"You will find many QF f/o's getting paid more than many of your competitor airline captains."
Which airlines do you consider to be competitors? And keep this in context of my previous post about 'why the vitriol'; QF even then was still considered one of the better airline prospects in the world. I talk to pilot friends in other airlines, and have been around long enough to know that;
- if I had joined EK/CX/ANA for example instead of QF when I started my airline career I would have been a captain for
at least five years now, and probably on more pay than a QF captain,
definately in aggregate,
- QF pay might appear higher in some, but not many, cases but what QF doesn't pay, yet is keen to overlook when making comparisons, are things like;
* profit-share bonuses of up to several months in good years,
* accommodation and utility expenses for families,
* retirement/pension schemes more lucrative than QF's,
* Loss-of-licence provisions more generous than QF's,
* home travel entitlements for employees,
* subsidised family medical insurance plans, and
* exchange rate fluctuations which are selectively used to skew perceptions.
"The crewing of QF aircraft is neither efficient or competitive."
QF schedules often limit the degrees of efficiency achievable,
not the contract, eg when QF flies thrice per week on routes serviced daily by others. Also, the longhaul contract allows some tours of duty better than CAO-48E, and you seem to have missed the point of S/Os as a far cheaper alternative to real captains and F/Os. Neither do you acknowledge the possibility that QF's contractual flight time and duty, as agreed with its pilots over many years, might actually be very sensible and a valid contributor to QF's safety record to date.
"Flexible? Really. What changes are AIPA proposing to assist the airline ...?"
Firstly, why is it always AIPA's responsibility to propose efficiencies? It is very hard to propose anything when potential courses of action are denied/stonewalled until a fait accomplis as happened with Jetstar. The company has, under Dixon, nurtured an antagonistic climate keeping uncertainty to the fore; the mantra being "we need to be more competitive" but offering no clues as to what they mean.
Secondly, QF pilots, when engaged with the company, accepted pay freezes post 9/11 (not flexible enough for you?) with long term ramifications (un-compounded super), have been habitual volunteerists for no pay (Bali bombs, Indonesion tsunami), and Australian Airlines but that evidently doesn't count. The Cairns experiment, which did
not fail because of the pilots, demonstrated the possibilities for pilot flexibility but the Jetstar plan excluded us anyway. How would you feel? Note, I did not say Jetstar had to be on the same contract as QF (AO wasn't) but neither QF nor Jetstar pilots can easily transfer between the entities as group resources might dictate; now that
would be efficient.
"...troubled times". So the pilots are supposed to (and did) fall over themselves to help in troubled times but when times have been good for the last three years the company has stalled on EBA negotiations, enjoyed increasing record profits, huge bonuses for some and yet continuously cried 'wolf' in every media outlet. Everthing old becomes new again in time. The pattern which has emerged is that QF will compare employee (but
not management) pay to
anyone on less, and stall until a crisis before seriously discussing conditions/efficiencies/contract changes. In the meantime, it's still always the pilots'/engineers'/cabin crews'/groundstaff's fault.
So can you explain to me the efficiencies QF managers chose when hiring more pilots into Jetstar to fly gifted A330s while QF pilots were contractually obliged, no forced actually, to take annual and even long service leave, sometimes
in advance, while sitting around doing nowhere near contractual max flying for 18 months. This was the same accrued leave that many pilots couldn't take because they couldn't be spared due to shortages up until then! I know I wasn't consulted about that, and it wasn't me or my contract which made it so inefficient! In fact, the contract actually helped QF shaft its pilots! Handy clause, that!
And as an aside, when talking about F/Os who've earned 'too much', would you be referring to the many on the -400 who for the last 18 months were so under-manned that they were often 'riot-claused' to over 50 hours of additional pay in a roster? No wonder they made heaps! They were flogged though, but the surplus A33o pilots weren't used to alleviate the burden of 'expensive' pilots on QF; it's easier to make it look like their fault again.
"Substandard being anything less than your salary. Ever spoken to a new hire at Westjet?"
My point, and you could not have failed to see it, was that
at the time in question my salary was 'not world-beatingly high' among QFs competitors. I have friends in Westjet actually who absolutely love the company (something about trusting management, and respect shown) because of what it gives them in life. A military pension, living somewhere affordable and
efficient flying are all factors for them. My bet is that junior Westjet newbies are merely on a stepping-stone to bigger and better when an opening presents itself.
"You will find QF pocketing 10's of millions of dollars per year in savings from Jetstar pilot salaries alone. This appears insignificant when washed across millions of CSM's but it is not something to be sneezed at."
Yep, you're a balance sheet kinda guy. I can explain it no better than I did earlier. In my view QF has cost itself more in lost good-will than a rocket scientist could deduce from a balance sheet. I guess if it can't be proven then it can't be happening and doesn't matter anyway...
Finally, I hope. Talking and consulting with employees got QF to where it was, but suddenly became inconvenient under Dixon when opportunism, backed up by departure from past practices, unilateral cancellation of actual or implied segments of agreements, active obstruction of pilot participation in, and contribution to group expansion, all overrode loyalty-breeding engagement purely through simple inclusion. It smacked of illogical and irrational management hate toward now-stunned employees and was justified by transferrence of blame for the misdemeanours of a few to the whole pilot group.
That's how I see it. I hope for change.
