"Jetstar are not great employers" - now there's an understatement!
You can't tell a pilot group that, you are very much aware the contract needs improving - then offer a 3% increase on to the base of three years ago. Official CPI is 8.3% over the same period! So we 'give you a net loss of earnings'. That's fair and reasonable!!
The senior management have treated the pilot group with contempt, and understandably have 'lost' them completely - they know that, but don't care.
What they may not know, is the middle management guys are in total support of the pilot group, and they too, are disillusioned with the senior goons in Melbourne. They regurgitate the company line, while 100% behind the rank and file line pilots.
Great business model. Their own workforce hate them. The average Kiwi hates them, but WILL use them INITIALLY to save a dollar - until they get a bad experience and realise: you get what you pay for.
An obsession with cutting costs, has to be balanced against it's effect on revenue. There are way too may examples to list here, of where the loss in revenue exceeds the cost saving. (Economics 101 stuff). Jetstar just don't get that. Or more relevant to the pilots' claim: one cost saving (lower the pilots wage cost) creates other costs that exceed the saving (i.e. the cost of having EBA pilots in hotels in AKL and CHC).
The goons in MEL by their own admission don't have anyone who looks at hotel costs in NZ (Oh there's a cost saving!). So, lets say we have just 2 pilots in AKL and 2 in CHC (usually more, I know). Thats $500 x 4 x 365 = $730,000. Given say 60 pilots in NZ, that could be an average of $12000 per pilot wage rise that would attract more pilots, avoid the hotels, avoid the use of pilots positioning when they could be operating. Not to mention reducing WDO payments, improving moral etc etc. The MEL philosophy is we have made cost savings by paying NZ pilots as little as we have to, and that's that. Again, they just don't get it!
So, cut costs on pilots! That will increase profit - like hell it will!
Great place to work? No!
Last edited by WB Bach; 3rd Jun 2012 at 05:10.