With the change of name and management in 1986, the documentation and history of the original airline history was to be discarded, and a new identity emerged. For the next 2 1/2 years AUSTRALIAN Airlines would both change and rapidly grow financially, no longer constrained by government restriction.
The industry disaster in 1989 whereby the Flight Staff in the Flight Operations Department went on strike, grounding both major airlines, and all airlines affiliated with the Federation, and when the pilots resigned en masse, the industry was placed in turmoil. The response was the employment of a new workforce under entirely changed conditions, and again many records were again discarded. An industry that has survived and worked harmoniously for over 40 years, was now totally reorganized.
In 1993, and with government direction, Australian airlines was merged with QANTAS as both were government owned airlines, and now offered for sale under the new privatization legislation. Again old records were discarded or destroyed.
All these changes meant that the history was being lost through the ignorance of change and creation of a new image as it was considered more important to establish the new identity without preserving the history of the aviation industry, and so a small group of long serving members of TAA concerned about the history of the airline that had forced the development of all air services in Australia, banded together to save and store this history for the future.
This group commenced when TAA changed its name to Australian Airlines, and later when QANTAS took over.
Qantas supported, and continues to support, the efforts of recovery by the volunteers, and previously provided a small space at TAA's Franklin Street building in Melbourne.
And so it began.