SAA vs Pilot Shortage

[Q4NVS]

According to the Sunday Times:
SAA currently has a shortage of 35 Pilots...

Management failure to appoint additional crew is resulting in tensions between SAA and SAAPA. According to sources, some crew will be reaching max Duty Time during or before end of 4th quarter 2006, resulting in crew being grounded.

It must be understood that this is not the legal limit of 1000hrs, but rather the SAA/SAAPA agreement of something in the region of 800hrs per annum.

More route rationalisations on the cards for the new financial year - If you ask me, they are trying to make the airline smaller..?
:ok:

[GreenOnGo]

All helped no doubt by telling guys they are hired and then changing their minds a few hours later. What absolute :mad:

[Solid Rust Twotter]

Well, there are plenty of willing, eager and capable candidates out there but they don't fit the required demographic.

SAA's problems are self inflicted, IMO.

[Avi8tor]

hmmm.... gotta have a laugh at this 1. 35 pilots in about 900 is about 3%. When EVERY pilot in the airline is doing 900 logbook hrs, then they have a crew shortage. 319 co pilots are largely doing 500 hrs a yr. Crew in CT and DN are doing 30hrs a month. I will concede some of this is bar talk, but i know of enough 1st hand stories to guess its true.

Only prob here is that the crew on some fleets have to take the strain for bad planning by management.

Its back to 1 of my other posts, the sooner the state starts to using my tax ZAR for building houses and fighting crime, the better. Leave running airlines to pvt capital.

[Deskjocky]

Average crew utilization across the network is rumoured to be in the region of 550 hours PA. If this is true then it’s not the pilots problem- who entered into and agreed to these collective agreements in the first place?? I say well done to whoever negotiated for the pilots!!

Unfortunately these agreements have become a millstone around the neck of the airline- much like the executive management team:} sooner or later something will have to give- history has shown thus far that the pilots tend to win most of these stand offs- lets be honest they haven’t even broken sweat in dealing with what is essentially an incompetent ER/HR leadership.- I bet the pilot negotiating team are bend over in fits of laughter after every time they have a meeting with these guys!

So now it looks like management are getting petty again. Although not wanting to side with management on this, 550 does seem a bit on the low side (if thats the true number).