techin.me

Posts Tagged ‘community’

Korean, German And Japanese Translation Services Increase Global Trade Opportunities

The global economy relates to the globalization of production, markets, finance, communications, and the labor force. The world that we live in is actually part of the global economy and the success of it rests on accurate and timely communication.  Without translation services, international trade would not exist and no exchanges of services and goods could take place. But because we all have access to quality and reliable language translation services, we can comfortably buy and sell products and services throughout the world.

The purpose of this series of papers is to shed new light on the importance of translation studies to the global economy.  It’s critically important that the world has an unending supply of accurate translation workers because corporations that operate on a global level like Google, Toyota, General Motors and Ford must make decisions based on good data.

Lets begin our discussion by talking about trade. The word “Trade” can signify a particular sector of the economy, for example, the automotive trade.  On the other hand, it can also relate to a skilled field such as an ultra sound technician.  In addition, the word trade can also signify a group of people who work in a particular field of business or industry.  For example, the people who build cars might be said to belong to the manufacturing trade. This article in our series looks at trade as the activity of buying and selling goods and services in international markets. It is this sort of activity that permits nations to meet the needs of their citizens and strengthen their economies.

Global Trade is different from domestic trade because domestic trade only applies to the purchase of sale and goods within a particular country. World trade is the exchange of goods and services across international boundaries. German Translation services companies, for example, are frequently contacted to help facilitate this process.  Global trade offer many benefits because it allows it goods and services to be produced more affordably be taking adavantage of various efficiencies and it allows producers to to tap into a worldwide marketplace.  Moreover, businesses in one country may have efficiencies which enable it to provide better quality and pricing than businesses in another country. And so international trade occurs.

The increase in global trade over the past 40 years has brought with it a sharp increase in demand for highly specialized professional translation services. In addition, the growth of agencies like Japanese Translation Services Companies in combination with better transportation and telecommunications, along with a decrease in trade barriers, enables more world trade.  These are also responsible for much of the economic growth that has taken place in countries throughout the world.

To illustrate the importance of imports and exports to the language translation industry, consider how Korean Translation Services benefit from buying pepper from the Hindi speaking country of India.  Korea also trades with Spanish-speaking areas of South America when it buys bananas from Columbia, coffee from Costa Rica and computer parts from Japan.  Importing is when country A buys goods or services from country B.  On the same note, Korean Translation Services are always involved when the nation of Korea sells items to other countries, such as the USA, Germany and France. These products, which were made in Korea, are also known as exports. Exports are goods and services that one country sells to another country.  Investment in other countries is also undertaken by Korea when it establishes a business there. It imports and exports professional services such as lawyers and business people. Country A’s exports are Country B’s imports.

When there are more exports than imports, a country is said to have a trade surplus. Trade deficit is the term used when a country has more imports than exports. Subtracting imports from exports in a given period gives the balance of trade.  The possibility exists that a country can have a trade deficit with one country and a surplus with another. As an example, the USA balance of trade is favorable vis a vis Australia. Basically, we sell more in goods and services to Australia than they sell to us. Furthermore, the USA has an unfavorable balance with China because we earn less money from China from sales of goods and services than China  receives from the USA.

About the Author

THE MARKETING ANALYSTS provides translation services in more than 150 languages.  We also provide legal translation services and medical translation services.

Dating Tips for Finding The Best Chicago Dating Sites For Local Singles

There are many options available for the many Chicago professional singles who are just tired of finding a cold and empty bed when arriving home from the office they spend most of their lives in. I think the first option worth of taking it into account is the online dating websites and programs, so diverse as to satisfy every need and preference. Everything from dating websites, professional matchmaker services, counseling and dating tips can be found online, brought to us by the almighty Internet. There are of course a few flaws in the online dating system, but choosing the right platforms will spare you of the unnecessary hassle. Another great option to consider if you are one of the Chicago professional singles that’s looking to get out of singlehood is going out on bars and clubs especially intended for the use of singles. Time permitting, you?ll get the chance to meet great men/women and to spend a comfortable and casual evening in great bars like Excalibur, Japoinais, English. However, this is not applicable for those Chicago professional singles that are used spending their evenings and weekends working late hours. Going to the beach or attending thematic parties and events especially intended for singles are other possibilities of meeting the love of your life, in case your work schedule allows it. Being a Chicago professional single was never an easy task, especially with all the great people waiting to be met and all those amazing places waiting to be visited. It’s hard to find someone right these days, that?s for sure, taking into account the so many obstacles that always seem to come up when you least expect it. But don?t despair, there’s help available for any need and preference you might have. The online dating platform offers anything from recreational dating or travel companionship to long-term relationships and eventually marriage. You can try out any option you find suitable and rest assured that love is on its way back to your life and be prepared to embrace it with all your heart and keep it safe from harm.

Professional singles in Chicago are only the most eligible Chicago singles, although they are busy, they too are eager to meet potential matches that they can share common interests with. Single professionals in Chicago want to meet quality area singles that know what they want from life. Check out http://www.Chicagoprofessionalsingles.com, there are more local professional singles then one can even imagine dating. Find your match effectively.

About the Author

Allan Tan is an experienced writer on seeking the best Chicago dating sites and relationships. He has been writing for many years and has had many articles published. Some of Allan’s most favorite topics to write on include Chicago single professionals, mature daters, Chicago relationships, and Chicago matchmaking services. Allan’s articles are well written and memorable. They are especially great for anyone looking to begin dating and still keep up with their daily activities.

How do I become a flight attendant from Canada ?

I am a Canadian, 22 years old 5’6′ male. I have completed High School. The only language I speak is English.

I have tried looking for airlines that are hiring and none of them are. I checked all of the airlines that are arriving and departing at Toronto Pearson Airport.

If I have all of this year free. What are some steps I can take to ensure I become a flight attendant, such as learn another language or take a course from an accredited school?

Start by learning french!

Beyond Jung

BEYOND JUNG

AUTHOR: Paul Budding

Introduction

This essay is personal to me as it tries to take the reader through my journey through the Jungian world. And when I say “through” I mean through. I believe that I have been imprisoned in the Jung Cult but am now free from it. The word ‘cult’ maybe a bit strong here. The point is, as this essay will demonstrate, that it is easy for the Jungian to get bogged down with the feeling that there is something in this work of Jung’s. But much of that feeling is just an attachment to that which sounds esoteric. Once one accepts that fact they are out of the cult and see more clearly.

In Chapter 1 we will look at the historical context of Jungian psychology. Jung attached in a self-imposed way to his contextual influences and froze them in his invented unconscious. This is Wolfgang Giegerich’s view which is outlined and supported in chapter 2 of this essay. The esoteric contents that Jung froze in the unconscious were to be looked at and psychologically felt, but not to be subjected to the critical intellect. It is in that sense that Jung protected the esoteric contents from life and froze them.

The overall conclusion of this essay isn’t anti Jungian as-such. The overall conclusion favors myth that is alive as opposed to Jung’s favoring of dead pre-modern myths. Then one approaches their myth openly, not hiding it away from the intellect and life.

Chapter 1

The historical context of Jungian analytical psychology1

Claire Douglas’ chapter titled ‘The historical context of analytical psychology’ (in ‘The Cambridge Companion to Jung’2) and Sonu Shamdasani’s Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology: The Dream of a Science3 are the two main sourced used in chapter one of this essay. These sources enable us to effectively sketch the historical context of Jung’s psychology.

Douglas rightly touches upon a multitude of influences on Jung. She starts off by saying that Jung himself referred to two aspects of his psyche, one that is empirical, rational, practical and so on, and another that is romantic and “at home with the unconscious, the mysterious, and the hidden whether in hermetic science and religion, in the occult, or in fantasies and dreams.”4 Already a key Jungian belief about the psyche is implied here. And that is that the human psyche has evolved (in the western world) to the point where it can think and rationalize (hence at its height it creates scientific and mathematical models, philosophies and the technology that we see around us) whilst the psyche is also fantasy prone, it dreams, is emotional and so forth.  Despite Jung’s belief that this description of the psyche is true, Douglas correctly writes that “Analytical psychology still struggles to hold the tension of these opposites with different schools, or leanings, or even schisms, veering first to one side of the pole, then to the other.”5 However, Jung’s perspective is supported in this work because both rationality and fantasy are psychological realities.

Before developing on the phenomena that equates to the historical context of Jung’s psychology it would suit our purpose to merely list some of them and then to expand. The

following list is not exhaustive by any means, remember Jung was an erudite. Nevertheless, the following were amongst the major contextual influences. Romanticism was an influence, as was Positivism, Kant, Schopenhauer, Goethe, Schelling, Carus, Nietzsche, Shamanism,Janet, Freud, Flournoy, parapsychology, Swedenborg, James, Eastern spirituality, Gnosticism and Alchemy. We will discuss Romanticism and Positivism first.

Romanticism and Positivism

Jung always insisted that he was scientific.6 Douglas explains that “Jung’s university teachers held an almost religious belief in the possibilities of positivistic science and faith in the scientific method. Positivism […] focused on the power of reason, experimental science, and the study of general laws and hard facts. It gave a linear, forwardly progressing, and optimistic slant to history […] Positivism gave Jung invaluable training in and respect for empirical science. Jung’s medical-psychiatric background is clearly revealed in his empirical research, his careful clinical observation and case histories, his skill in diagnosis, and his formulation of projective tests.”7 Hence, Jung was influenced by the enlightenment and scientific revolution like other great names of his day. However the rationalist scientist in Jung would often be organizing irrational data in an attempt to understand it. (e.g. fantasies, dreams, myths, and even the disorganized, dissociated ramblings of psychotics). This leads us nicely to Romanticism. The Romantics sought a unity with nature whose connection had been lost. The Romantics also focused on irrational phenomena and inner reality. Here of course, Jung and the Romantics sought meaning. For Jung, meaning was found in the inner world hence it would be most beneficial, he thought, to apply science towards this realm. Douglas writes that the Romantics had a “fascination with studies of possession, multiple personalities, seers, mediums, and trancers, as well as with shamans, exorcists, magnetizers, and hypnotic healers [… and that…] they all employed altered states of consciousness that linked one psyche to another and made use of the various ways healer and healed enter this vast, omnipresent, yet still mysterious collective world.”8    

Douglas traces Romanticism “from the pre-Socratic philosophers Pythagoras, Heraclitus,

and Parmenides, through Plato, to the Romanticism of the early nineteenth century and its revival at the end of that century.”9 In Jung’s autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, he writes that he was “attracted to the thought of Pythagoras, Heraclitus,

Empedocles, and Plato, despite their long-windedness of Socratic argumentation.”10

It is well-known that by the end of the 19th century Romantic themes were expressed in much of the most famous literary works. Douglas points to the following as having been

inspired by Romanticism: “Hugo, Balzac, Dickens, Poe, Dostoevsky, Maupassant, Nietzsche, Wilde, R. L. Stevenson, George du Maurier, and Proust.”11 Douglas continues:

“As a Swiss student, Jung spoke and read German, French, and English and so had access to these writers as well as to his own nation’s popular literature.”12

It is fair to point out that Jung, whilst on the one hand declaring his work, ‘scientific’, on the other hand, declared his work as cultural: “whatever happens in a given moment has inevitably the quality peculiar to that moment.”13 This apparent contradiction is explained as Jung viewing his work as an evolving science. Even in physics the discipline doesn’t stand still. And in psychology Jung often said that ideas require updating in order to express and be conducive with the specific time and place.14 However, as we will see, Jung’s favored myths tended to be pre-modern thus distancing him from contemporary life.

The Romantic Philosophers who influenced the ideas of analytical psychology include “Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Hegel and Nietzsche.”15 Jung wrote that “mentally my greatest adventure had been the study of Kant and Schopenhauer.”16 For example, there is similarity between Jung’s archetypes hypothesis and Kant’s categories. Shamdasani writes that in 1918 Jung “defined the primordial images as a priori conditions for fantasy-production, and likened the primordial image to Kantian categories. […] In Psychological Types, he refined his understanding of the relation between ideas, images and archetypes. In his use, idea had a close connection with image. Images could be personal or impersonal. These impersonal images, distinguished by their mythological quality, were the primordial images. When these lacked this mythological character and perceptible images, he referred to them as ideas. The idea was the meaning of the primordial image. Thus ideas were originally derived from primordial images.”17 Jung concurred with Kant, who for Jung, “had shown that the mind was not tabulsa rasa.”18 as “certain categories of thinking are given a priori.19 Meanwhile Marilyn Nagy points out that for both Jung and Kant “there is something inside the individual which knows what to do and how to act. Knowledge which is of crucial importance for the human individual is won at the moment when we acknowledge a priori inner experience, experience which is not dictated by the perceptual and sensual power of the outer object. For Kant this was the experience of the categorical imperative. For Jung it was the experience of the Self.”20

Arthur Schopenhauer was another favorite of Jung’s. Jung praised “the centrality accorded to suffering by Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann, whom he described as the formers intellectual heir. [Moreover Jung said] To Schopenhauer I owe the dynamic view of the psyche; the ‘will’ is the libido that is back of everything.”21 Shamdasani then writes that this passage (and others by Jung) “suggest[s] that [Jung’s] initial concept of psychic energy was derived from Schopenhauer’s concept of the will.”22 The blindness of the Schopenhaurian will is clear in the following quote by the philosopher quoted in Shamdasani: “the works of animal instinct, the spiders web, the honeycomb of bees, the structure of termites, and so on, are all of them constituted as if they had originated in consequence of an intentional conception, far-reaching and rational deliberation, whereas they are obviously the work of a blind impulse, that is, of a will which is not guided by knowledge.”23 However, Shamdasani says that Jung “followed Hartmann […] adopting von Hartmann’s reformulations of Schopenhauer’s philosophy [such as that] found in his lecture “Thoughts on the nature and value of speculative inquiry” [where Jung endorses Hartmann’s view and adds] the absolutely essential element of purposeful intention”24 to the will/psychic energy.

Finally it should be noted that whilst Jung approved of Schopenhauer’s attention given to suffering in life, Jung (of course) regarded suffering as only one important area of life and also gave a great deal of attention to the meaning of life. As we shall see in chapter 2 Jung’s commitment to ancient myth, alchemy, religion and so forth was all about pre modern meaning.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was admired greatly by Jung. Jung often referred to Goethe’s masterpiece ‘Faust’ whereby Faust struggles with inner conflict.25

Further inspirations were F. W. von Schelling and Carl Gustav Carus. The latter should strike the reader as having remarkably similar ideas to Jung. “Carus depicted the creative, autonomous, and healing function present in the unconscious. He saw the life of the psyche as a dynamic process in which consciousness and the unconscious are mutually

compensatory and where dreams play a restorative role in psychic equilibrium. Carus

also outlined a tripartite model of the unconscious – the general absolute, the partial absolute, and the relative – that prefigured Jung’s concepts of archetypal, collective, and personal unconscious.”26 Why then is Carus notgiven more credit in analytical psychology? One Jungian thinker says that it is simply because Carus didn’t offer treatment.27 Nevertheless Jung himself valued Carus’ work. Shamdasani writes “Jung stated that his own conceptions were “much more like Carus than Freud…”28 On the other hand Jung writes (in Memories, Dreams, Reflections) that Carus (and Hartmann) both failed to empirically ground their theories of the unconscious. Hence they remained philosophically speculative. Jung writes that it was Freud who first “demonstrated empirically the presence of an unconscious psyche.”29 Shamdasani writes that Jung regarded the unconscious as an idea “introduced into philosophy by Lebinz, and that Kant and Schelling had expressed views on it. It had subsequently been elaborated into a system by Carus, and then by von Hartmann, who had been significantly influenced by Carus 30 In 1940 he [i.e. Jung] wrote that though philosophers such as Lebinz, Kant, and

Schelling had drawn attention to the “problem of the dark soul”, it was Carus, a physician who had been impelled “to point to the unconscious as the essential ground of the soul.”31 In 1945, he went so far as to say of Carus that if he had been living today, he would have been a psychotherapist. Indeed, the psychology of the unconscious began with Carus, who did not realize that he had built the “philosophical bridge to a future empirical psychology.”32 However, Carus and Hartmann’s philosophical conceptions of the unconscious “had gone down under the overwhelming wave of materialism and empiricism.” It was only after this that the concept of the unconscious reappeared “in the scientifically orientated medical psychology.”33

Jung lectured on Nietzsche34 observing various affinities with his own psychology especially the going beyond black and white good and evil. Douglas also rightly points especially to “the way negativity and resentment shadowed behavior.”35 Shamdasani notes that “For Jung, Nietzsche had correctly recognized the general significance of the drives.”36 Shamdasani continues, “In 1917 in The Psychology of the Unconscious Processes, posing the question of whether anyone knew what it meant to affirm the drives, Jung noted that this was what Nietzsche desired and taught. This made the ‘case’ of Nietzsche especially critical, as “he who thus taught saying yes to the life drive, must have his own life looked at critically in order to discover the effects of this teaching upon him who gave the teaching.”37 Hence Jung was especially interested in studying Nietzsche.

Shamdasani highlights the importance of William James and Theodore Flournoy on Jung whilst qualifying this by admitting that he is nominating them as “but two of a plethora of other figures.”38 Shamdasani says that Jung described them “as the only two outstanding minds with whom he was able to conduct uncomplicated conversations.”39 Shamdasani continues “For Jung, as forFlournoy and James before him, a necessary condition for the possibility of a psychology was that it should consider all human phenomena.”40 The main source that Jungian researchers can attain for evidence of the influence of Flournoy and James on Jung’s thinking is from an “unpublished draft (now in the Jung Archives at the Countway Library in Boston). [There] Jung writes […] extensively of his debt to Flournoy and William James.”41

Jung’s interest in the paranormal (or parapsychological) is well-documented. A good example of this is his reading of Emmanuel Swedenborg. Jung discusses some of Swedenborg’s visions in his Collected Works. And in Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung writes that (in his student years) he “read seven volumes of Swedenborg.”42

Douglas rightly says on this area, “Jung’s interest in and knowledge about parapsychology adds a rich though suspect edge to analytical psychology which demands attention congruent with the extended scope of scientific knowledge today.”43

 

A major influence on the more clinically-minded Jung is that of the French dissociationist psychiatrist, Pierre Janet. Jung studied under Janet and the latter pioneered theories of dissociation and fixed ideas, which Jung termed ‘complexes’. Jung agreed with a great 

deal of what Janet pioneered but Jung also embraced the artistic and creative side of life. Hence Jung went beyond Janet who was “clearly no Romantic.”44 The work of John R Haule is scholarly and studies the link between analytical psychology and Janet’s dissociationist psychology.45 Janet is more relevant than Freud as an influence on Jung, as Jung valued the principle of dissociation as sovereign over repression although he recognized both of those principles. And, as said, Jung recognized Freud as a pioneer of the unconscious.46

 

Interested thinkers often point out that Jung himself was a childhood neurotic. This may be seen as a slight digression because this establishes a personal context for analytical psychology as opposed to the multitude of impersonal historical contextual influences. However, it is the other key factor in establishing a sketch of the context of analytical psychology, therefore it needs saying. Jung had a father complex. Carl Jung’s father is portrayed as an authoritarian and dogmatic Christian who had repressed doubts about his faith. And Jung is regarded as having been a childhood neurotic in both Jungian and psychoanalytical literature. For example in the latter, Winnicott reads Memories, Dreams, Reflections as evidence of Jung as a childhood schizophrenic, a divided-self in search of a self-identity.47 In the Jungian literature, Michael Fordham, who helped compile Jung’s Collected Works,also regards Jung as having been a childhood schizophrenic. Following reading the first draft of the childhood chapters of Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung asked Fordham for his views. Fordham replied that he regarded Jung as having been “a schizophrenic child” with strong obsessional defenses, and that had he been brought to me I should have said the prognosis was good, but that I should have recommended analysis – He did not consent my blunt statement.”48 Anthony Stevens meanwhile, arguably takes up the conventional position on Jung as a childhood neurotic who creatively compensated for his lack of emotional connection to the outer social world.

Stevens writes that Jung “resembled other intellectual pioneers [… such as …] Issac Newton and Rene Descartes.”49 Like them “he did not feel at home in the [outer] world” and hence compensated by becoming pioneering and “intellectually objective about it.”50

Stevens continues by arguing that Jung’s ideas “of the collective unconscious, his theory of archetypes, his psychological typology and his description of the structure and function of the psyche were at once consequences of his emotional isolation and brilliant attempts to compensate for it. It was no accident that the principle of compensation between inner and outer realms of experience became the cornerstone of analytical psychology.”51 In chapter 2 we will see, following Giegerich, how Jung over-compensated for what he and many of his influences regarded as loss of meaning.

The same desire to compensate for childhood neurosis is, as Stevens says, evident in Issac Newton’s work, see footnote.52

Jung inevitably cast an eye on Eastern spirituality. Whilst cautious of the westerner grasping at Eastern texts, symbols and so forth, he nevertheless understood that the East tended to seek a way beyond conflicts, striving for “balance and harmony”53 through paths of “self-discipline and self-realization [and] through the withdrawal of projections and through yoga, meditation, and introspection, paths that were similar to a deep analytic process.”54 These Eastern traditions (e.g. Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism) are of course, ancient and very meaning-minded which is all most conducive, seductive even, to Jung and similar pre-modern mindsets.

Finally, the influence of Gnosticism and especially Alchemy on Jungian psychology is (at least in the latter) obvious, as Jung writes on alchemy in three volumes of his collected works. And in Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung makes the connection between alchemy and his psychology, clear himself. He writes “I had very soon seen that analytical psychology coincided in a most curious way with alchemy. The experiences of the alchemists were, in a sense, my experiences, and their world was my world. This was, of course, a momentous discovery: I had stumbled upon the historical counterpart of my psychology of the unconscious. The possibility of a comparison with alchemy, and the uninterrupted intellectual chain back to Gnosticism, gave substance to my psychology. When I pored over these old texts everything fell into place: the fantasy-images, the empirical material I had gathered in my practice, and theconclusions I had drawn from it. I now began to understand what these psychic contents meant when seen in historical perspective.”55

 

Chapter 1 Conclusion

 

This chapter has outlined the historical context of Jung’s analytical psychology. Sonu Shamdasani claims that Jung favored an interdisciplinary approach and that therefore Jung never believed in going alone56, nor that his work was complete. However, in his interdisciplinary approach, Jung looked for those that would validate his invention of the collective unconscious. (I deliberately use the word invention following Giegerich, see chapter 2). Given that Jung approached his work and other thinkers this way; I am entirely in agreement with Marilyn Nagy who writing within the context of discussing Jung’s “hero of the Mind” says that he ultimately favored “any myriad of scholars and philosophers, mystics and alchemical physicians who offered support for his point of view.”58 And as we will see in chapter 2, Jung froze much of what he took from his influences. He froze their psychological feeling in the invented unconscious container.

 

Chapter 2

 

Introduction

 

Let’s be clear. Jung was passionate about the contextual influences referred to in chapter 1. No-one would spend so much time and energy going over and over the texts that he did if they were not passionate about them. Jung writes in Memories, Dreams, Reflections that when he realized that the alchemists were talking in symbolic language he thought to himself… “Why, this is fantastic […] I simply must learn to decipher all this.”1 And Jung describes his attitude towards these texts as one of being “completely fascinated, […] I buried myself in the texts as often as I had the time.”2  Jung immersed himself in these texts. He immersed himself in large, collective spiritual, mythic and religious collective literature such as that of the alchemists, Gnostics, and a whole range of other esoteric mystics, philosophers, thinkers, schools. As will become clearer and clearer, this was all to freeze the type of meaningful feeling that Jung believed many of the pre-modern alchemists, mystics and so forth, actually experienced. Hence for Jung, esoterics and esotericism of the pre-moderns had to become felt but not thought about in modern man and woman.

Jung encouraged and lived a life of attachment to collective esoteric dogmas. Wolfgang Giegerich points this out, again with reference to alchemy: “Jung excluded from his psychological reception of alchemy the fact that the telos of alchemy had been the overcoming of itself. He froze it, and psychology along with it, in an earlier phase.”3  “In short, for Giegerich, the task of alchemy was to deconstruct itself, or at least, to surpass itself as a movement of the historical expression of the soul.”4

 

Going Beyond Jung’s dead pre-modern meaning

 

People who are suggestible will fall for someone else’s words and thoughts besides Jung’s. But Jung is still (constructively) criticized in this chapter because as a famous psychologist he should have stuck to encouraging personal myth and personal responsibility and had nothing to do with encouraging others to immerse themselves into the vast world of the esoteric. Yet he never discouraged the latter. He encouraged it.

 

Now let’s say that one has approached Jung and his work because they are psychologically weak, suggestible, etc. Jung himself said that the neurotic is attracted to psychology like a moth to light.5 Then Jung grabs them because he throws a mountain of esoteric psychology at them. They are caught. Jung does not set them free.

 

This is because he was imprisoned himself. Hence, there is a Jung cult.6 Jung preached against a Jung-cult7 but trapped his followers in one, i.e., in a psychological prison that he too was jailed in. (self-imposed in Jung’s case)

 

Jung’s work on the personal unconscious is of value in the market of ideas. His pioneering work on complexes is important. But if someone is a sensitive, dissociable neurotic choc-a-block with complexes, then the important thing to do is to get them to be an individual. The last thing that one should do is immerse them in esoteric traditions. Most people have grown out of Middle Ages superstition. Jung acts as if we are still immersed in alchemy and fairy-tale, and that we still think that the forest comes alive with non-human entities at night. If someone is still at say, the late Middle Ages level of consciousness then fine. However, it is remarkably wreckless medicine to actually immerse a neurotic in the pre-modern psychological world without critical intellectual questioning of that world.

 

Attachment can be to anything. So I need to remind the reader that the problems are not all about the esoteric. Modern man is often too attached to other people, consumerism, and celebrity (etc) i.e. in a non-questioning way. But a medically and clinically orientated psychologist should help cure such a problem. Jung makes a significant contribution towards solution only to then contribute to the problem.

 

In part 1 we saw how Jung worked towards an interdisciplinary universal psychology. At the same time the universal psychology that he strove for was to be one that cemented the esoteric side of life in the psyche. Jung therefore was working both for and against the direction that knowledge was moving in. It is the attempt to freeze esoteric attachments (not allowing them to be touched with the intellect) that result in the failure of the establishment of a universal psychology instigated by Jung.  

 

We will now turn to the work of Wolfgang Giegerich. Giegerich demonstrates in his essay titled The End of Meaning and the Birth of Man, that Jung was pre-modern8 and imprisoned in the pre-modern world due to his attachments. Giegerich agues that this was self-imposed on Jung’s part. He argues that Jung tried to cement the psychology of the pre-modern mythical world into the unconscious psyche of contemporary man. Giegerich criticizes Jung for doing this because for the pre-modern person he or she was born into such a world a- priori9.For the contemporary person this kind of psychology belongs to the past. Thus, for Giegerich, Jung fails to free up his psyche. There is no way that he can break free from his psychological imprisonment because it is self-imposed.

 

On pages 3, 4 and 5 of Giegerich’s essay titled The End of Meaning and the Birth of Man Giegerich discussesthe a-priori in-ness of the pre-modern man. Then on page 6 he approvingly quotes Jung who writes:

 

“So long as a symbol is a living thing, it is an expression for something that cannot be characterized in any other or better way. The symbol is alive only so long as it is pregnant with meaning. But once its meaning has been born out of it, once that expression is found which formulates the thing sought, expected, or divined even better than the hitherto accepted symbol, then the symbol is dead, i.e., it possesses only an historical significance. We may still go on speaking of it as a symbol, on the tacit assumption that we are speaking of it as it was before the better expression was born out of it. […] For every esoteric interpretation the symbol is dead, because esotericism has already given it (at least ostensibly) a better expression, whereupon it becomes merely a conventional sign for associations that are more completely and better known elsewhere. Only for the exoteric standpoint is the symbol a living thing.”10

 

Giegerich is arguing that the human mind has moved on from the mythic past that Jung was trying to put in a strait-jacket. And Giegerich is also making the point that in the above quote Jung (for once) was showing that he understood such logic as Giegerich was espousing. But normally, Giegerich points out, Jung cannot accept this logic. However, Giegerich points out that the progress outweighs the loss.

“The death of a symbol, inasmuch as it amounts to the birth of the better formulation of what it is about, is […] by no means to be viewed as an intolerable catastrophe. It is a transformation that, to be sure, goes along with a loss, but is ultimately a gain, a progress, just as in the case of the transition from biological pregnancy to birth.”11

Giegerich goes onto say that macro mythical, grand narrative, traditional religion meaning-based phenomena is now dead for a great many people.

“For the “symbol” that we are talking about now is meaning as such, Meaning with a capital M; it is myth, the symbolic life, the imaginal, religion, the grand narratives – not this myth or religion or grand narrative nor this meaning, but myth or religion pure and simple, Meaning altogether.”12

Giegerich points out that Jung, like Nietzsche before him, and like “other thinkers of the 19th century” tried to overcome the loss of the pre-modern meaning. Giegerich argues (and this work accepts Giegerich’s assessment) that Jung divided his mind in two… a No1 consciousness that was rational, empirical and scientific. (Giegerich refers to this as Jung’s Kusnacht consciousness)14 and a No 2 mind that stores the mythical images and  then refuses to ever question them or reflect on them… hence they equate to Jung’s unconscious which Giegerich accuses Jung of (therefore) inventing.15 Giegerich refers to Jung’s No 2 mind as his “Bollingen” mind.16

“By virtue of having  been swallowed and thus deprived of the possibility to participate in the practice of the job of consciousness (reflection, rational examination, which is essentially public), the swallowed consciousness is ipso facto unconscious, while the swallowing mind, is, to be sure, consciousness in the narrower sense, but only an empty form, totally divorced from the contents it might entertain and on principle released from any intellectual responsibility for the unconscious images. The conscious mind is only the passive recipient of images from the unconscious.”17

 

Giegerich articulates the image of glass in a museum separating consciousness from the historical unconscious. We are not allowed to touch the treasures that lay out of our reach.18

 

“…the imaginal contents have already been released from religion and metaphysics; but by confining them in the unconscious, they are once and for all prevented from “growing up”: getting out and taking part in public intellectual life and being in turn affected by its transformations. Instead [Jung demands] the intellect has to take them as indisputable facts of nature, not as its own property and productions […] nor as something it is fully accountable for…

[…] Kronas as father creates a secondary, unnatural womb for his already-born children. The invention of the unconscious is likewise the device how modern consciousness as abstract form can be used for the purpose of serving as a protective womb for traditional knowledge and imitating a sense of in-ness.”19

Giegerich aptly describes Jung’s invention of the collective unconscious as a psychological process of “splitting and swallowing.”20

 

Giegerich expresses what Jung did excellently in the following passage. Referring to the contents of the invented Jungian collective unconscious Giegerich quotes Jung as saying “You must not allow your reason to play with” them.”21 Giegerich continues by saying that such a statement “betrays the total immunization of these contents from the point of view of the other, the intellect’s, side, because the intellect is devalued as “our playful intellect” and thus as per definitonem incompetent in matters of higher meaning:22 “Our intellect is absolutely incapable of understanding these things”23 [writes Jung]. […] But why does Jung restrict himself to this narrow-minded sense of “intellect”? This would by no means be necessary. It is his choice. Therefore, despite the form in which his statement is presented, one must not mistake it for an innocent statement of fact, a mere observation. It is rather a refusal or prohibition: “do not touch symbols with the intellect! The intellect shall be excluded on principle!”24

Given that “The intellect must not enter them [i.e. the contents of the collective unconscious] thinkingly […] This means that ultimately consciousness has to be in itself unconscious: both sides of the pair of opposites, consciousness and the unconscious, are together the unconscious.”25

 

“Thus the notion of the “unconscious” does not really mean a realm, region or agency in the psyche. It primarily is a label that declares the contents to which it is applied as fundamentally taboo, untouchable: inaccessible to conscious knowing and intellectual penetration. This label putsthem into a particular logical status, the status of irrevocable un-consciousness. It erects an unsurmountable, namely logical barrier [whereby…] consciousness is [merely] permitted to look at the “contents of the unconscious” through the glass pane…”26

 

So Jung often attached himself to the No 2 non-thinking imprisonment of the unconscious. Giegerich writes that he “could not break out into the open”27. He could not break out into the world where the action is: “the realm[s] of thought, culture, art, science, economics, etc.”28 Why was this? “Because then it would necessarily have become obvious (and he would have had to let himself in for the insight) that meaning, in-ness, myth are once and for all over. He would have had to enter modernity without reserve and allow man to be born […] But of course, the very purpose of his psychology project was to seal the spirit again in the bottle after its escape and to swallow the already born children…”29    

 

Giegerich says that “What at Bollingen are revelations from the unconscious […are] for the intellect of the Kusnacht Jung, simply proveable observed facts, facts sealed in “unconsciousness”, that is, in mindless factuality, in the prohibition to think them: the prohibition to allow the mind to be “infected” by them…”30

Giegerich takes issue with Jung’s claim that consciousness is a tiny island surrounded on all sides by a great sea of unconsciousness. Giegerich points out that this “had only become possible because Jung had systematically excluded major conscious and public

areas of modern reality”31 Jung couldn’t engage with the current and contemporary. He regarded much of that as “utterly banal”32 Hence, Giegerich rightly defines Jung as having created for himself “a decidedly pre-modern level of consciousness.”33

 

Chapter 2 Conclusion

 

In this work the emphasis is different from Jung’s. It is to seek out the new idea, to freshen up in order to widen and enrich consciousness, not allowing psychological energy to become suffocating and trapped. The point is to discover new areas where the psychological energy can flow into. This is done by a search for meaning. But not yesterdays meaning like Jung’s pre-modernism but for tomorrows meaning, palatable for the contemporary person. Because dead symbols are dead. One must look in areas consisting of symbols that are very much alive. And then one must get stuck in as opposed to treating the material as untouchable as Jung does with his main concepts. This maybe difficult but its rewarding.

Overall Conclusion

 

One has to have personal myth in life. Actors and actresses have this and they tend to love their work. They feel a participation mystique with their characters and the plots they are involved in/ It’s about non-literal script that is orientating yet never dangerous because of its non-literalism… its fictional nature. 

But of course, the material must be alive. Jung’s problem is that he dealt with dead symbols which put contemporary man and woman off because contemporary man and woman is not pre-modern and therefore is disinterested in alchemy, Gnosticism and other ancient institutions.

The contemporary person also has to live their personal myth. In other words the person mustn’t hide it away behind locked doors as Jung did with his pre-modern myths. 

 

 

Bibliography

 

Bishop, P, (1999) Jung in Contexts: A Reader (Routledge)

 

Eisendrath, P. Y, and Dawson, T, (1997) The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Cambridge University Press)

 

Farndon, J, et al, (2005) The Great Scientists (Arcturus Publishing Ltd)

 

Giegerich, W, The End of Meaning and the Birth of Man: An Essay about the state reached in the history of consciousness and an analysis of C. G. Jung’s psychology project (Website)

 

Jung, C, (1977) CW: Vol 18: The Symbolic Life: Miscellaneous Writings (Routledge)

 

Jung, C, (1992) CW: Vol 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (Routledge)

 

Jung, C, (1995) Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Recorded and Edited by Aniela Jaffe) (Fontana Press)

 

Jung, C & Jarret, J. L, (1988) Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar given in 1934 – 1939 (Princeton University Press)

 

Lavin, T, (2005) Professor C. A. Meier: Scientist and Healer of Souls – Part 2 (Website)

 

Nagy, M, (1991) Philosophical Issues in the Psychology of C. G. Jung (State University of New York Press)

 

Noll, R, (1997) The Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement (Touchstone)

 

Papadopoulos, R, (1992) CarlGustav Jung: Critical Assessments (Routledge)

 

Papadopoulos, R, (2006) The Handbook of Jungian Psychology: Theory, Practice and Applications (Psychology Press)

 

Shamdasani, S, (1998) Cult Fictions: C. G. Jung and the Founding of Analytical Psychology (Routledge)

 

Shamdasani, S, (1999) Is Analytical Psychology a Religion? In statu nascendi (Journal of Analytical Psychology)

 

Shamdasani, S, (2003) Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology: The Dream of a Science (Cambridge University Press)

 

Smith, R. C, (1996) The Wounded Jung: Effects of Jung’s Relationships on his Life and Work (Northwestern University Press)

 

Stevens, A, (1999) On Jung (Penguin Books)

 

Footnotes

Chapter 1

1: Lavin, T, 2005, points out that Jung originally referred to his work as Complex Psychology and that a very close colleague of Jung’s, Professor C. A. Meier continued to do so even after Jung’s other close colleagues began to refer to his work as Analytical Psychology.

 

2: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T, 1997,  p17-35

 

3: Shamdasani, S, 2003

 

4: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T,  1997, p17

 

5: ibid

 

6: In his book, “Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology: The Dream of a Science” Jung historian, Sonu Shamdasani, discusses a debate between Jung and E. A. Bennet. The debate is about the scientific credentials of Jung’s psychology. Jung claims that his psychology is scientific because of its applicability. Jung could not see any more applicable theories anywhere else. What Jung meant by applicability was “its application as a principle of understanding and a heuristic means to an end as it is characteristic of each scientific theory.” (Jung C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p98)

Jung’s view was that a theory had to offer a satisfactory explanation that makes sense of life. That, for Jung, is the true quality of a theory. And it had to have a heuristic value in order to be whole. If it failed to be heuristic it would be one-sided. And for Jung, no matter how true a one-sided viewpoint is, it remains incomplete. Furthermore in the same debate with Bennet, Jung argued that it isn’t good enough to argue that psychic facts should be analogous to chemical or physical proof. How one proves something has to take into account the discipline that they are dealing with. Hence Jung argued “the question ought to be formulated: what is physical, biological, psychological, legal and philosophical evidence?” (Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p99). So Jung argued that there was an Anglo-Saxon bias on what was deemed to be scientific, again referring to physics and chemistry. Moreover, “psyche is the mother of all our attempts to understand Nature, but in contradistinction to all others it tries to understand itself by itself, a great disadvantage in one way and an equally great prerogative in the other!” (ibid)

 

7: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y, & Dawson, T, 1997, p19

 

8: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T, 1997, p27

 

9: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T, 1997, p19

 

10: Jung, C, 1995, p87

 

11: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T, 1997, p21

 

12: ibid

 

13: ibid

 

14: Jung said this about all ideas, fearingthat otherwise they would become dogmatic. For example, he said it about Christianity; see Jung, C, 1977, p736, par. 1665 & 1666

 

15: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T, 1997, p22

 

16: Jung, C, 1977, p213, par. 485

 

17: Shamdasani, S,  2003, p235

 

18: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p236

 

19:  Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p236

 

20: Nagy, M, 1991, p37

 

21: Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p198

 

22: ibid

 

23: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p199

 

24: ibid

 

25: Jung, C, 1995, p107, 123, 232

 

26: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y, & Dawson, T, 1997, p23

 

27: Hauke, C, in Papadopoulos, R, 2006, p71

 

28: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p164 & 165

 

29: Jung, C, 1995, p193

 

30: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p165

31: Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p165

 

32: Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p165 & 166

 

33: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p166

 

34: Jung, C, & Jarret, J. L, 1988

 

35: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y, & Dawson, T, 1997, p 25

 

36: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p251

 

37: Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p251

 

38: Shamdasani, S, 1999, p540

 

39: ibid

 

40: ibid

 

41: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y, & Dawson, T, 1997, p27 & 28

 

42: Jung, C, 1995, p120

 

43: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y, & Dawson, T, 1997, p28

 

44: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y, & Dawson, T, 1997, p26

 

45: See for example his essay titled From Somnambulism to the Archetypes: The French Roots of Jung’s split with Freud:  Haule, J. R, in Bishop, P, 1999, p242–264

 

46: Jung, C,  1995, p192 & 193

 

47: Winnicott, D, in Papadopoulos, R, 1992, p320

 

48: Fordham, M, in Smith, R. C, 1996, p22

 

49: Stevens, A, 1999, p111

 

50: Stevens, A, 1999, p112

 

51: ibid

 

52: The following is extracted from Farndon, J, et al (2005) The Great Scientists (Arcturus Publishing Ltd) and is quoted here because it demonstrates through an example, the Jungian principle of compensation: Issac Newton’s “father was already dead by the time Newton was born. When he was just 18 months old, his poor widowed mother married a wealthy old local minister […] but left the infant Issac with his grandparents. It may be that Issac never recovered from his early abandonment. Even though his mother returned home to her son when her new husband died seven years later, Issac later confessed that he remembered ‘threatening my (step) father and mother to burn them and their house over them.’ Throughout his life, Newton carried a terrible suppressed anger and sense of resentment that made him a very difficult man to deal with.

The introverted Issac went to school at the age of 12 but showed no signs of any intellectual prowess until he was bullied one day at school. In a towering rage the young Newton fought back until his larger opponent was a quivering wreck. But Newton did not stop there. He was determined to humiliate his opponent in the classroom too. Soon Newton became deeply involved in his academic pursuits, especially science, and amazed the locals with such things as handmade water clocks and flying lanterns.”  (Farndon, J, et al, 2005, p59 & 60). Newton went on to make his great “discoveries” of “the law of gravity and the laws of motion.” (Farndon, J, et al, 2005, p61)

 

53: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T, 1997, p29

 

54: ibid

 

55: Jung, C, 1995, p231

 

56: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p27

 

57: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p17

 

58: Nagy, M,  1991 p22

 

Chapter 2

 

1: Jung, C, 1995, p231

 

2: ibid

 

3: Giegerich, W, quoted by Marlan, S, in Papadopoulos, R, 2006, p287

 

4: Marlan, S, on Giegerich, W, in Papadopoulos, R, 2006, p287

 

5: Jung, C, 1992, par 192, p114

 

6: Noll, R, 1997

 

7: Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 1998, p10

 

8: Giegerich, W, p58

 

9: Giegerich, W, p2

 

10: Giegerich, W, p11

 

11: ibid

 

12: Giegerich, W, p12

 

13: Giegerich, W, p32

 

14: Giegerich, W, p46

 

15: Giegerich, W,  p34

 

16: Giegerich, W, p46

 

17: Giegerich, W, p33 & 34

 

18: Giegerich, W, p34

 

19: ibid

20: ibid

21: Jung, C, in Giegerich, W, p35

22: Giegerich, W, p35

23: Jung, C, in Giegerich, W, p35

24: Giegerich, W, p35

25: ibid

26: Giegerich, W, p36

27: Giegerich, W, p42

28: ibid

29: ibid

30: Giegerich, W, p30

31: Giegerich, W, p52

32: Jung, C, in Giegerich, W, p58

33: Giegerich, W, p58

About the Author

Nintendo Co – The Opinion Leader to

 

In the end of 2009, Nintendo ushered in his 120 birthday, and at this time, he designated the market value of 850 billion dollars. Britney Spears Adore Also, it became the fourth largest company in Japan, just behind the Toyota, Nippon Telegraph & Telephone and Mizuho Corporate Bank Of China, Ltd. This 120-year-old [elderly” has every reason to lead the market. Its previous rival Sony ranked No.23 in the overall ranking of Japanese companies.Women in Perth all Show Affection to to Wear R4 Card

It might be difficult to imagine that 10 years ago, the order of this pair of “old” enemies entirely not like that. Nintendo almost went bankrupt, even there are not software developers develop the games for its N64 game machine. When Nintendo was still engrossed in the theory of game card, Sony became the overlord in the home-use game machine market because of the success of PS and PS2.Fashion of Ak2i 1.4

Looking back at its past success, it introduced NES in the last 70s as the first manufacturer to bring video game into families. DSTTi Cards are in the First Place in the List of Most Wanted Finds in 2009 In the game industry, FC meant the same as Nintendo. However, at the very beginning of this century, the situation totally changed. Nintendo became the representative of “old, conservative, lack of creation”. And the maufactures on behalf of Sony and Microsoft was great on the market because of their creations. There is denying that for Nintendo, it has always cherished the bottom line is stick to tradition and cherishes a fixed group of consumers as well as the market place has been made by it. This is almost unanimously characteristic of Japanese enterprise, also once booster Japanese enterprises had been successful.Look Great With EZ flash vi dsi on New Year’s Day

However, time is different, and this character is more suitable for luxury goods industry, while not the high-tech fields which advocates innovation. The bottom line, stick is nintendo into a chronic suicide. Satoru lwata, the current Nintendo CEO, led Nintendo out of the predicament. In 2008, in “Barron’s” selection of the world’s 50 best CEO, Lwata came in the first one. The contribution of Satoru Lwata was that he led this company to develop NDS which brought the fight for the market for domestic game consoles into handheld times. Of course, Wii – new benchmark of the game industry, the professional player groups no longer be the sole objective of Nintendo, the game sales object also include the elderly, including housewives and even professional managers.

The miracle created by Wii shocked everyone. Some people are even willing to give up a wonderful beach stroll, but to play Wii with his family together for more than two hours. Now, Wii shipments is sulphide of the same period of the Xbox 360 and PS3, PSP and the NDS is a double times for the same period of PSP, innovative will bring the vitality for this 120 years of “old tree”. The development of Nintendo is just like the super Mario, a character in a game. It has gone through numerous dangers until it gets upgraded.

About the Author

my  Nintendo

How do you order coffee in Zurich?

So, I just found out that I’m going to spend a week in Zurich this summer! Yay!
But, I don’t speak German. Just a little french. And English, of course.
I would like to know the phrases for ordering coffee.
How do you say things like:
I would like a latte/mocha
Nonfat
medium/grande/16 oz

And just other stuff like that.

The first answerer is correct, we don’t know such fancy stuff here – except at Starbucks, where you get it for a far oversized price. Anyhow, to order a coffee in Zurich the way aboriginies like me would do it, you say: “Einen Kaffee crème, bitte” (a coffee with cream – always a cup, not a mug, refills are unknown) or “Einen Espresso, bitte” (obviousely an espresso).

Don’t be afraid to order in English, if you speak slowly, you’ll be mostly understood anyway as younger folks learn this language at school now.

The History Of Austrian Airlines At Jfk

1. Austrian Airlines’ Origins 

Austrian Airline’s genesis can be traced back to March 20, 1918, at which time the Austrian Postal Administration had inaugurated daily scheduled mail service from Vienna to Kiew with intermediate stops in Krakow, Lwow, and Proskurow, a route whose average stage length had been 250 kilometers.  When space had permitted, passengers had also been carried.  The highly successful, punctual service was later extended from Proskurow to Odessa and from Vienna to Budapest.  However, a flight prohibition, implemented at the end of World War I, had resulted in its termination.

When the ban had finally been lifted, Austria subsequently reentered the civil aviation market by founding the Oesterreichische Luftverkehrs AG (OELAG) on May 12, 1923 with an initial one million Crown investment financed by Junkers, a German aircraft manufacturer (49 percent), and various Austrian shareholders (51 percent).  Commencing scheduled service from Munich to Vienna some two days later, it had utilized a Junkers F.13, a single-engined, low-wing monoplane which had featured an enclosed cockpit and passenger cabin and had rested on a tail wheel.  OELAG eventually operated several versions of this rugged, but (then) modern design, and increasing demand had soon necessitated larger aircraft, the first of which had been a higher-capacity, tri-engined Junkers G.24 delivered in 1927 and the second of which had been the more advanced G.31, delivered the following year.  Perhaps the ultimate design had been the Junkers Ju.52/3m, a tri-engined, 18-passenger airliner with a gross weight of 24,000 pounds and a cruise speed in excess of 150 mph, which had joined the fleet in 1936.  Most major East and West European flag carriers had also operated the type at this time. 

By the following year, OELAG’s route system had radiated to Athens, Belgrade, Berlin, London, Paris, Prague, Rome, and Zurich, in addition to incorporating several Austrian domestic destinations, with much of the service daily.  It eventually became the fourth largest European carrier after Lufthansa, KLM, and Air France, with 975,840 weekly seat-kilometers.  Coincident with OELAG’s growth had been the completion of five Austrian airports–namely, Graz, Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Salzburg, and Vienna.

When Austria had been absorbed into the Third Reich in 1938, OELAG had been incorporated into Deutsche Luft Hansa (DLH).  Nevertheless, it had flown 120,000 passengers 7.5 million kilometers without fatality during its reign. 

2. Initial Growth 

When World War II had ended, Austria, now independent, had signed the Peace Treaty with all four occupying powers in 1955, and had once again sought to enter the civil aviation field by forming a flag carrier.  Two such national airlines were actually proposed: Air Austria, formed by the Austrian People’s Party and capitalized by KLM and later Fred Olsen, a Norwegian charter company, and Austrian Airways, formed by the Austrian Socialist Party and financially supported by SAS.  Neither ever flew and the two were eventually combined on September 30, 1957 to form an integrated company with an initial AUS 60 million investment which adopted, Phoenix-like, its pre-war name of Oesterreichische Luftverkehrs AG, but whose English equivalent of “Austrian Airlines” had now been used.  The airline had thus been born.

Ownership had encompassed Austrian private investors, at 42 percent; public enterprises, at 28 percent; SAS, at 15 percent; and Fred Olsen, at 15 percent.  Austrian inaugurated scheduled service on March 31, 1958 after a 20-year suspension with four leased Vickers V.779 Viscounts, a medium-capacity, four-engined turboprop airliner designed in Great Britain and initially deployed over the Vienna-Zurich-London route.  Austrian had finally returned to the sky.

Growth proceeded rapidly and, in 1960, it took delivery of the first of four larger-capacity, stretched Vickers V.837 Viscounts, which it inaugurated into service on May 23, and the following year it received the Vickers V.845 Viscount for slightly lower-capacity routes.  Both British turboprops provided reliable, economical service, the V.837 not being retired until 1971.  The Douglas DC-3, the best-selling civil airliner of all time, had also been acquired at this time and had enabled Austrian to inaugurate domestic services on May 1, 1963, a route which would later be served by Austrian Air Services.  This aircraft was replaced by the more advanced, larger-capacity, turboprop-powered Hawker Siddeley HS.748-2 in 1966, another British design.

Austrian Airlines entered the jet age on February 20, 1963 when it inaugurated the first of five Sud-Aviation SE.210-VIR Caravelle twin-jets into service and set the stage for its eventual strategy of operating short- to medium-range, low- to medium-capacity, t-tailed twin-jets on a predominantly European (and later North African and Middle Eastern) route structure.  Designed in France, the Caravelle was quiet, cruised above the weather, and reduced flying times between European capitals, and had, in fact, been the first design to permit economical, short-range, pure-jet service. 

3. Transatlantic Experiment               

Contrary to most European flag carriers, which had operated transatlantic service to the United Stares and Canada with quad-engined DC-4s since World War II, Austrian Airlines had maintained its medium-range route system until April 1, 1969.  It had been at this time that it had stretched its wings across the Atlantic with a large-capacity, intercontinental Boeing 707-320, registered OE-LBA and chartered from Sabena Belgian World Airways, which had been deployed on the Vienna-New York route with an intermediate stop in Brussels.  This so-called “transatlantic experiment,” despite Austrian’s delay in launching it, had ultimately proven both a premature and financially unsound one for two primary reasons:

1. The home market had still been too small.

2. Vienna-Schwechat had been insufficiently developed as a hub, providing few connecting flights to which this transatlantic service could transfer passengers.

Resultantly, after a two-year trial, the 707 had been returned to Sabena on March 31, 1971, leaving Austrian once again to concentrate on its primarily continental route system for which nine short-to medium-range, low-capacity McDonnell-Douglas DC-9-30s had been ordered.

Similar in overall design to the Caravelle, but manufactured in the United States, the t-tailed jetliner offered a slightly higher passenger capacity, greater payload capability, a higher gross weight, more powerful engines, and improved economy, and with it Austrian entered a new era which would span almost two decades.  It had later described this design as “the start of something big, classical and still modern.”  The first DC-9-30 had been delivered on June 19, 1971 and the type soon proved to be the mainstay of its fleet.

In 1974, Austrian leased a McDonnell-Douglas DC-8-63F, registered OE-IBO, from Overseas National Airways (ONA) for cargo services to Hong Kong, but these were later discontinued.  Other than the 707-320, the DC-8-63F was its only other large-capacity, long-range, quad-engined jet.

So versatile and popular had the DC-9 design proven itself to be, that Austrian later ordered five stretched, higher-capacity DC-9-50s.  The first of these had been delivered on September 14, 1975.

That these twin-engined aircraft and the discontinuation of its transatlantic service were proper strategies for the Austrian national carrier had been reflected by its positive growth.  On June 26, 1974, for example, a new maintenance base had been opened at Schwechat International Airport-Vienna.  Its value had also continued to swell: in 1967 its share capital had increased by AUS 140 million to AUS 290 million.  In 1969, it had further increased to 390 million.  And in 1962 it had reached the one billion mark.  During each of the three years, from 1972 to 1974, it had posted a profit.  Its route system had equally expanded: in 1976, Austrian had stretched its wings to Cairo in the Middle East and to Stockholm and Helsinki in Scandinavia.

Demand, soon outpacing capacity, had necessitated an initial order for eight McDonnell-Douglas DC-9-80s to replace its existing DC-9-50s.  Also designated DC-9 Super 80, this aircraft had been a more modernized version of the previous –50 series variant for medium-range deployment and featured a further fuselage stretch for still higher capacity and refanned, higher-thrust, and more fuel-efficient Pratt and Whitney JT8D-209 engines.  Austrian, which shared the distinction of being launch customer for the design with Swissair, inaugurated the first elongated DC-9-81 into service on October 26, 1980 on the Vienna-Zurich route with aircraft OE-LDR “Wien.”  The twin-jet was later redesignated MD-81 and quickly became the short- to medium-range workhorse of its fleet.

New additions to its ever-expanding route system included Larnaca in 1979; Jeddah, also in 1979; and Tripoli in 1981.

Another 1980 milestone had been the foundation of Austrian Air Services (AAS), which would eventually become a wholly-owned subsidiary, to operate Austrian domestic routes with two 19-passenger, twin-turboprop Fairchild Swearingen Metro II commuter aircraft.  The first such service had been operated on April 1.

Austrian plied smooth skies.  Indeed, its 1980 balance sheet had indicated a AUS 71.5 million net profit, its tenth consecutive one.

The MD-81, intemittently proving itself to be as optimally suited to its route system as the twin-jet SE.210-VIR, the DC-9-30, and the DC-9-50 had been, was followed by its shorter-fuselage derivative, the MD-87, which Austrian ordered on December 19, 1984 for lower-capacity route sectors, and the Austrian Air Services fleet was equally upgraded with the addition of two 50-passenger Fokker F.50 twin-turboprops which were ordered on September 25 of the following year. 

4. Transatlantic Return 

Operating a modern, fuel-efficient fleet over an expanding route system and carrying almost 1.5 million passengers in 1986, Austrian once again contemplated intercontinental service, now both to New York in the west and to Tokyo in the east, and toward this end it had converted its previous order for two medium-range Airbus Industrie A-310-200s to the long-range A-310-300 version on June 25, 1986.  Austrian had signed the original memorandum of understanding for the A-310-200s as far back as April 18, 1979, a date which was to prove a full decade before the service would actually get off the ground.  Three factors could be cited as to why the time may have been ripe for a relaunching of this service:

1. In the 15-year interval since the last intercontinental service had been terminated, the home market had considerably grown, a fact demonstrated by the prevailing increases in nonstop US-Vienna service, provided by Pan Am, Royal Jordanian, and Tarom from New York, and by American from Chicago.

2. Its route structure in general equally offered excellent connections to West European, North African, and Middle Eastern destinations.

3. The A-310 had thus enabled long, thin routes such as Lyon-New York with Air France, Frankfurt-Newark with Lufthansa, Istanbul-New York with THY, and New York-Stockholm with Pan Am to have been served.

The decision to reinstate intercontinental service, scheduled for the spring of 1989, had officially been made two years earlier, on June 25, 1987, and would be operated by two Pratt and Whitney-powered A-310-300s which would serve the Vienna-New York and Vienna-Moscow-Tokyo routes, the latter in cooperation with Aeroflot and ANA All-Nippon Airways.  These services had been predicted to have depended upon the connecting passenger for profitability.  On the New York route, for example, a 66-percent, break-even load factor had been needed during the first year of operation, primarily comprised of US-originating, Austria-originating, and connecting passengers.  Both routes had relied on the lucrative, high-yield, frequent business traveler who had been unable to take advantage of the lower, restricted fares.  Austrian Airlines would offer a first class cabin on its A-310-300s for the first time in its history.

The first aircraft, registered OE-LAA “New York,” had been delivered on December 22, 1988, and the second, OE-LAB “Tokyo,” had followed in January.  The aircraft had constituted the airline’s first widebody, twin-aisle type.

Austrian had returned to the transatlantic US market on Easter Sunday, March 26, 1989, when two smoke puffs had signaled the touchdown of the red-white-red liveried widebody twin-jet, configured for 12 first class, 37 business class, and 123 economy class passengers, at JFK amid warm spring weather.  After a brief turn-around, the aircraft, operating as Flight OS 502 and piloted by Captain Braeuer and First Officer Kutzenberger, had been tug-maneuvered away from the gate at 1900 with 121 passengers, who would be served by nine cabin attendants, and took off into the deep purple dusk at a take off weight of 153,603 kilos, 40,300 of which had been fuel required for the Atlantic crossing.  The flight had been 18 years in the making.

Airport, reservations, sales, and marketing staff had subsequently gathered in the Icelandair Saga Lounge used by its business class passengers for a celebratory drink and a group photograph.

The Tokyo route had been opened in the summer and the A-310, to become Austrian’s intercontinental widebody, had served it for more than a decade, operating to multiple US, African, and Far Eastern destinations with four aircraft in a final two-class seat configuration registered as follows:

1. OE-LAA

2. OE-LAB

3. OE-LAC

4. OE-LAD

By the summer of 1989, Austrian Airlines had served 54 cities in 36 countries in the United States, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Japan with a total route length of 100,358 unduplicated kilometers. These services had been operated by 26 aircraft comprised of the Fokker F.50, the McDonnell-Douglas MD-81/82/83/87, and the Airbus A-310-300 whose average age had then been four years and had been describable as follows:

1. Airbus A-310-300: A long-range, medium-capacity, wide-body, twin-aisle, twin-engine jet airliner–Austrian Airlines’ intercontinental jet.  Austrian Airlines had dubbed it an “intercontinental European.”

2. McDonnell-Douglas MD-81: A medium-range, medium-capacity, narrow-body, single-aisle, twin-engine jet airliner–Austrian Airline’s European, North African, and Middle Eastern workhorse.  Austrian Airlines had described it as a “universal medium-haul airliner and the mainstay of its fleet.”

3. McDonnell-Douglas MD-82: The carrier had ordered the variant “for special-duty scheduled and charter services.”

4. McDonnell-Douglas MD-87: The short-fuselaged, lower-capacity version had been “tailor-made to its needs in capacity and range.”

5. Fokker F.50: A short- and regional-range, low-capacity, narrow-body, single-aisle, twin-engine turboprop airliner operated by Austrian Airline’s Austrian Air Services subsidiary on domestic and select long, thin international routes.  Austrian Airlines had considered it “a propjet specialist in city-hopping.”

In addition to Austrian Air Services, Austrian Airlines owned 80 percent of Austrian Air Transport (AAT), which operated worldwide charter and inclusive tour (IT) flights with both Austrian Airlines and Austrian Air Services aircraft, having carried 506,000 passengers in 1988.  It also maintained a close marketing agreement with Tyrolean Airways which operated services from Innsbruck with 37-passenger de Havilland of Canada DHC-8-100s and 50-passenger DHC-7-100s.

5. JFK Station Evolution 

Initial training, held at Austrian Airlines’ North American headquarters in Whitestone, New York, and taught by Peter “Luigi” Huebner, commenced on February 6, 1989, or some six weeks before the inaugural flight, and had included the “Passenger Handling I” and “Adios Check-In” courses.

Austrian Airlines’ first JFK location, the East Wing of the no-longer-existent International Arrivals Building, had shared facilities with Icelandair, including five Austrian-specific check-in counters and the jointly-used Icelandair Saga Lounge, the former equipped with computers, automated boarding pass printers, and laser-scannable baggage tag printers.  The ground staff, entirely employed and trained by Austrian and outfitted in its uniform, had performed the full spectrum of functions: Passenger Service, Ticket Sales, Lost-and-Found, Load Control, Administration, Supervision, and Management.

However, the success of the operation relied upon the equipment which had serviced it and it had been the decision of Airbus Industrie to scale-down its full-size A-300 which had resulted in the A-310-300 and had made the reinstated transatlantic operation possible.  Its long-range, twin-engine, wide body design, of concurrent technology, had offered the same range and twin-aisle comfort to the passenger as the comparable quad-engined 747 or the tri-engined DC-10 or L-1011, yet at the same time had been a quiet, fuel-efficient aircraft with a small enough capacity to permit profitable, year-round operations.  The larger 747, DC-10, or L-1011 would have, because of market size, been forced to operate at a loss for most of the year except during the peak summer travel season.  Any of the other then long-range aircraft, inclusive of the Boeing 707 and the McDonnell-Douglas DC-8, had featured older-generation, fuel-thirsty, noise-emissive, four-engined technology of early-1960s design which, because of newly enforced Stage 2 noise requirements, would have been banned from US operation unless they had been hush-kitted or altogether engine-retrofitted.  It had been because of the very A-310 that Austrian Airlines and other smaller European carriers like it had been able to profitably operate the long, thin Vienna-New York route sector. 

The initial 1989 timetable had offered six weekly frequencies during the summer and five in the winter, at which time two A-310-300s had operated both transatlantically to New York and to the Far East, via Moscow, to Tokyo.  They alternatively flew the longer-range sectors to Tel Aviv, Istanbul, and Teheran.  During the first six months of JFK operations, an aircraft had never experienced an excessive delay because of aircraft scheduling and on-time performance had been exemplary.

In-flight service had represented a large portion of an airline’s expenditure.  As a result, many of the carriers had begun to reduce this in order to decrease costs.  Austrian Airlines, however, remained unique in a world aloft reduced to snacks and paper cups by providing printed menus, amenity kits, china service, complimentary alcoholic beverages, and free earphones in the coach cabin on the Vienna-New York and New York-Vienna route, a concept which had placed its product at the very top of the quality list.

Because of the size of the A-310, however, lower-deck cargo space had been limited, with the forward hold usually accommodating the baggage unit load devices (ULDs) and the aft hold accommodating the cargo itself, which had often been restricted to two pallets and a single AKE unit.

There had always been a certain “prestige” to flying to New York.  Although the number of annual passengers entering the United States through JFK had begun to decline as an increasing number of alternative US gateways had become available, it had still been the largest entry point.  New York had therefore remained the most logical destination for a small carrier which had only served a single US city.  Because JFK had handled 1990 traffic with a (then) insufficiently sized, outmoded 1950s International Arrivals Building facility, the operation often suffered service deteriorations, particularly during peak arrival times when it had became very strained, entailing delays during taxi and subsequent immigration, luggage retrieval, and customs formalities.  The saturated air traffic conditions stretching from Boston to Washington through which the aircraft had to fly; the subsequently dense approach pattern formed by JFK, La Guardia, and Newark International Airports; and the final difficulty in obtaining a landing slot equally impacted operations.  Passengers had often underestimated the time required to complete arrival processing after actually leaving the aircraft.  It had, however, been this environment that Austrian Airlines had chosen when it had elected to partake of the “New York experience.” 

Although these negative facets of the operation had sometimes placed it in a poor light, it had, in fact, been JFK’s operations, and not Austrian’s, which had been observed, since all carriers operating into JFK had fallen victim to these ills, and because of them, an extensive renovation and rebuilding project, designated “JFK 2000,” had at this time been launched, which would ultimately lead to the construction or renovation of almost every terminal, new parking garages, and an inter-airport light rail system.

Although New York-Vienna load factors had initially been low, these had steadily increased until the vast majority of flights had been full.  Large tour groups had constituted an increasing portion of the passenger mixture, along with the anticipated connecting passenger, who had been able to take advantage of the expanding Vienna hub.  It had been the ultimate testament to a carrier when a passenger had chosen to fly with it and make a connection at its intermediate hub as opposed to flying nonstop with a national carrier.

As a “second attempt” across the Atlantic, Austrian Airline’s intercontinental A-310 service to New York had ultimately proven successful.

With the acquisition of its third A-310-300, registered OE-LAC, Austrian Airlines had striven to serve a second US gateway in the spring of 1991 and had wished to establish a presence on the West Coast, specifically in Los Angeles, but the A-310-300’s 11-hour flight duration had precluded this reality.  Chicago had been alternatively considered, but American’s own nonstop Boeing 767-200ER service to Vienna from Chicago-O’Hare, where it had established its second largest hub, had proven too competitive and Washington-Dulles had therefore been chosen instead.

For the European continental network, a higher gross weight McDonnell-Douglas MD-83 had been scheduled for 1991 delivery and several of the existing MD-81s had been slated for conversion to this standard, thus permitting increased range and/or payload capability.  Two further Fokker F.50s had also been on order or option to facilitate increased domestic and long, thin international service.

During the five-year period, from 1989 to 1994, Austrian Airlines had operated independently at JFK, offering as few as four weekly departures during the winter and as many as seven during the summer. 

6. Delta Air Lines Code Share 

Changing market conditions had necessitated modified strategies at JFK.  Seeking to align itself with a US domestic carrier in order to obtain vital “feed” to its transatlantic flights it had been unable to achieve on its own, Austrian Airlines had concluded a marketing agreement with Delta Air Lines in 1994, in which it would place its two-letter “OS” code on Delta-operated flights, while Delta itself would reciprocally place its two-letter “DL” code on Austrian’s services.  Two Delta flight attendants, in their own uniforms, had initially also served in the cabins of Austrian’s A-310s to and from Vienna.

Although the concept had slowly reaped financial benefit, the aircraft had ultimately achieved high load factors, carrying both Austrian and Delta passengers from some two dozen US cities through New York to Vienna, often with beyond-travel.

In order to reduce ground-handling costs and attain synergistic, inter-carrier benefits, Austrian Airlines had relocated its operations to Delta Terminal 1A (later redesignated Terminal 2) on July 1, 1994, retaining only nine of its original 21 staff members.  Delta Air Lines, the newly-designated ground-handling carrier, had performed arrivals, lost-and-found, passenger check-in, departure gate, ramp, and baggage room functions, while Austrian itself had continued to act within the ticketing, load control, administration, supervision, and management capacities.

Also in 1994, Austrian had taken delivery of the first of two long-range, quad-engined A-340-200s configured for 36 business class and 227 economy class passengers.  The two aircraft, which would periodically serve New York throughout the next decade, appeared with the following registrations:

1. OE-LAG

2. OE-LAH

From February 1997 to February 1998, Austrian also relocated its check-in counters and operational office to Delta Terminal 3, but otherwise operated within the same marketing framework.

1997 also marked the first time that the transatlantic route to New York had sufficiently matured to support a second departure on selected days during the summer timetable, with the aircraft arriving at 2045 and redeparting at 2205.  Usually operated by aircraft OE-LAC, an A-310 with a reduced-capacity business, but higher-capacity economy class section, the late flight had fostered better connections with the midday bank of departures from Vienna. 

7. Atlantic Excellence 

Once again yielding to airline deregulation-necessitated realignment and endeavoring to further attain cost-reducing synergies, Austrian Airlines had integrated its JFK operations with Sabena and Swissair on March 1, 1998 under the Atlantic Excellence Alliance, forming the first tri-carrier station.  Although the employees of the three carriers had continued to wear their respective uniforms, they had operated from single passenger service and load control offices, utilizing a joint Austrian, Sabena, and Swissair check-in facility, and equally handled each other’s flights.  During the peak summer season, seven daily departures operated by four airlines had been offered.

The Atlantic Excellence station had been comprised of eight functions, including Control, Arrivals, Departures, VIP/Special Services, Ticketing, Load Control, Ramp Supervision, and Trouble Shooting.  Because Swissair had already been contracted to provide Malev-Hungarian Airlines’ load sheet services, the Load Control function itself had entailed handling some six aircraft types, inclusive of the 747, the A-340, the MD-11, the A-330, the 767, and the A-310, and the Atlantic Excellence integration had often required inter-carrier training courses.

As had singularly occurred with Austrian Airlines, Delta had equally concluded reciprocal two-letter code-share agreements with Sabena and Swissair, but now took the former marketing arrangement to full alliance status at Delta’s significantly-maturing New York-JFK flight hub.  Delta continued to provide the ramp and baggage room functions for all three Atlantic Excellence airlines.

In August of that year, Austrian had taken delivery of the first of four longer-range, higher-capacity A-330-200s, registered OE-LAM and configured for 30 business and 235 economy class passengers, and the type had ultimately replaced the workhorse A-310-300 fleet.  The four aircraft, later operating with a reduced business class capacity of 24 when the Grand Class concept had been introduced, had included the following registrations:

1. OE-LAM

2. OE-LAN

3. OE-LAO

4. OE-LAP

During the summer timetable of 1998, JFK had fielded its first dual-aircraft type operation, with the first departure standardly operated by the A-330 and the second by the A-310. 

8. Star Alliance 

Although an ultimate “Swissport Solution,” under which all Atlantic Excellence JFK ground staff would be transferred to the ground-handling company, had been envisioned, the eventuality had never played out.  Rumors, rumbling through the station like the gentle forewarnings of a pending storm, had pervaded the atmosphere by mid-1999.  A new strategy seemed to loom on the horizon and its seeds, planted long before it had bloomed, had been multi-faceted and omni-encompassing.

1. In June of 1999, Delta Air Lines and Air France had formed the fundamental basis of a new global alliance, later named SkyTeam, thus dissolving the 25-month Austrian/Delta/Sabena/Swissair Atlantic Excellence Alliance whose agreement, without renegotiation, would have expired in August of 2000.

2. Despite an agreed investment limitation of 10%, Swissair had nevertheless attempted to purchase additional Austrian Airlines stock, precluding Austrian’s goal of autonomous identity and independent ownership and forcing it to withdraw from the Swissair-led Qualiflyer Alliance of European carriers.

3. Swissair and Sabena had formed a combined commercial management structure, which again had proven contrary to Austrian Airlines’ independent direction.

4. In early 2000, both Sabena and Swissair had concluded a code-share cooperation agreement with American Airlines, a US airline-alignment counter to Austrian Airlines’ US feed strategy.

Austrian Airlines, a small, but profitable international carrier of considerable quality, had nevertheless needed the reach of a global alliance to remain financially viable and thus concluded a membership agreement with the Lufthansa- and United-led Star Alliance, which had become effective on March 26, 2000.  Still the largest and longest-running alliance, it had then been comprised of Air Canada, Air New Zealand, All Nippon, Ansett Australia, Austrian Airlines, British Midland, Lauda Air, Lufthansa, Mexicana, SAS, Thai Airways International, Tyrolean, United, and Varig, and had collectively carried 23-percent of the world’s passenger traffic.  At the same time, the decision had permitted continued independent identity and autonomous operation, yet expansion potential for both the airline and its Vienna hub.  Expressed as a sentiment, the decision could be stated as, “Here we grow again!”

The transition from the Atlantic Excellence to the Star Alliance, having commenced as early as January 2000, had entailed four integral changes:

1. An entirely new IT (information technology) system and frequent flier program.

2. The operational relocation to a new terminal, passenger service office, passenger check-in counter, load control-aircraft dispatch center, and gate at JFK.

3. New alliance airline code-share flights and traffic feed had resulted in the closing of the Atlanta station and the subsequent opening of the Chicago and reopening of the Washington stations in the US.

4. The company-wide migration training in Oberlaa, Austria.

Star Alliance membership, once again entailing a relocation to Terminal One at JFK, had prompted another handling carrier change, from Delta to Lufthansa, which had now performed the Baggage Services and Passenger Check-In functions, while Austrian itself had continued to act in the capacities of Arrivals, Ticketing, Load Control, Ramp Supervision, and Management.  Under a reciprocal agreement, it had also provided these passenger services to Lufthansa for its own Frankfurt departures during non-operational hours.  Aircraft loading and baggage room functions had been provided by Hudson General, which had later been renamed GlobeGround North America.

In a further cost-reduction strategy, Austrian Airlines had relocated to a smaller, lower-rent Passenger Service office on the ground floor of Terminal One in September 2002, at which time the Load Control/Ramp Supervision function had been awarded to Lufthansa.  No longer serving Lufthansa’s flights, the Austrian staff had been further reduced to six full-time and two part-time positions and the daily shift hours had decreased from nine to eight.

Austrian’s largest-capacity aircraft, the A-340-300–accommodating 30 business class and 261 economy class passengers–had intermittently also provided service to JFK, particularly during the summer 2002 timetable when a late Saturday departure had been scheduled.  Two such aircraft had then been in the fleet:

1. OE-LAK

2. OE-LAL 

9. Swissport USA 

The consistent thrust to reduce costs had resulted in yet another handling-company change at JFK on January 1, 2003, when most of the ground services had been transferred from Lufthansa to Swissport USA.

In preparation for the change, the Swissport passenger service staff had attended the Guide Check-In course in Vienna in December 2002, while one Swissport agent, who had structured the Baggage Services department, had attended the World Tracer Basic course in October of the following year.

Outfitted in Austrian Airlines uniforms, the Swissport staff had performed the Arrivals, Lost-and-Found, Passenger Check-In, Departure Gate, Load Control, and Ramp Supervision functions, while Austrian itself had continued to provide Ticket Sales, Administration, Supervision, and Management services.  Load control, which had initially been performed in Terminal 4 using the Swissair DCS system, had been transferred to Terminal One and the Lufthansa-WAB system after the Swissport operations personnel had completed a computerized load control course in Vienna that March. 

10. North American Station Training Program               

Because most of the Swissport agents had had little previous airline experience; had been unfamiliar with Austrian Airlines’ product and procedures; and had mostly had only a basic, entry-level Passenger Service Course, I had endeavored to create a local training program by drafting the course descriptions, writing the textbooks, devising the quizzes and exams, teaching the courses themselves, and subsequently issuing the training certificates in order to more adequately prepare them to perform their functions.

The program, tracing its routes to the Austrian Airlines Passenger Handling Course created in 1989 and the introductory Load Control material written in 1998, had evolved into the full-fledged North American Station Training Program, whose content, updated in accordance with aircraft, system, procedure, and alliance change, had entailed the four integral curriculums of “Initial Passenger Service,” “Ramp Supervision Certification,” “Load Control Licensing,” and “Airline Management;” and had ultimately encompassed 27 Passenger Service, Ramp Supervision, Load Control, Air Cargo, and Airline Station Management procedural and training manuals; two station histories; 28 curriculums; and 63 courses taught to Austrian Airlines and Austrian Airlines-handling carriers Delta, Lufthansa, Passenger Handling Services/Maca, SAS, Servair, and Swissport at the eight North American stations of Atlanta, Cancun, Chicago, Montreal, New York, Punta Cana, Toronto, and Washington.

The program, which had quickly become the equivalent of an “Airline University” and had often been sited as the reason why Swissport staff had continually striven to transfer to the Austrian Airlines account, had often proven instrumental in their career path advancements, facilitating their promotions or acceptances by other airlines. 

11. Boeing and Lauda to JFK 

JFK, hitherto exclusively served by Austrian Airlines and its fleet of A-310, A-330, and A-340 Airbus widebody aircraft, had received its first regularly scheduled Lauda Air 767 operation during the summer of 2004, while the frequency had multiplied four-fold by the following year.  During 2007, it had altogether replaced the 17-year Airbus service.

Founded in April 1979 by Niki Lauda, of racing car fame, Lauda Air had acquired Alpair Vienna’s charter license for ATS 5 million and had initiated charter and air taxi service in cooperation with Austrian Airlines with two Fokker F.27 Friendship turboprops, predecessors to the Fokker F.50s Austrian Air Services itself had later operated.  Niki Lauda, born in Vienna, Austria, in 1949, had amassed his wealth as a Formula I racing driver, having won two world champion titles and 25 Grand Prix races.  It had quickly became apparent, however, that two Austrian carriers could not coexist because of fierce competition, downward yield pressure, and an inadequate local market base, and the F.27s had ultimately been leased to Egyptair.

Six years later, in January of 1985, two BAC-111-500s, a British twin-jet not unlike the SE.210 Caravelle in size, range, and design, had been leased from Tarom Romanian Airlines, increasing its fleet capacity to 208 seats, and these had later been deployed on charter and inclusive-tour (IT) services, initially to Greece, but later to other European destinations.  Demand became so high that it had ultimately exceeded available capacity and a larger 737-200, leased from Transavia Holland, had replaced one of the BAC-111s, with both types later disposed of upon delivery of two still-higher capacity, new technology 737-300s.  These had been operated on a steadily growing charter route network.

In May 1986, Lauda Air had applied to the Austrian Ministry of Transport for a license to operate scheduled international service.  This had been approved in November 1987, thus ending Austrian Airlines’ long-held monopoly.  A subsequently-acquired, 235-passenger, dual class Boeing 767-300ER had permitted long-range, intercontinental flights to be inaugurated, the first of which, on May 7, 1988, had been a weekly scheduled Vienna-Bangkok-Hong Kong service, shortly joined by a Vienna-Bangkok-Sydney sector.  Filling the need for lower-fare, long-haul, leisure-oriented travel, Lauda Air grew rapidly.  In 1985, for instance, it had carried 95,768 passengers and had flown 2,522 flight hours with 67 employees, while in the first ten months of 1987, it had carried 236,730 passengers and had undertaken 5,364 flight hours with 169 employees, a 147-percent passenger increase.  By 1990, its fleet had swelled to five aircraft, comprised of three 146-passenger 737-300s and two 235-passenger 767-300ERs, which had been deployed on charter services to European destinations such as Spain and Greece, Middle Eastern destinations like Israel, and to Africa and the Far East, and on scheduled services to Vienna, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Sydney.

Earning its license for European scheduled service on August 23, 1990 for the first time, a right thus far only held by incumbent Austrian Airlines, it had commenced service from Vienna to London-Gatwick with five weekly 737-300 flights.

Seeking entry into the Austrian market, Lufthansa-German Airlines had announced a marketing cooperation with Lauda Air in July 1992, sealing this alliance the following January with a 26.5-percent capital increase, shortly after which the two carriers had inaugurated a quad-weekly 767-300ER service to Los Angeles.

Well aware of competition from Austrian Airlines on inter-European routes from its limited Vienna market, Lauda had sought to inaugurate its own service with small-capacity, 50-passenger, twin-engined Canadair Regional Jets, ordering six of the type in October 1993, which had been deployed on routes to Barcelona, Madrid, Brussels, Geneva, Manchester, and Stockholm with the start of the summer timetable on March 27, 1994.  Singapore, which had replaced Bangkok in November of that year, had become the new “bridge” between Vienna and Sydney/Melbourne, and the weekly 767 service had been doubled.

On March 26, 1995, Lauda Air had established a second European hub, Milan-Malpensa, in cooperation with Lufthansa, which now held a 39.7-percent stake in the fledgling Austrian carrier, basing three of the six originally-ordered CRJ-100s there. These had been deployed to Vienna, Manchester, Brussels, Paris, Barcelona, and Dublin.  The Candair Regional Jets, along with an increasing number of 737s, had provided the backbone of its European fleet.

It had soon become apparent that pending European deregulation would not likely tolerate dozen-aircraft airlines unless they had served very small, specific market niches.  Lauda Air had been unable to survive in the face of competition from Austrian Airlines once before.  Both had operated medium- and long-range, twin-engine aircraft from bases in Vienna and had offered considerable passenger service quality.  An ultimate cooperation with Austrian Airlines seemed inevitable.  This had been partially consummated in June 1996, at which time Austrian Airlines and Lauda Air had operated single-aircraft, dual-code flights to Nice, Milan, and Rome with the regional jet for the first time.  On March 12, 1997, this had been expanded, with the announcement of a strategic, tri-carrier Austrian/Lauda/Lufthansa cooperation, Austrian Airlines now taking a 36-percent stake in its former competitor with Lauda himself retaining 30 percent and Lufthansa 20 percent.

On September 24 of that year, Lauda Air took delivery of its second wide body aircraft type, the 777-200, which had been inaugurated into service on the Vienna-Singapore-Sydney-Melbourne route on October 1, replacing the venerable 767.

On September 21, 1999, now one of the three integral “Austrian Airlines Group” members along with Austrian Airlines itself and Tyrolean Airways, Lauda Air had announced its intention to join the Star Alliance, which became effective on March 26, 2000.

As the lower-cost arm within the three-airline group, Lauda Air had provided medium- and long-range scheduled and charter service on leisure-oriented routes with a four-type, 22-aircraft fleet, maintaining its own brand identity.  In 2004, however, the first steps toward integration with the Austrian Airlines brand had occurred with the ratification of a joint Austrian-Lauda Air cockpit crew contract, and in January of 2005, aircraft OE-LAE had become the first of four 767-300s to have been repainted in the Austrian Airlines livery, featuring the new interior color scheme and a 24-business class and 230-economy class passenger configuration.  Lauda Air itself had reverted entirely to a single-class, high-density charter carrier within the Austrian Airlines Group with a narrow body fleet of Boeing 737s and Airbus A-320s.

The summer 2004 Lauda 767 flight, which had operated as an addition to the daily Austrian frequency during the 11-week period from June 26 to September 5, had arrived at 2055 on Saturday evenings and departed some 25 hours later on Sunday at 2200.  In order to prepare the station for the additional service, local Boeing 767 Passenger Service and Boeing 767 Load Control courses had been created and taught to the Swissport staff.  Because Lufthansa had not been licensed on 767 aircraft, maintenance had been contracted to Delta Air Lines, which had operated all three -200, -300, and -400 series 767s, and an extensive night stop and security procedure had been performed before aircraft push-back to the Terminal One hardstand, at which time security seals had been applied to all access doors.  The inbound galley equipment had been offloaded and washed and prepared for the following evening. 

The late departure had proven difficult to sell in the business cabin without considerable marketing promotion and fare reduction because of the aircraft’s then 36-passenger Amadeus Class capacity.  Due to the size of its aft, lower-deck door, cargo-pallet loading had been restricted to four positions in the forward compartment.  The aircraft themselves had operated in a combination of Lauda Air and Star Alliance liveries.

During the summer 2005 timetable, the 767-300 had operated up to four additional weekly frequencies from June 14 to September 2, resulting in 11 weekly departures from JFK, with the A-330 standardly operating the early service and the 767-300 operating the late flight.

In 2007, the type had altogether replaced the A-330 and A-340 fleet. 

12. Centralized Load Control 

In late-2006, a concept known as the “Centralized Load Control” (CLC) System had been implemented at JFK, and the station, like the nucleus of an atom, had become the core of it all.

Brainchild of Michael Steinbuegl, JFK Station Manager, the procedure, following trends set by Swiss International in New York, Lufthansa in Cape Town, and SAS in Bangkok, had its origins in an earlier investigative project in which he had explored cost reductions by means of a large, single Centralized Load Control department in Vienna or several regional ones, although the latter inherently carried language and time zone obstacles.  Michael, former Aircraft Handling Manager, had amassed considerable experience creating operational procedures and methods, central to which had been weight and balance.

Seeking to apply this knowledge and simultaneously attempting to rectify the system incompatibility and communication difficulties encountered with the SAS-Bangkok arrangement in Washington, he tackled this station first, which, like JFK, already used the Lufthansa-WAB system.  In the process, he set the course for the many transitions to come by making several duty trips to establish local station-compatible procedures and then drafting a detailed booklet concerning them.  The first centralized load sheet for the Washington flight, OS 094, occurred on November 1, 2006.

Charlie Schreiner, the head of Austrian Airlines Load Control, subsequently marked the occasion with the following words:  “With Austrian Airlines Flight OS 094 on November 1, our first line station had been connected to a regular Centralized Load Control process with ULD aircraft.  All activities toward the operational flight preparation, load planning, ULD coordination, and WAB System documentation, inclusive of the load sheet transmitted to the cockpit via ACARs, had been successfully controlled by our JFK station yesterday.  I would like to thank our colleagues Mike Steinbuegl and Robert Waldvogel for the professional and excellently organized preparation of the CLC procedures, as well as the Austrian ladies, Regula Munz and Eva Lingeman in Washington and the handling agents in JFK and Washington (Swissport and SAS Scandinavian Airlines System) in their engaging work during this transition.  This good work had also led to the first flight departing three minutes ahead of its scheduled departure time.  I wish all participants continued success in the CLC process.”

The remainder of the CLC program, however, involved phased implementation.  In May of the following year, service had been reinaugurated from Chicago.  Because this could now be considered a “new” station, it logically followed that its load sheet would be integrated into the CLC system from the start and, despite computer system differentiations, had been successfully adapted with the first flight on May 29 after procedural modifications.

With these cities being handled by JFK, it had been decided to integrate the last North American station, Toronto, whose first centralized load sheet had been issued on July 1.

Three Austrian Airlines-dedicated Swissport Load Controllers, two of whom had worked on a given day during the peak summer season, had formed the Centralized Load Control System team.

Since the fourth station had been integrated, JFK had produced some 120 load sheets per month, and the highly successful system had yielded numerous benefits.

1. It had, first and foremost, produced considerable savings.

2. All flights had departed on time relative to load plan and load sheet preparation.

3. All four North American flights had been operationally handled by only one more daily Load Controller than JFK had had for a single departure.

4. All loading instruction reports and load sheets had been generated in the Lufthansa-WAB system.

5. And Vienna had had immediate access to all load control-related data and documentation.

13. Boeing 777 

When Austrian Airlines had turned the page of its winter 2008-2009 timetable on March 29, JFK had fielded its first Boeing 777-200ER operation, the carrier’s largest capacity equipment and the fifth basic type to have served New York after the A-310, the A-330, the A-340, and the 767.

The aircraft, having originally been acquired by Lauda Air, had been configured for 49 business and 258 economy class passenger, although two later examples, which had featured higher gross weights and modified passenger arrangements, had accommodated 260 economy class passengers in ten-abreast, three-four-three, configurations.

During the six-month period between April and September of 2009, the single flight had carried 34 percent more arriving and departing passengers, along with significantly increased complements of cargo and mail, than the comparable year-earlier period, when the 767 had been deployed.

The four 777 registrations had included the following:

1. OE-LPA

2. OE-LPB

3. OE-LPC

4. OE-LPD

14. Lufthansa Acquisition 

2009 had been a pivotal year for Austrian Airlines.   Because of the global economic downturn, escalating fuel prices, eroding yields, and strong competition within Western Europe from low cost carriers, its financial viability and therefore continued existence as a company had been threatened, despite previously unsuccessful attempts to stem its losses by selling its A-330 and A-340 fleet, reducing its long-range route system, and implementing several restructuring plans.  Its savior, in the form of an agreement with Lufthansa-German Airlines to assume its debt and acquire the majority of its shares, had enabled it to continue operating.

On August 28, the European Commission had officially approved the proposed acquisition of the Austrian Airlines Group by Lufthansa-German Airlines, comprised of the 500 million euro restructuring assistance from the state holding company and the merger between the two carriers, thus paving the way toward Austrian Airlines’ integration into the Lufthansa Group by September.  In order to achieve the required antitrust immunity, Lufthansa had agreed to relinquish key flight slots and reduce the number of services between Vienna and Brussels, Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich, and Stuttgart.  For Austrian Airlines, which would become one of Lufthansa’s many independent, European hub carriers, it had signaled financial survival; an improved economic foundation; cost synergies, such as joint fuel and aircraft purchasing; and access to Lufthansa’s extensive international sales and route network.  Austrian Airlines’ own niche within this system had entailed the establishment of Vienna as a high-performance hub for traffic feed to its dense Central and Eastern European route system.

As a result of this ownership change, numerous, fundamental North American changes had occurred.

In Toronto and Washington, for example, agreements had been reached wherein Lufthansa had assumed the ground operations handling at these stations.

In New York, more than half of its Whitestone, North American headquarters, employees had been laid off and the location, for almost a quarter of a century its “fortress” located on the fifth floor of Octagon Plaza, had been closed, with the remaining staff relocating to Lufthansa’s East Meadow, Long Island, facility, and integrating with its staff.

At JFK, Austrian Airlines Cargo had relocated to the Lufthansa facility on November 1, and 16 days later Swissport had passed the ground-handling torch to Lufthansa-German Airlines.

Michael Steinbuegl, Manager of that station for four years, had been promoted to Key Account Manager, North America, but four Ticket Sales-Reservation positions had been rendered redundant when Lufthansa had assumed those functions, reducing the Austrian Airlines’ staff to just three members, all of whom had received limited, six-month contracts which had expired on May 15, 2010.  They had subsequently been integrated into the Lufthansa operation and schedule.

The last Austrian Airlines “red presence,” whether having been created by purely Austrian Airlines or Swissport staff, had occurred on November 15, and the first floor office in Terminal One, hitherto “home” for both the Austrian Airlines and Swissport Management, Passenger Service, Centralized Load Control, Ticket Sales-Reservations, and Baggage Services/Lost and Found Departments, had been relinquished for three desks in the Lufthansa facility, two of which had been Duty Manager stations located on the main level and one of which had been the Key Account Manager position located on the lower level in the Station Operations office.

All things seem to come fully cycle.  The event, effectively ending 21 years of autonomous Austrian Airlines presence, had marked the carrier’s return to its 1938 integration with Lufthansa and its 2000 ground-handling arrangement at JFK. 

15. JFK Station Strengths 

Throughout its 21-year presence at JFK International Airport, Austrian Airlines had handled five aircraft types–the Airbus A-310, the Airbus A-330, the Airbus A-340, the Boeing 767, and the Boeing 777; had assumed four strategies–its initial, independent operation; the Delta Air Lines code share agreement; the tri-carrier Atlantic Excellence station; and the Star Alliance integration; had operated from four JFK terminals–Terminal One, Terminal Two, Terminal Three, and the International Arrivals Building; had been handled by three companies–Delta Air Lines, Lufthansa-German Airlines, and Swissport USA; and had used two computer systems.

Because the talents and abilities of many of the staff had been channeled to produce creative and innovative accomplishments during the last chapter of its existence, JFK had notched up several strengths and successes, some of which had enabled it to play an increasingly nucleic role within North America.  These achievements can be subdivided as follows:

1. The textbooks and courses had subsequently been used to duplicate this success at Austrian Airlines’ other North American stations.

2. The Centralized Load Control (CLC) Department, entailing the preparation of loading instruction/reports and load sheets for the four North American stations of Chicago, New York, Toronto, and Washington, had been highly successful and had once involved four aircraft types: the Boeing 767, the Airbus A-330, the Airbus A-340, and the Boeing 777.

3. Omar himself had often traveled to other stations in order to restructure their Baggage Services Departments.

4. The Ticket Sales-Reservations counter, under the direction of Sidonie Shields, had consistently collected significant amounts of annual revenue in ticket sales, excess baggage, and other fees.

5. The visible presence of Austrian Airlines, in red uniforms, to the passenger, whether worn by Austrian Airlines or Swissport staff.

6. The special flights, such as those carrying the Rabbi Twersky group, the American Music Abroad group, the IMTX group, the Vienna Boys’ Choir, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and Life Ball, the latter with its high-profile celebrities, colorful characters, and predeparture parties.

7. The special events, including “The Year in Review,” the Pennsylvania ski trips, the summer pool parties, the birthdays, the Thanksgiving dinners, and the Secret Santas at Christmas.

8. And, finally, the daily briefings, the family atmosphere, the jokes, the laughs, the raps, and the human connection which had continually emphasized the life forces behind it all.

Michael Steinbuegl, who assumed command as JFK Station Manager in September of 2005, had cultivated the environment and orchestrated the steps which had allowed every one of these strengths and accomplishments to have been made. 

16. Two Decades of Elasticity 

Austrian Airlines, hitherto among the smallest European airlines, had to assume a considerable degree of necessary “elasticity” during its 21 years at JFK, ebbing and flowing in the ever-changing turbulence of prevailing market conditions, seeking financial benefit, synergistic strength, market niche, alliance realignment, and ultimate change of ownership.  Defying Darwinian philosophy, whose “survival of the fittest” prediction is often translated as “survival of the largest,” Austrian Airlines had, despite numerous, necessary redirections, proven the contrary, perhaps prompting a rewording of the philosophy to read, “survival of the smallest”–to which should be added, “as a global player.”

Toward this end, the latest strategy had enabled the carrier to survive.  For station JFK and its staff, however, it had not. 

Epilogue 

Because I had been hired by Austrian Airlines two months before its inaugural transatlantic flight from JFK on March 26, 1989 and had held several positions there throughout its 21-year history, I had felt singularly qualified to write its story.  It is, in essence, my story.  It is what I lived.  And what I leave…

About the Author

A graduate of Long Island University-C.W. Post Campus with a summa-cum-laude BA Degree in Comparative Languages and Journalism, I have subsequently earned the Continuing Community Education Teaching Certificate from the Nassau Association for Continuing Community Education (NACCE) at Molloy College, the Travel Career Development Certificate from the Institute of Certified Travel Agents (ICTA) at LIU, and the AAS Degree in Aerospace Technology at the State University of New York – College of Technology at Farmingdale. Having amassed almost three decades in the airline industry, I managed the New York-JFK and Washington-Dulles stations at Austrian Airlines, created the North American Station Training Program, served as an Aviation Advisor to Farmingdale State University of New York, and devised and taught the Airline Management Certificate Program at the Long Island Educational Opportunity Center.

Warning: curl_setopt_array() [function.curl-setopt-array]: Unable to access in /home/twistedn/public_html/techin.me/wp-content/plugins/content-mage/AbstractContentMageSource.php on line 1

Double Major: Hindi and Forensic Science?

Okay, I know it sounds like a really weird combo, but I want to double major in these two things. The other day I was watching FBI Files and I saw a guy who was a detective who was helping out with a case because he spoke fluent Serb-Croatian. I want to be one of these person who does detective work, but can also speak Hindi. Maybe Forensic Science is not the right major, but then what is called? Also, with taking these 2 classes, can I minor in another language, perhaps French. i want to know how to speak fluent Hindi, and maybe conversational French (semi-fluent). Please help me. I’m really confused as to what to do. Also, can you recommend any good colleges that fit my need?

It would be VERY hard if not impossible to find a college or university in America that offers a major in Hindi. If you want to be fluent, it would probably be better to just go live in India for a year, then come back to your home country and study forensic science.

Naked and Loving it

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of a cool breeze on your nether regions – and it’s the message that nudists have been exposing to the public all along. Nudism is all about getting in touch with nature and expressing yourself through social nudity. It’s not necessarily about eroticism or sexuality but more about enjoying life an au natural way.

The roots of this lifestyle hail all the way back to the late 1700s and it’s still thriving all over the world today. In Australia the first known nudist clubs date way back to the 1920s but it was after World War II when nudism became a more acceptable recreational lifestyle. Perhaps due to the incredible Australian weather, the most popular place to shed unwanted clothing appears to be the beach with 31.67% of RedHotPie users voting it as the naughtiest place they have been nude.

Getting naked in public has become even more popular in recent years and these days there are all sorts of facilities and events where you can flaunt your natural self with everything from public swimming pools to holiday resorts. In fact, if you’re in Germany and you really want to get your holiday started early then travel agency OssiUrlaub.de are offering the first nudist flights from eastern German town of Erfurt to the popular Baltic Sea Resort of Usedom. The 55 passengers will have to board fully clothed but as soon as the doors close it’s pants off and engines away.

If you want something closer to home then check out one of the many nude beaches in Australia. For those choosing to swap their swimming trunks for their birthday suit try;

Alexandria Bay, QLD: Although it’s still an unofficial nude beach, Alexandria Bay is by far Queensland most popular clothing free beach and has been used for nude swimming and sunbathing for many years. Located on the eastern side of the Noosa Heads National Park, most days provide a busy a sea of naked bodies wanting to soak up the glorious Australian sun.

Lady Bay, NSW: Perhaps one of Australia’s oldest and most publicised nude beaches, Lady Bay was granted legal status as a nudist beach in 1976. It’s beautiful rocky surrounds make it perfect for a bit of relaxation and privacy.

Pelican Point Beach, SA: Not just a clothing optional bathing area, Pelican Point also allows camping which means you can turn a day at the beach into a whole weekend. If you like lazing in the sun canoeing, sailing, water skiing, or just getting away from life’s hassles, all without clothes of course, then Pelican Point is for you. There’s plenty of shade and a sheltered, sandy beach with safe swimming but you will have to rough it a little as there are no facilities provided at all.

Nth Swanbourne Beach, WA: This is one of Australia’s most popular nude beaches and many RHP members get on down there to enjoy the sunny surrounds. It’s very close to the Perth CBD making it convenient for everyone to enjoy. If you are planning to go to North Swanbourne it is a good idea to get out there early, it can get a little windy after 11am.

With so many opportunities to get your kit off it’s surprising that so many of us are walking around clothed all the time. So get nude, get back to nature, and enjoy the freedom of being buck naked – clothes are way too restricting anyway.

About the Author

RedHotPie is Australia’s largest online dating site with webcam chat, singles events & dating articles. Singles dating is for girls & guys looking to meet friends, find love & relationships. Uncut adult dating is for singles and swingers looking for casual dating, adult chat rooms, forums, adult swingers parties & sex stories. Visit them at www.redhotpie.com.au

20th Century Disasters – The Amoco Cadiz Oil Spill And The Baia Mare Cyanide Spill

We humans have a seemingly insatiable demand for oil and other natural resources. Aside from the direct damage that we are doing to the Earth in the pursuit of these resources we are also indirectly inflicting a phenomenal amount of damage on our planet.

Between 1978 and 200 there were several far reaching catastrophes that had significant effects on our environment. One was the Amoco Cadiz oil spill, the other the Baia Mare cyanide spill.

The Amoco Cadiz Oil Spill

Well before anyone ever heard of either the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the Exxon Valdez, in 1978 while crossing the English Channel an oil tanker ruptured its tank when it went aground on the rocks. Then, before any help could arrive, a storm broke loose and tore the ship apart. As a result, the Amoco Cadiz lost its entire load of 68 million gallons of oil into the waters off the coast of Brittany, France.

Like more recent oil spills, it was difficult to clean up the Amoco Cadiz disaster because the seas were violent. The resulting oil slick, estimated to be eighty miles long and eighteen miles wide, killed 300,000 birds and contaminated approximately two hundred fifty miles of coastline.

Scientists saw entire species being wiped out. A study that was published by the National Research Council stated that clams, urchins, and other bottom dwelling creatures suffered “massive mortality.” In addition several fish species growth rates slowed significantly.

A lot of the oil from that spill invaded protected marshes and did not easily degrade. Researchers’ estimates indicated that it would be decades before the ecosystem would once again attain its pre-spill level. By the turn of the 21st century animal populations were still feeling the effects of the spill.

The Baia Mare Cyanide Spill

Thirty days into the new century a Romanian dam holding 26 million gallons of polluted water and waste from a gold mining operation broke. It contained between fifty-five and one hundred-ten tons of cyanide and other heavy metals.

The toxic spill found its ways into Romanian, Yugoslavian, and Hungarian rivers and eventually breached the Danube River. Yugoslavia and Romania both saw (and smelled) the huge amounts of fish that were killed by this toxic spill. Hungarian reports indicated that the spill accounted for 1,367 tons of dead fish.

In addition, the cyanide wiped out all of the plankton in the rivers.

Although the cyanide dissipated relatively quickly the other heavy metals released by the dam break are still posing a threat.

About the Author

Next, to find out about
Environmental Courses
go to
http://commonground.edrnet.com/pages/4de09aeab6