Roll up..Join the Jetstar gravy train..

[bonvol]

Well, the union has been hard at work to get the poor disenfranchised mainline drivers a seat at the Jetstar table. It looks like success is at hand though and mainline pilots will soon have an opportunity to get on the Jetstar gravy train. Undaunted by earning less than a 744 S/O they will happily fork out the reddies to get a look in and sport the coveted 4 bars of a Jetstar Capitano. Why, I bet if AIPA negotiates really hard then Magda may even hand out the bars at the command parties. Form an orderly queue please!

And it’s all no risk! After three years the company will give you a once off bid to come back to Momma. Miss that and its Jetstar for some time, like life. Do deals get any better than this?

On the flip side, Jetstar drivers can join the mainline party games if they want. Just a few small hoops to jump through with the headshrinker test and a few $$$$$$ for their endorsement and they too can check out the insides of heavy metal in no time flat.

QF mainline wannabes would be well advised to get a fourth job to build up the cash for the inevitable endorsement cost. Beancounters would have this high on their to do list.

NSW railways in the meantime will pay you $70K to tool around in a Tangara and ….you don’t have to pay for your endorsement. Why, you can even lodge your application for free!

Regional F/Os must scratch their heads at the calcs.

Let me see, they get 50K to fly the Dash and it's 5 checks a year, give or take a check or two, they gotta pass these checks or it’s the street, and do the medicals or it’s the street and spent heaps to get there.... and QF wont take ‘em cause they are in a subsidiary... and they struggle to support a family and etc etc etc. But there is hope, one day they will get to be Dash Skippers and get $80K!

Train drivers will probably be on a hundred by then. I never used to be a cynic but times have changed!

[Hugh Jarse]

NSW railways in the meantime will pay you $70K to tool around in a Tangara and ….you don’t have to pay for your endorsement. Why, you can even lodge your application for free!
Hey Bonvol, do you have a link to their webby?

I don't like the idea of being a guard for 12 months tho'. :mad:

Only 100 or so Cyclic/Route checks to retirement:E

[cunningham]

My brother-in-law walked into an employment agency last week looking for a job. Started this week as a forklift driver for a large Australian mult-national company on 40k plus super and benefits. No weekends, no nights, no checks, no medical and he had diddly experience. Can't believe the packages they give to the regional drivers in OZ. You folks are worth way more than what you are getting.

This must surely shoot holes in the supply and demand theory that many crap on about. I wouldn't say there is a shortage of "Forkies" in this country.

[bonvol]

HJ, try this site.

http://www.jobs.nsw.gov.au/Start.asp

One of my relatives is a train driver "check captain" and tells me this is where they find future starters. There is also a 1300 number but he can't remember it at the moment. If it comes to mind I'll post it too.

He thinks I'm pulling his leg when I tell him Dash F/O's only get paid $50k or so. No self respectin' train driver would turn up for that sorta money.

[Col. Walter E. Kurtz]

How will a mainline (ex) pilot ever manage to share a cockpit with a lowly 'Impulse' pilot who had to 'buy a job' ?

Just imagine, if you will, an in training High Priest of the QF cockpit 'slumming it' with the guys they regard so poorly.

Jeez, those cockpits are going to be a weird place?

Piss off and stay at QF, and let the gentiles have some feed at the trough....

[Hugh Jarse]

Cunningham,
I gave up a forkie job (shift work) back in 1988 that paid $54k!!

My brothers-in-law now earn $85k in the same job at the same multi-national company. No checks, no medicals, little responsibility. The downside is it lacks the mental stimulation and satisfaction of flying.

Their management-staff relationship is on a level that some aviation companies should aspire to. IMHO they are around 20 years ahead of current practices.:E

Thankx for the link Bonvol.:}

[ftrplt]

Just a minor omission there Bonvol, the Impulse guys cant come to QF until all mainline pilots have a command in QF (or attempted it). They are thinking at least 15 years.

At least that was what I was told.

[Kaptin M]

Well, the union has been hard at work to get the poor disenfranchised mainline drivers a seat at the Jetstar table. It looks like success is at hand though and mainline pilots will soon have an opportunity to get on the Jetstar gravy train. Undaunted by earning less than a 744 S/O they will happily fork out the reddies to get a look in and sport the coveted 4 bars of a Jetstar Capitano. Why, I bet if AIPA negotiates really hard then Magda may even hand out the bars at the command parties. Form an orderly queue please!

And it’s all no risk! After three years the company will give you a once off bid to come back to Momma. Miss that and its Jetstar for some time, like life. Do deals get any better than this?

On the flip side, Jetstar drivers can join the mainline party games if they want... If this IS the case, then full marks must go to AIPA for protecting the QANTAS pilots' interests.:ok:
That is what being part of a union is all about.

From time to time I've stuck it up AIPA when I considered they were "slacking it", however this (as reported by bonvol) is, imo, worthy of a BIG plus +

[speedjet]

I wish we did earn 50k a year, would make everything a little bit easier to pay off.

[amos2]

Pardon me "M"...would you like to run that past us again? :confused:

[Keg]

Not how I read it ftr. I read it that they can come any time they like in their seniorority position. IE, come now and they're S/Os. Come in three years time and they can be F/Os on the 767. Twelve to fifteen years and they can be junior captains on whatever the junior type is, etc, etc, etc.

Then again, I stopped reading after about the second line.... :(

[bonvol]

Err..I don't feel much enthusiasm for paying for my endorsement and then earning less but I guess its better than nothing...I think"! :confused:

Reminds me a bit of the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn who fights valiently to win the fair hand of Miss Prissy. When he finally gets her he shouts "I won, I won" and when he realises Miss Prissy is not exactly a glamour laments "Hmm must have been some way I coulda lost."

[ftrplt]

Keg, I guess we will have to see the written word; I was told that by a union rep in person. (It was said to apply both ways)

[blueloo]

I was under the impression the Pilots turned up to a special general meeting late last year to sort this mess out.

What supposedly happened was that the AIPA comm held a meeting in the last few days and 20 vs 11 voted in favour of having a 7 in 20 positioning system to jetstar and jetstar get a QF seniority number.

(That means 11 people on the comm voted for what the 700 Pilots turned out for at the SGM - and 20 or so members completely ignored what the PILOT body requested - it is good to see the union working for the people they represent - not!)

Isnt it also great that when you join jetstar you Get into QANTAS. This means that all those guys in Jetstar who failed QF minimum entry requirements now have the backdoor into QF. [Why dont the NSW train workers also get a QF seniority number too whilst we are giving them away]

(It also means those of you who missed out on QFs minimum entry requirements now get to have a go at the ol discrimination thingo)

The head of the union was further outraged when supposidly a list of those who voted for and against was published on the QF forums - (it was immediately censored and removed)




The solution as i understand it, is to put for a Question to the committee demanding that the resolution be overturned and a resolution then be found which represents the Fee PAYING members of AIPA.

How? 25 members of AIPA must organise/demand a SGM be organised - it needs just 25 signatures.

[Kaptin M]

blueloo, you're assuming that the majority of pilots really give a f@#* if it doesn't affect them, and even for those whom it does, most are too busy being busy doing other stuff...until it finally catches up with them.
THEN they whinge and complain like hell.

"They say x x x x xs are apathetic - but who cares!"

[Capt. Ben Dover]

Slightly off the subject.......

Well, all you train driver wannabes - I'm one step ahead of you having already booked into the RailCorp Info session and ability testing Monday week.

I've spent a considerable amount of time practising "hitting" the new vigilance button so that the system knows the driver is awake and alive (channel surfing on pay TV is good practice) and more importantly I am psyching myself "down" so that I feel I do not need to keep to a schedule (forget this ramp out within 2 minutes of schedule crap).

I can't wait - and think of all the money I'll save by not having to buy myself a jet type rating -ahhhhhhhh!

Fark!

[mo_gravy]

what about that trucker magazine? truck master I think it was... i might need that...

[bonvol]

And don't forget you have heaps of industrial muscle as a train driver. If they pack up and go home millions of people jump up and down.

And when they down tools Railcorp can't just fly in a heap of overseas trains to do the job and since it takes over two years to get a driver up to speed what with the nuances of the local system they can't even bring in strikebreakers from America, Russia, Botswana etc. Got it by the balls the train drivers.

Since a full train carries more than an A380 its a wonder train drivers dont get more than 74 skippers. Just a matter of time I guess.

Anyway, back to the topic. I think one significant outcome of all this will be that applicants will soon have to pay for their endorsement with QF mainline . . :sad:

[ferris]

What do signalmen get? I know a lot of fat controllers.

[Douglas Mcdonnell]

Well put Col Walter. After all the sledging, snears, terminal confrontations and bagging on this and another forum, everything is alright now because it looks like these characters are going to get what they want.

I guess that instead if the agro our friendly mates will be offering to buy us a coffee. And take the time to sit down and shoot the breeze?

It is and was very unfortunate that a good bunch af people have let themselves be represented by a loud and uninformed minority.

DM

[TopperHarley]

Please correct me if im wrong...... Im a little confused.....

If im reading this right....... The APIA has just negotiated with Dicko to allow QF mainline drivers in to crew Jetstar ??

Why the fark would a QF mainline pilot wanna crew Jetstar ?

Would they be paid Jetstar or QF dollars ??

[Douglas Mcdonnell]

Jetstar Dollars obviously.

[Col. Walter E. Kurtz]

Another thing I was thinking about was the fact that QF guys wouldn't pi$$ on Impulse pilots, considered them as low lifes, scabs or whatever, sitting fat dumb and happy whilst their (mainline) own management was conspiring against them, stuck their heads in the sand and went on with life like 'this isn't happening' even whilst Australian was set up, but now that Impulse have some toys that mainline want to play with, they are acting like the spoilt vbrats they really are, and bullying their way into the game. The same guys who wouldn't have given a fat rats ar$e if the 717's leases ran out and all the Impulse guys were back out on the street, jobless.

Stay with your 80k SO jobs, and leave the crumbs for the rest of the guys who don't fit 'the profile'.

To the Imulse/Jetstar crews: Do you REALLY think you will get a FAIR stab at QF mainline??? Bacjk door into QF? I hope you get a kiss whilst you end up being screwed.

[Thumbs up]

Well,Well..congrats to the QF Guys for negotiating transfer to Jetstar.with a return to mainline when suits.

Congrats to Impulse for negotiating a seniority system and not having to pay for endorsements (how does that fit in with Transfering QF people).

Congrats to the TWU for negotiating a deal that will (could) involve ramp staff going from QF to Jetstar,on the same pay I believe.

We've yet to hear from the Flight Attendents and others,but I'd expect with the precedence being set,that they will want their say.

You may all be winning the battle,but your shaping up to lose the war. I am seeing the start of a disfunctional group of angry pilots who still have to face the whole reason why there's a Jetstar in the fist place............VIRGIN !!.

I recall Dixon saying he wants this to be a totally seperate entity from QF when all he seems to doing is bowing to union pressure and setting up a clone.

Don't get me wrong,unions when managed well work very well and generally I support them.I would definatly support a single,non fragmented,fully subscribed Australian Pilots union.

But

We're talking about three chest beating,I'm better than you,Airlines

Virgin Claiming 33% and climbing
QF claiming 60% and not moving.
Jetstar going for at least 30%

Ok,there will be an increse in Australian Travel stimulated by competetion,but some one will take a fatal blow within a couple of years and with what I'm seeing my money is now going on Jetstar.
:uhoh:

[oicur12]

"You may all be winning the battle,but your shaping up to lose the war. I am seeing the start of a disfunctional group of angry pilots who still have to face the whole reason why there's a Jetstar in the fist place............VIRGIN"

Battle. War. Conjures up images of the wharfies.

You dont think market forces had a little to do with it. Or maybe it reflects a change in the global airline industry. If Virgin is the "reason" for Jetstrs arrival then what is the "reason" for Virgins arrival?

Can we blame Virgin for the assassination of JFK? El Nino perhaps?

[bonvol]

The reason for Virgins arrival is easy. The 89 dispute.

No 89 dispute no Virgin. Probably some other variation would have sprung up though.

In another interesting tidbit I hear AIPA have come up with a novel idea to solve accommodation probs in Melbourne. I think its called a "creative" solution. Pilots will give up some pay to stay there!

Yep, thats novel and creative. Time to get the numbers for a meeting people.

[elektra]

Bonvol

I've just got back from a 14 hour flight so I mightn't be even up to my normal level of dullness. Are you winding us up?

The 1989 dispute had $%*^ all to do with Virgin. The Two Airline Policy had built a world of security, seniority and high fares. that's why the government decided in 1987 to end the policy. Hawke and his mates managed to find a few hundred pilots in 1989/90 to fly while those with backbone went elsewehere. Virgin or any other variety would have found pilots somewhere. The fact that some of thier pilots had previous Australian domestic experience merely made the process easier.

Maybe they would simply have tapped the vast pool of experienced GA guys who've been knocked back over the years because "jets are different". Yeah, easier. Look at the abysmal way Ansett handled the CRJ and you'll see why the Two Airline Policy would never give either the travelling public or GA pilots a fair go.

And the sad thing is that the AFAP offered management the proverbial "clean sheet of paper" on conditions and work rules...and were ignored. An industry that's capable of spending billions of dollars to fight a few hundred pilots is an industry dying for more competition. We could have had it with a single union and some equity and fairness (if AIPA ever listened to their conscience and came back into the fold) or we could have it the way it is. Pilot against pilot and greed the motivator. It didn't have to be this way but there was always going to be more competition and hence more jobs, especially for those marginalized by the old system.

Cold hard fact of life is that there are MANY pilots flyng jets today who wouldn't be if the Two Airline Policy hadn't ended. If AIPA ever grows up properly, maybe most of those pilots will one day belong to a well run and well funded union which, while recognizing variety and differing strategies and markets, will help build standards in an industry thats crying out for the sort of quality safety/technical input that the AFAP gave.

[bonvol]

Pretty much agree with most of what you say elektra. I'm not saying that a LCC would not have started in Australia just that I don't think it would have been Virgin per se.

After all, it was the 89 dispute pilots who planted the idea in Bransons head, along with Godfrey as I understand it. Significant numbers of competent Australian drivers who wanted to return home provided a great resource to build Virgin with very little start up capital. If those pilots were still in Ansett then they would not have been available to start Virgin. Someone else, as you say would have/may have done it. Maybe Ansett would have morphed into a survivable airline if they hadn't thrown away so much to destroy the AFAP and set up their own LCC. All conjecture and pretty much irrelevant to current day events.

The sooner we unite the airline pilots of Australia the better I reckon. The old AFAP was a good model.

And to get back to something Blueloo mentioned on page 1. Why were AIPA committee members so outraged that they refuse to have their voting on this issue made available to the membership on Qrewroom? The memberships ideas on this were pretty clear I would have thought and the end result looks like establishing some pretty nasty precedents.

[Kaptin M]

'89, or no '89 there were people there who could fly jets just as proficiently as the incumbents could.
The only difference was the ones who weren't, had been knocked back for one reason or another.."wheat and chaff" sort of stuff.

The fact is, it's probably a damned sight easier to fly a modern jet, than it is to fly a bl@@dy turbo-prop these days!! (or even in those days!!)

Airlines put the "psychological" aspect of things away, a long time ago - and put some "psychos" into the front end as an experiment. Unfortunately a percentage of these didn't work out, but they are insignificant in the overall scheme of things (to get pilots' bums in seats).
So let's work on the same baseline as most airlines do - pilots are bus drivers - nothing more.

Unfortunately, pilots being as (stupid..competitive..insecure) "professional" as they are, will EACH want to prove his/her singular superiority by trying to "outdo" ALL other pilots.

Until pilots realise that your company considers you simply as another bus driver, unable to directly influence daily ops, we'll get what we deserve!

[bonvol]

All too true Kap.

Management have seen the pilots as bus drivers since the dispute and probably well before that but still we dont get it and believe that we are somehow "special". The QF pilots concern with Jetconnect drivers wearing Qantas uniforms springs to mind when they haven't been through the hoops like "real" drivers.

The companies in 89 showed how much they cared for the vast experience of their respective pilot groups. They didn't give a toss. Threw it all out the door without a second thought. QF management would do the same if push ever came to shove.

The only hope to preserve any sort of reasonable future for pilots in this country is a union representing all professional pilots imo.

[Groaner]

VB was started by a bunch of ex-Virgin Express guys. For those who don't know, that's a fairly small short-haul Belgian-based outfit that Branson bought a while ago that has had a fairly chequered existence ever since. Ryanair/easyjet etc were booming, and the loco way was clear (everyone in the lcc world starts with the Southwest model anyway and adds some tweaks), but VExp was saddled with Belgian costs, locked into 2-class, tied up with Sabena etc, so could not do an easy transition.

Godfrey came up with the VB idea for Oz, and a few of the VExp guys had a scan around the world basically looking for the best place to try it. No-one could find a better place than Oz, so it was on.

Why Oz? Long distances between cities, without fast trains, plenty of road traffic able to switch, proven demand from previous stimulation attempts (Compass), very high-cost and complacent incumbents, government no longer willing to keep out competitors, terminal access problems easing.

Sorry, but it was all very little to do with pilots - except of course that availability was high because of 89, and in any case, plenty of new supply was/is available ex-GA. Market demand, cost to supply, barriers to entry drive business plans these days, not pilot disputes.