New QR pay and conditions

[qatarpilot123]

New package at Qatar Airways for all aircraft types-


3.65QR = $1 US

Captains Base 20,000QR (F/O 14,000)
Housing Allowance 6,200QR
Transport 600QR
Total 26,800QR
For each schedule block hour of commercial flying Captains get 100QR (F/O 70 QR)
Meal Allowance for each hotel based on coffee shop price minus any airline discount.
For 60 hours a Captain will receive 32,800 QR (~$9,000) + meal allowance.
Educational allowance of 75% up to a limit of 30,000QR.
3 weeks gratuity of base salary for each year of service.
The company provides medical insurance for family (no dental).
42 days annual leave taken 2 times a year
1 return ticket per year for family to country of hire (J class on QR and Y class on other airlines).
Flying over 780 hours per year paid at 300QR (Captain)


Positives working for QR-

Money is always in the bank on payday!
New fleet (except A300)
Interesting flying and route structure

Positives for living in Doha-

Weather very nice 7-8 months of the year.
Very family friendly
No property crime


Negatives working for QR-

No bidding system for flying. You get what you are given, and are not allowed to make any requests for days off or a certain flight. Your personal life is not important. They are only required to give you 5 days off a month in Doha….will impress your wife!

Company has little concern for employee welfare. As an example over the last year 2 Cabin Crew (1 male and 1 female) have been raped by locals (that I know of). The following day the company fired and deported them.

Moral at QR very poor. About 5 pilots resign or are fired each month. Most pilots are actively looking for other employment. About 50 – 60 Cabin Crew resign each month.

QR has an agreement with EK, Etihad and Air Arabia that if you are working for QR those companies will not hire you.

Company permission is required to leave Qatar at any time (even for a few days off). You have to apply for an exit permit (which takes a few days) or pay 500QR to get a multiple exit permit that last for 1 year.

Less than truthful at interview. As an example some high time F/O’s where hired being told that upgrade would be 1 year later, after 1 year they where informed it would be 3 years. Other pilots were told that they would get 8 days off in a row every other month. I have yet to see more than 3 days off in a row and that is a very rare. Pilots were told that there would be no A-330 direct entries.

You can get fired for not wearing your hat – even on the crew bus traveling to and from airport when it is 50 deg C! The company policy is that you have to have your jacket between 15th of November to 15th of March or on European sectors no matter what the temperature.

QR encourages staff to report on other staff. Great for team building.

If QR fires you they can have you deported out of Qatar with in 24 hours.

High number of back of clock flights.

Poor efficiency of administrative staff.

No Providence Fund.

You can fly 100 hours in a month and not get paid overtime for it.


Negatives of living in Doha-

The cost of accommodation. Good family accommodation will cost between 8,000 – 13,000 QR in a compound. The price of accommodation has risen about 2000QR in the last year and will continue to rise due to shortage of houses and apartments and the large number of ex-pats coming into the country.

The Mosques. There are Mosques about every 2 – 3 blocks. If you are not Muslim, you may find their amplified calls to prayer (about 5 times a day) starting at around 4:45 am less than enjoyable.

The drivers. You have to experience it yourself to understand.

4 -5 months of very hot weather.

Large male laborer work force with very few females. Any females can get a lot of unwanted attention and harassed….


If you come to Qatar, come with your eyes open and ask the hard questions at your interview.

Good Luck!

[LVL CHG]

Excellent post! Very objective (looking at both sides of the equation). Very sorry to hear about the negatives... How do pilots upgrade from A320 to A330? Is there a bid to larger equipment or are people randomly assigned? Is it seniority based or political?

[jet4hire]

As far as the bid to move to a different type!:confused: I am still waiting!!!:mad:

[Ready]

I agree as well, great post.

Are we down to 42 days of annual leave or what? Our contract stipulates 45 days per year, the've cut it down to 44 days for 2004, no explanation, no nothing. Surprised? No.

Now 2 annual leaves per year - only one paid ticket. Surprised? No.

How come QR does not publish the new offer? The CEO should have had it handy at the meeting. Surprised? No.

Housing allowance! I'm already paying more than what the're offering, and my rent will go up by another 1000 riyals next month. I guessed it's my problem, I should have left my family behind and accept the consequences and bla bla bla. They should differentiate whether you're single, married, married with kids and so on. Some pilots were saving money when it was 4500 a month, and some pilots with kids will still be way short with the new offer. My guess is that families are not welcome here, because they cost QR too much money. I guess it's my problem. Surprised? No.

That's enough, I've said too much I guess.

[jet4hire]

I agree, things are getting a bid expensive here!!:sad:

[qatarpilot123]

Unfortunately no one knows the criteria that QR will use to crew the new A-330’s. It is most cost effective to hire rated direct entry pilots, but moral is very low and with out any transfers off of the other fleets the moral will only get lower.

Management thinks that the current pay will stop the pilots leaving. In my opinion they are wrong- they need to understand that we are not slaves. Like them we have family and friends that we like to spend time with. We need to have a preferential bidding system to maintain a quality of life (like keeping the wife happy). Most of the pilots are not here for the weather, scenery or culture - we are here to make money but not at the total expense of our enjoyment of life.

If QR wants to retain pilots for the long term then they need to address the current issues. If this is not done then the current rate of turnover will continue, people have to be happy to stay no matter how much money we are being paid.

If the current issues are not resolved, QR will not be a career but a temporary place to work until a better job comes along. The only pilots that will be left long term will be the ones that no other airlines will employ.

The company plans to more than double in size in the next 5 years. The issues will only get worse if they are not corrected now.

If you work at QR and are worried, please write to your Chief Pilot, the GMFO and CEO and respectfully express your opinions on upgrades, fleet transfers, preferential bidding, the new pay package, a Providence Fund and any other things that you think will improve QR. If we do nothing, nothing will change. If management do not know the feeling of the pilot group (they don’t), then current policies will not change for the better.

Let’s hope that changes happen at QR to change it from a job to a career for present and future pilots.

Cheers

[millerscourt]

I see that QR have learned a trick from GF ,namely paying Allowances based on Coffee Shop prices LESS the Aircrew Discount that the Airline negotiates with the hotel!!!

[jet4hire]

Well done!

I try my self to pass on the same message to the rest of crew, awhile back but they are only interested in complaining!! instead of doing something about it... As you already mentioned most of us who are here will remain for the money "unfortunately" !!!

Personaly Me waiting to improve my career and the quality of life......The one, I left behind...

As per the MGMT nothing changes nor they are interesting in changing!
:cool:

[GDOP]

It's good to see a post full of facts and not rumours. Many things mentioned reflect the conditions in the asian company I work for very well. High fluctuation means high training costs. If they don't learn from written complaints they will learn from that.

[Yanni]

Qatarpilot,

Thank you for the enlightening post…..I was wondering how long it would take before anyone would make a posting about our nice meeting with « the » management.

As clearly explained before, Qr finally offered its staff a pay rise. There had been no fundamental package increase since 1997, except the special A320 allowance.

I agree, it is a step in the good direction. It really is…It clearly shows a sign that our management is willing to accept a mentality change, they acknowledge the fact that something is wrong and that it had to be dealt with.
So don’t get me wrong, I am grateful and I appreciate the gesture. But there are some reflections to be made here because it is not all as positive as they want us to believe ;….

A pilot with children on the A33O fleet did win about 24% in salary, a copilot on the A320 saw an increase of only 11%.
Reason is that the special allowances that 320 crews had ( due to the fact that they had less layovers) was withdrawn.
So again this is a package designed by and for the astronauts that are « chosen » to fly the A330. The guys flying the A300 take some profit as well and they deserve it but the ones being left out are the « babybus » drivers….And this while they suffer the most ! More about this later …

The really weak parts of this salary increase are schooling and housing allowances. Schooling is still insufficient and regarding the housing allowance …well…Doha would not be Doha if all the rich guys would not play the same game…already some landlords have increased their rents because they knew that QR was increasing the housing allowance !

Another thing…we now have a yearly increment which is a good thing ! It really is and lets hope it will make people more loyal. The big insult here is the fact that everybody starts at the same step now being level 1. So people who have been with us since the beginning of QR are not at all rewarded for their loyalty.
The big HR guru R.M. gave as an explanation that this would be too difficult to implement in the accounting system…I would say here….BS ! How difficult can this be because they are going to have to implement those steps anyway….

The whole package is clearly designed by our SIA friend, the famous « I have no clue » advisor to the CEO, Mr M.D. He came walsing in here about a year ago and ever since then morale has gone down at an incredible rate. This man, who claims to be a retired SIA B747 captain, is reliving his success « horror » story that he designed several years ago at SIA.
This man, who does not have any idea about what a right crew index on a 320 fleet should be, who ha no experience whatsoever with a JAA controlled carrier and who thinks that performance is holier then god himself, is making a huge salary here for working two weeks in 4. He somehow gained the confidence of the management and now the do anything he says.
So he designed the package, together with the guru. That is why the whole thing is based on performance. He wanted people on the 320 to fly an average of 90H/mth, people refused so what did he do, he designed a package where nothing is rewarded more then flying hours….result, people will fly themselves to death for a few pennies more. You have to know that most of the QR flights are night flying and long/demanding sectors. Days with 12H duty are the rule and back to the clocks as well.
In the new package there is no monthly flat rate and no fixed fly pay. So if you want to make money you need to fly because all prestation is paid per scheduled block hour. 70QR as FO and 100QR/Hr as a captain. The only monthly limit you have is the 100Hrs a month given by the CAA.
There is an overtime pay of 300QR/hrs but based on a yearly average. You have to fly 780Hrs a year to get this extra and they count from april march. Strangely enough the whole package is designed around an average amount of flying hours of 720hrs….So 60 hrs disappeared. To me that means the system is designed around 780hrs !!!
Another reflection here should be that no sign whatsoever is given to rostering to limit the monthly duty time. It is technically possible to fly you closely to100hrs a month for 9 months in arrow without paying you any overtime. The other 3 months you fly low hours but the 9 months before will be enough to virtually kill you !!!!
And its all legal !

We have a famous Indian mafia running our rostering department. (They are on no-speaking terms with the Pakistani mob in scheduling but that is another story). Because everything is based on performance it is of crucial importance that all rosters are equally balanced. They where not capable of doing that now and I doubt it very much if they would be able of doing that now ! Probably the opposite is going to happen, those who are willing to stay on good terms with them ( whatever that may take…) will get good rosters with nice long flights and a lot of block hours…The others…well…leftovers !

The number of days on leave where reduced from 45 to 43 which still is acceptable…

This week a rumor started that no more swaps or requests will be accepted by rostering !! One of the biggest problems at QR is that mngmnt changes policies just like that. From one day to the other they will take away a right from you without asking.
Now you might think…what a fuss for something small. Please think about the low morale then…People where allowed ONE swap or request/month. It gave you the possibility to take care of certain stuff etc….With this gone there is no way you can plan anything anymore because your roster, including off days, changes every day as well…
So now there is the feeling « they gave us a little something and now they think they can take away anything they want »….

And this is not the only changed policy :

• Command upgrades changed from 4000 to 5000hrs AND you need to have three years in the company
• 4 days off in a row all of a sudden became totally impossible
• Fleet transfers where impossible because one CP wanted fleet stability
• There would be no direct entries on 330…..nowadays all we see are DE on the 330 fleet leaving no position available to the own pilots
• Now we are even hiring contract pilots on 330 that are paid 1/3 more then the « own » pilots
• Etc
All these policies where changed from one moment to another, leaving the crews behind without any additional information….

Lack of information and disappointed people is an excellent feeding ground for frustration , gossiping and extremely low morale….and that is exactly what happened !

This management has no clue what communication means, how to keep a workforce happy etc…It does not take a salary increase to accomplish that, the only thing you need is a clear and transparent communication strategy, a policy where you treat the workforce with respect and not like ten year olds…

Maybe that is too complicated for R.M / M.D. and all the stars and stripes in the technical building….

Wake up guys……


PS I hope people do not think that this new package will be enough to keep people here…By far its insufficient. Not because of the money but because of the way people are treated here. If you want to people like slaves you have to pay them like a king!! Now we have something in between….That Mr AB is why we did not give you an applause at the Sheraton!

PS2 The comparison between QR and EK and the statement that EK pilots would now want to come to QR…..Who the H**** came up with that? I can only accept this as an attack of whish full thinking and delirium !!!!!.
To keep it simple…An EK captain makes the same amount of money as a QR captain but….on top of that he will get a house worth 14000QR on the Doha market, 30000Dhs furniture allowance, full medical coverage, full schooling allowance, profit sharing which will be worth 3 months salary this year, a LOL of 4 times bigger value than the semi LOL here at QR, a provident fund, interest free car loans, numerous discounts in leisure clubs all over Dubai etc etc etc….
On top of that EK is revising its package this year as well so…..we are FAR FAR FAR off…..

[homesick rae]

Yanni, the rostering v ops thing is still going on then? Jeez...the chaps in Crewing really don't understand do they? Are the "special dispensation from DCAM" rules still being put into effect?? Happened several times in the past that I have witnessed...21 hours on duty...meant to go to a hotel, but they needed the aircraft so we had to come back!!!

We were just about to walk down the aircraft steps when we were told that "DCAM has given special dispensation and approval to operate back to DOH..."

Did anyone say thanks? Not a hope in hell!

[Yanni]

Yep, this still happens regularly, especially with CCM!!! They know they do not know the books so they abuse that fact!

Two tips:

Guys...READ YOUR OM part A chapter 7 and make sure you understand
Always demand proof in writing of these so calles DCAM deviation! Otherwise without that its your ass on the line if something happens....


Just today another Captain jumped ship on the 320 fleet....a very descent and experienced guy but he was not willing to put up with the **** anymore...

I wish him ALL the best....more will follow anyway. I told you guys this so called "gift" was not going to be enough....

:mad:

[jet4hire]

My respect to you !!

This is the best post; I have ever read about QR!!! since, I became a member. Now I hope that everybody agrees with you!!
:cool:

[millerscourt]

Yanni Sorry to hear that you in QR have been lumbered with the late SQ DFO M de V. God help you all is all I can say!! He will see to it that morale sinks to it's lowest possible denominator whilst extracting everything he can get out of the Pilot force through minimum rest and productivity whilst boosting his salary by the savings he makes for QR. You have my commiserations!

[Yanni]

Millerscourt,

thank you for your sympathy. You are right, that same guy is striking back here, ruining everything for the workforce as well as the company!!!

It is a wonder how this human being was able to gain the confidence of the leaders here but he did. If only they would be able to see the devastation he is leaving in his trail...

This is the man that will be the sole responsable for the demise of Qatar Airways! AAB.....open your eyes!

If only some more SQ guys could give any information about MdV s past at SQ......


:*

[qatarpilot123]

Re MDv past at SQ ... SQ 6 (accident) explains were we are heading if something is not done.

[qatarpilot123]

Morale is lower by the day with at least 2 pilots doing runners in the last few weeks.

If anyone comes here…please ask why at the interview…