Interesting thread! Maybe the doubters should have a look at:
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=305752
Newsweek: Airlines Brace for Pilot Shortage
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Airlines In The Brace Position
Air travel is booming as the world gets richer. But one issue looms: who will pilot all those planes?
By George Wehrfritz
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 12:46 PM ET Dec 15, 2007
...the pilot crisis is a global one. In a report issued in late November, the Geneva-based International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that the industry would need some 17,000 new pilots annually over the next two decades to keep up with demand.
and:
Together, the two main airframe makers are expected to sell a record 2,100 planes worldwide by the time the 2007 books are closed.
Let's see.............2,100 two-crew airframes at 5 crews each is 21,000 pilots, so it's pretty close to the IATA figure of 17,000 new pilots annually.
Yes and with that sort of growth, then the comment by AIPA Solicitor Tony Macken of A. J. Macken & Co. is spot on, i.e., the decision by the Full Bench to give AIPA constitutional coverage of all airline pilots employed in the Qantas Group DOES indeed modernise the industrial coverage of Australian airline pilots.
While the demand for pilots here in OZ isn't anywhere near 21,000 or 17,000 per annum, it's still going to be a respectable number I reckon. So, if as Mr Macken has pointed out, that the legal position of the industrial coverage of airline pilots has now caught up with the industrial reality, then it seems it's almost certainly also reached the economic reality of demand for pilots exceeding supply, and as such, improvements in pilots' T&Cs now seems inevitable.
Still not a believer? Have another look at the same NEWSWEEK article..............
...pilot pay keeps rising. After a two-year negotiation, Hong Kong's Dragonair offered its pilots a 20 percent raise in mid-December, affirming that pilots are in the driver's seat.
Pity I retired a couple of years ago!
May the force be with you! Keep the faith and T&Cs will get better this coming year.
Merry Xmas all.
