...And Here, Darn it, Are The Heartbreakers

It is both the most "fun," and most difficult task, facing the ANN staff at the end of every year -- determining who, or what, did the most to promote the cause of aviation in the past 365 days... while also chastising those people or entities that did all they could to undermine the many successes the aerospace community has managed to accomplish.

Alas, 2007 saw more than its fair share of downers, aviation-wise. Sure, "stuff" happens... but a few folks, issues, or entities seemed to go out of their way to create problems for the world of aviation.

So... it is ANN's annual obligation to recognize a solid dozen of our Aero-Heartbreakers for 2007... in something of an informal order, starting from 12th to the 1st. Let us know what you think of our selections... whom YOU would have liked be included, or omitted, from such a list. In the meantime, we hope those who had something to do with this year's selections think a little more positively about the welfare of this industry, so that future lists become harder and harder to catalog. Be it ignorance, arrogance or just plain incompetence, these were the folks or topics that made our lot a whole lot more difficult and immeasurably injured the aviation world in the past year.

Shame on those issues, folks or topics that made our lot so much tougher in 2007...

From the Heartbreaker's List #11: Industry Badmouthing/Name-Calling

The problem comes and goes... but 2007 seemed to be a landmark year for innuendo, name-calling and badmouthing... All throughout the industry, possibly inspired by the latest exchanges between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, it seemed that a number of aviation "professionals" found the need to try and get ahead by badmouthing their competition. Outside of the fact that most of what we heard was just plain wrong (in many cases, ridiculously so), it sure as hell made us all look bad. And this year, as in year's past, we received reports from potential buyers of aviation products and services that they were "totally turned off" by negative games played by those with such a lack of confidence in their own product that they had to "run down" someone else's.

OK, it's bad business... but when you deal with an industry in which confidence in the integrity of the products, personnel, and companies we work with may literally become a matter of life and death; this kind of behavior remains inexcusable. Worse, folks, it just doesn't work. The competition for our aero-bucks remains intense, but those salespeople who think that bashing their competitor's product provides a path to making a quick sale, are deluding themselves most of all. Based on what we're hearing from the potential buyers (and we've said this before) who are victimized by such sales pitches, the tactic is not only NOT working, but quickly turning buyers away from the brand that they represent... and possibly even from buying a plane (or other product) altogether. This is the height of stupidity. While no one manufacturer is uniformly guilty of these tactics, they all need to quickly and aggressively retrain or remove ANY salesperson who engages in such tactics. Period.

Competition is fine. Rivalry and pride in one's product is laudable... but a few years ago we were able to specifically detail that at one fly-in alone, telling nasty stories about a competitor cost 5 different manufacturers at least 11 sales. Worse than that... in that event, one of those erstwhile buyers decided that he wanted nothing to do with this business after getting similar treatment from three different manufacturers over the course of two days.

Folks... this has got to stop. If we want the world to look at aviation (and aviators) as competent members of a high-tech industry, then we need to set our personal performance bar (and the ethics we work by) a lot higher than we saw (way too many times) in 2007.

FMI: You tell us, is the bamouthing among competitors hurting aviation?