Qantas to shed cabin crew

[Evacu8]

Qantas is apparently looking at reducing cabin crew compliments on all aircraft by 1 crew member, both domestically and internationally. Trials, apparently, have already begun with the long haul FAAA, and in talks with shorthaul FAAA now. Can anyone clarify this?

If this be true, then we will have to get rid of a hell of a lot of crew, as we would be all of a sudden overstaffed by approx 600 crew !!

We already have the least amount of cabin crew on the B747 of any international RPT airline. :mad: :mad:

Maybe this is how they plan on crewing the new airline?

Any news on this anyone? :confused:

[DoorL1]

Rumour has it V.R. for 300 cabin crew. (we hear the V.R. rumour all the time) Shorthaul currently crew 737 with only 4, which is the minimum legal requirement. So they can't take another F/A off that, but I'm sure they would like all a/c down to minimum legal requirement. :eek:

[Coppelia]

We are always 3 cabin crew on board our B737-300 (142 seats) and 4 on the -400(164 seats).

Not more. Exception made on the very short flights (50 min BLOCKS), where we are 4 on a -300. But this is still not enough as we are 2 crew per class (B/C and Y/C) and have to perform a full B/C service (welcome drink, newspapers -before take-off-, plate served with warm bread, drink service, coffee and tea by hand, clear in) with sometimes up to 70 business passengers...

[Coppelia]

It is a full J-class (as you say) service as described above in my previous post, and always with 2 cabin crew (the Purser and a fast-working CA). We always work with 2 at the front, with 15 or 70 J pax, it doesn't change !

I will even tell you this, it happened several times that a flight had to be performed with only 3 cabin attendants (due to personnel shortage), and the Purser had to perform her J class service ALONE with up to 46 pax...on a 50 min flight it is a real marathon. And they made it.

Now I will reassure you, 70 pax is an exception. The average is between, I will say, 15 and 50. With a maximum on Monday morning and Friday evening.

[davidbwa]

Hi biscuit chucker, just to let you know that J class in Europe is bit different to other continents (don't know which airline Copella flies, but we're all pretty much the same). J Class uses standard economy seating with a moveable curtain seperating the two cabins. You can change the config on turnaround. Some airlines (eg BA, bmi) have variable seating, where the 6 abreast converts into a 5 abreast by shrinking one side to 2 seats, and pulling out the other side to make 3 wider seats. Haven't been to OZ, but I know they don't use this in the US where they have a fixed first class cabin. I've was on a BA A319 positioning last night and was about 75% C Class, lots of work woth the C/C. 50 mins for drinks, hot meal, 2x tea / coffee, gash, hot towels.
Hope that helps :)

[Evacu8]

Sorry ditch youre dreamin there....

If we do offer VR's it will only be to cover the excess crew we will have both longhaul and shortahul - with the reduction of crew on the B767 (domestic and international) and the B747 - all by 1 crew member.

1 crew member doesnt sound like much, but that comibined with the withdrawal of shorthaul routes, and the pending reduction in lonhgaul routes, we will be in excess of more than 600 crew, supposedly.

If they offer Voluntary Redundancies, they have to offer it in seniority.... no matter how much the senior crew are earning, these guys would cost a fortune to pay out... our senior crew are all over 25 years of service, ranging up to 39 years !! Thats a lot of payout $$$$, compared to shorthaul band payments!

They have already started talking about other avenues such as leave without pay for a year or two, incresing the number of part time crew (there are over 500 crew on the part time waitlist, in longhaul alone).... plus we have an awful lot of overseas contract and Aussie casual crew who don't need any notice at all, let alone redundancy packages....

It's looking very dim for those of us who are already in QF... and those of you who are looking to be employed by QF.

I wont be made redundant, but the workload with less crew on board the aircraft will be ridiculous... we already have ridiculously low levels of crew onboard the 747. :mad:

I cant see us recruiting any crew for a long time.... look towards Australian Airlines recruitment - that's if QF doesnt offer the positions to our crew who have been made redundant. :(

The morale at QF is the lowest it has ever been :(

[capt cynical]

Bye-Bye.....B+ :D