300 Qantas pilots to get the chop ???

[Ollie Onion]

Mstr Caution,

I am not sure if that is the case, I remember a great article in the Financial Times (2010ish) about airlines, it had a graphic which broke down average operating costs into a seat plan for a 100 seat jet. By far the biggest proportion of cost was fuel at 28 seats (I would post the graphic but that is beyond my tech skill). The next most significant cost was staff wages at 20 seats. It then continued with various other costs and the net result was that the profit amounted to ONE seat. As we all know the airline business is a foolhardy one, the amount of return on what are normally huge revenues are miniscule. Obviously this was completed as an exercise in 'averages' but if anything I would think Qantas would be not as 'lean' as some average airlines.

I know that Pilot wages only make up a percentage of the '20' seats but to say that pilot wages have no impact on the bottom line is probably a bit disingenuous. If you could just reduce staff costs by 5% then you can effectively double your profit. By far the easiest way to reduce your staff costs would be to tackle the groups that get paid the most, in Qantas this is likely to be MANAGEMENT, PILOTS, some engineers and perhaps some very senior crew.

As with a lot of modern day businesses Qantas seems to suffer from a bit of the upside down pyramid syndrome, way to top heavy with managers at the top and way to thin on the ground with operational staff. Most, if not all of these cost cutting measures could be achieved without touching operational staff like pilots, but at the end of the day we are easy targets because most, if not all of the rest of the staff see us as massively overpaid for what we do. What the company is not taking into account is that pilots should be treated as any other valuable asset would whether it be property or equipment, you should hold on to these as to sell them is putting in jeopardy your ability to operate in the future.