Not every airline gives a payrise only because people are leaving...

[FYI]

NC,

This is mostly a reply to you from an older thread. I understand that Emirates and Gulf Air and the likes have had to respond to losing pilot's by giving out payrises, however, this isn't the only thing that should provide a reason or trigger for reviewing payscales and then awarding payrises.

My case in point in this instance is QF. My understanding is that recently QF shorthaul were awarded payrises over a 5 year period (I think). Now, although it isn't all happiness down there, you couldn't say that management were forced down this track due to mass departures. Furthermore, it wasn't like they looked around at the market forces in their market and realised that the guys/gals really deserved a payrise to keep in line with other carriers. So, what was it that led to the payrise in this case??

Why can't something similar happen here? Record profits anyone?? Why can't CX set the standard in pay and conditions? Oh yeah, I must have been dreaming for a moment. I almost forgot who we were talking about...................

[Veruka Salt]

FYI,

Unfortunately Qantas haven't suffered "mass departures", but rather an "unprecedented trickle". The small payrise to the shorthaul pilots also involves reduced initial pay for new captains (a b-scale), so sadly it's not the healthy payrise we were all hoping for.

Cheers,

VS.

[FYI]

Thanks for the insight. The fine print always reveals the truth!

This career certainly isn't what it used to be or what it could be. Its a race to the bottom.....enjoy the ride.

[Numero Crunchero]

QF must have one of the most complicated set of rostering practices in existence. Pattern protections, MDC, time away credits(gone now I think) etc etc. It all has been derived from a fundamental difference in paying salary. In CX we get a salary for up to 84 credit hours....0 or 84 pays the same. In QF it is entirely hours driven - but then they have MGH for their bid periods to protect them. Currently many of the 330 drivers are close to being on MGH as I think the divisor is around 160 hrs(8 weeks).

There is no way you can compare apples with apples between CX and QF. A friend and I worked on 10 typical CX 8 week roster periods for Aussie based CNs - chosen randomly across many bases. Using QF rules those guys would have earnt, on average, $260K a year - that is excluding long service leave and taxi allowances etc. The actual CX salaries for the same work was around $205-$210K.

The major differences between the two is that CX rosters very inefficiently compared to QF. And QF have many more disincentives to poor rostering that are non existent in CX.

What appears to be happening at QF over the years is that they are trading some of their 'roster unfriendly' practices for inflation payrises. I believe the deal is about 3% a year (someone please correct me if I am wrong). But at the same time they have increased other protections....ie, the MGH was 138(?) a few years ago and is now 152(?) - sorry, alzheimers is kicking in with me but you get the idea.

Underlying all this is a sense of fairness...QF find it harder to argue against not giving inflation payrises. Cx is not constrained by any moral values on its actions.

One example of a major difference between the two airlines...this happened to a friend of a friend. This 400 guy was 5 hours above his divisor(175), so on 180. Crew control(QF) rang and asked him if he would do an LA return...he said no...they said then that he was ordering him too. If he volunteered he would have just got the pattern hours (around 33 I think as they have night flying loading and >12 hour double time). By being ordered to, his hours are doubled - so he got 66ish hours times $219 hourly rate. Do you know of anyone in CX that ever got $14,000AUD for one LA trip? I have looked at some QF rosters....they work approximately the same block hours as us. But for the same rank in the same seat they get much more pay. It used to be that it took longer to get the same rank and seat....with CX RA65 that will no longer be the case.

To answer your question...CX dont care about exchange rates(take a base). They don't care until people leave or we stir the pot. The last A scale payrise was 1995 - the last B scale(associated with IA) was 2001. We have been good little boys ever since and have reaped the benefits in never increasing tax bills;-)