First things first! “Profit before People!” Perhaps you may which to read Chomsky???
These LCC's or the more oxymoronic term “value added carriers” are here to stay in the interim; so those of use in the industry will have to ride it out until the public wake up.
It amases me how slogans such as “keeping the air fare” get thrown so boldly around in advertising campaigns, yet I would pay more on
VB than I used to pay on a full service QF/AN sector before I had the right to Staff travel. Point in case, I looked on
VB for a fare BNE-PER return departing one month from now and returning one month later (hardly last minute) and to my surprise the best deal was in the order of AUD $700! Well before AN had all its assets stolen by ANZ, I flew on them for AUD $550 full fare and full service, same sector. I love the so call $50 fares they quote from SYD-MEL; but you try and get one. To cut a long whine short; what I am advocating is, that on average
VB fares are creeping back to what AN used to charge and yet you get a sh1ty seat, no service, no points, no nothing. Hence; not only have us poor folks in the industry had our pants taken down with respect to conditions, but I suggest that the fare paying public are as well!!! I guess they (the public) will eventually wake up to these surreptitious marketing campaigns that
VB and ilk currently running and demand value once again.
If one is to look at the US, we see a whole heap of LCC’s and the so called “legacy” carries, the AA, UA (premium airlines) etc. I cannot see the value as a consumer flying on Song (LCC) when I can buy the same priced ticket on AA or even the parent Delta and get full service.
Who are these people that get the $1 fares. Do they really exist??? I have found fares cheaper on AA than I can find on JetBlue or Song, so who are the morons supporting these companies??? I guess the public will wake up in time. Hey, I must sound like a LCC basher—well im not (please believe me), but I cannot see where the real long term saving to the consumer lies. Sure, the “legacy” carriers used to have folks “pants down” if you walked to the counter and wanted a ticket to SYD last minute. I guess they got away with it because of the duopoly system we had here in Oz (QF,AN) and needed in the old days.
What I find most disturbing is the general degradation of conditions for all employees in the industry because of LCCs’. How hypocritical is it of a certain 89’ner to bring the worst pay and conditions that RPT pilots have ever experienced in this country back from “sleezy Jet????” I postulate that the only way LCCs can make money over “legacy” carriers is to cut employee conditions. This is if we are to believe that they do indeed maintain the same standard of safety and training as the majors. Yeah right!! How many AOC warning have
VB had from CASA! Maybe they also have less ass wipes in management, which would save them heaps as well.
What we see though in general is management scum and a few sell out pilots making all the real $$$ and screwing everybody else over, whether they realize it or not. Take RyanAir for eg. They are now making Hostie’s pay 3000 Euros for a training course to earn crap money at the end. How did our industry slide into such a disgraceful state?? Guys that have done it tough in GA or Regional are having to front up to $40K Aussie for type ratings (Pacific Blue) and to only earn about 40K less tax pa. Is this insanity??? The kid I met working in my new housing complex earned 60K last year as a laborer and he dropped out of year 11. Can somebody wake me for this horrible dream?? Oh be comforted by the fact that the
VB CEO made AUD$ 15 000 000.00 last year.
We as pilots are our worst enemies though! Reading treads you constantly see posts where people crap on each other. You see the older guys castigating those young fools who pay for type ratings to joing sh1ty LCCs such as
VB. Then the retorts from the young guy doing it hard in GA/regional who wants that job on the 73 to get out of that crap. Surely who can blame those who pay the $30-40K for the B73 type rating and the hope of a better job. Its not their fault they are pressed into this corner. Lets stop ripping each other apart! Instead your focus should be on the real criminals, such as that fat bastard EX AN CEO in Auckland. $4,000,000 pa, plus a performance for thieving and bankrupting one of “OUR” airlines right from under our noses. These are the real villains, eroding the pay and conditions for all.
I guess I will be slammed by heaps off you for my statements. Well I can only say that I am frustrated how the losers in the Gieves and Hawkes suits are making a fortune at the expense of everybody else.
Well “he came into Egypt a pharaoh who did not know” Translation for the rocket scientists’; the rich have been sticking it to the poor since the beginning of time.”
PS. if I have made any grammatical or spelling errors, than those whom wish to correct me may save your reply’s and keep your palliative clichés to yourself!