your ideas and enthusiasm will propel our community well into the future! I've always day dreamed of features for our community and continue to do so. I have future goals for AirSource that amount to a lot more than just a GA Division. I envision a broader community, strengthening the UNITY in commUNITY. Perhaps regular fly-ins every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, with rewards "at the finish line". Event re-winds where newer members who didn't get the chance will be able to participate in some selected past events. I plan on putting a very strong emphasis on offering everything we need to keep building our community with quality people like we have now, and improving our retention rate. Also other things such as a new Division that allows members to create their very own cargo airline, which will supply our virtual world. The future looks bright for AirSource! Here's to another 10 years
VP ASHA DIVISION ??? JIM SKORNA
In the last year, the ASHA Division has undergone many exciting events. Last summer the Division went through the changeover process involving outgoing Division Vice President, Norm Edwards to my current tenure as Division Vice President. During this time, I have learned about the behind the scenes procedures for administrating an AirSource Division.
After this transition was completed, ASHA went to work in an attempt to recruit and train three needed SDOs. But after months of efforts, no one was willing to step forward. During this time, the remaining three SDOs did an excellent job planning humanitarian flights for Air Source pilots to fly.
After the public appeal for help did not produce any new volunteers, a second round of recruitment efforts was put into motion. This time a more personal approach was taken, where we contacted candidates privately, asking if they would be willing to become a SDO. This approach proved to be successful as we were able to recruit and train our three newest SDOs. At that point we had worldwide coverage for any disasters or situations that required our services.
During this time, AirSource pilots continued to support the ASHA Division, earning many ASHA ribbons and being granted many ASHA pilot promotions. Because of this commitment, the ASHA ribbon system was expanded to include a second tier of Operation ribbons. These ribbons are in place to further reward the dedicated ASHA pilots.
For a short period of time, the Division discussed the ASHA fleet and it was decided that our inventory of planes was sufficient and that no changes would be made. After this decision was made, some of our talented Air Source pilots came forward and repainted some of our most widely used aircraft. These repaints are available for any Air Source pilot to download and fly.
Moving forward, the ASHA Division will be in further discussion on their plans relating to the Training sub- Division. Once a final decision has been made, the results will be made public. Also, the Division is planning on hosting an event celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Air Source. Of course, the Division will continue to respond to the events and needs of the worldwide community. We hope that our efforts will provide a sense of purpose and accomplishment for our Air Source pilots. Thank you to all our pilots and SDOs for their time and efforts in supporting the ASHA Division.
VP SCHEDULED FLIGHT DIVISION ??? ROY LOUCKS
As always, I first want to thank all the dedicated and hard-working Schedule Division Flight Managers who continue to keep their airline schedules updated. Since the last EMT meeting we have had a nearly 28,054 flights updated. 121 airlines have been either updated or added, with $242,500.00 paid out to AFM's in bonus money for helping to update the schedules.
On June 1, I awarded a special AFM service recognition award and monetary bonus to all currently active AFMs. This award was presented to the current roster of AFM's who have contributed to the updating of our airline schedules. This award will be presented annually to all AFM's who continue to contribute to the success of the Schedule Division during the past year. We still have many airlines needing updating and if you would like to volunteer and help out, please contact me.
We still explore better ways to update and choose a scheduled flight, but for now we will continue to update the schedules as best we can. The bulk of the schedules which get updated are only done by a handful of our members but, we ask and would encourage all those who wish to help out, especially some of our some of our older members, to contact me and we'll get you started. I do get a lot of requests from new members to become AFM's, but because they don't meet some of the requirements they have to be told to reapply once they qualify.
As always there continue to be mergers, additions and airlines which cease operations and we will continue to monitor these events. If we miss one, please let us know. One such merger recently was the giant one between Continental and United Airlines and once their official timetables are released we will try to get their timetable updated as quickly as possible.
As always, many of the aircraft we enjoyed flying in the past are no longer being used by the mainstream airline companies today, so we continually search for and add those airlines which still utilize these aircraft. Another unique part of the Schedule Division is the Classic Airline schedules, which allow our pilots to fly these and other vintage aircraft of years gone by.
VP BID FLIGHT DIVISION ??? MARK RICHARDS
The Bid Division continues to go forward in leaps and bounds with its hard working band of Contract Development Officers (CDOs) entering a wide variety of bids to ensure that you, our pilots of the AirSource Virtual Pilots Union, get some weird and wonderful places to fly.
The team have been busy adding new Regular Passenger Transport (RPT) flights for airlines as they introduce new and exciting routes before the Scheduled Division???s AFMs can update their schedules and these have been extremely popular with pilots.
Almost every day new Delivery/Ferry flights are being added and these have created a lot of interest as the CDOs enter only one bid per delivery or ferry flight to replicate exactly what has happened in the real world. These flights/bids take the CDOs a great deal of research and all have been based on real world delivery and ferry flights that the CDOs go trawling numerous places on the Internet to get the information and then add the flights to the bid list. A number of these bids have been snapped up really quickly so it shows that you have to be in early to get the good bids.
Sports charters too have been popular especially around North America transporting teams to various NBA and NRL games, again emulating real world charters. It???s really pleasing to see how many of these flights are flown as it is very rewarding for the CDOs to see them flown.
And of course the highlight of the last year has of course been our 10th Anniversary Event, 7x7x7for10, where 29 pilots participated and flew in excess of 1500 hours between them all over the world finding all manner of the seven wonders of the world. My personal thanks must go to my wonderful team of CDOs who assisted in running this event, Jason, Jeff, Norm and Alan, without whom the event would not have been a success. These guys entered over 600 bids, individually for each of the participants so that they were personalized. It was a fantastic event and my thanks to everyone for their support.
Finally, thanks to all of the CDOs for their continued effort and we look forward to continuing to provide the AirSource crew with many more varied and interesting flights!
