WOOBLAH, I am certainly not management. I have never been in the air force or Transmile! Jokes aside, while I have always respected your posts and fact finding do not make TOO many assumptions my friend. You do not know me. (Actually perhaps our paths have crossed sometime) F/O's are plenty here, and I never ever said I agreed with what they are paid. All I said is I think management have taken advantage of the fact that F/Os are easier to get and hold. You yourself talked about what this noble profession has come to. I don't agree with being exploited and Hell yes we did fight for F/O's. We put in our ideas and comments. But as we saw in the meetings, the F/O new pay package decided is overall a disappointment. My command is recent and I have done my many year hard labor as F/O right here in Air Asia. I have told the junior F/O's to leave when they have a chance. I would if I were them. For the seniors, just wait a little while more and take the command. Then go when the time comes. As for me, I am biding my time and don't plan to be here for the long term. As I said, I have done my time here. I worked hard on low pay from day one and only began to see a decent basic salary within the last year. Fortunately I have new pay scale jump. I could even mention another issue where a many years served senior F/O would get promoted and get the same basic salary as a new Captain that walked in yesterday. Surely there should be some distinction in pay to take in to account years of loyalty? Don't think that the fight is over here. Management has forgotten what it's like to be an F/O. Ultimately what can the line pilot do? You know there is no such thing as a union here. Forget the 'association' too. Vote with their feet or try to reason with the boss for better.
Agreed the 737 is not the main problem. But Ryan do have spare aircraft to cover an aircraft which is down where as Air Asia does not. I'm sure Ryan have their 737-200's in tip top condition but if one were to be down, they would have a spare ready. Logistics wise, Ryan is miles ahead. They have had the years to mature for it. Yes, also the people need to work together hand in hand to get the schedule on time but the problem of aircraft AOG is also a big factor to delays and the famous 're-timed' flights. I can’t bring out every detail in these posts so if I didn't mention it doesn't mean I am blind to it. I think you write better to explain the rest anyway. I do think the Airbus will be more reliable and reduce AOG though and that was just a small example I brought up for when times may change for AK's reliability.
Anyway I am not paid to find the magic answers or do the studies to what we can copy to better Air Asia. I do the best I can with what we are given. With your vast experience perhaps you could share some ideas for improvement? Surely you will also find fault with this post or highlight things I have missed and I agree there is so much we could talk about. Anyway, pay is not everything, the whole operation has to and will improve for the future. Hope so anyway. Cheers and happy flying before you retire.