Jetstar Cadets spread to Singapore

[The Kelpie]

Jetstar starts pilot training course
By Mustafa Shafawi | Posted: 17 December 2010 1441 hrs

SINGAPORE: Low fares carrier Jetstar has announced the launch of its Cadet Pilot Training Programme in Singapore.

For a start, it's looking to pick up to 30 Singaporeans or regional applicants for the 18-month programme, which starts in March next year.

Jetstar said candidates need not have flying experience but must meet its requirements for aptitude, quality and safety.

The carrier also plans to launch a six-month Advanced Cadet Programme in February, designed to help non-commercial pilots get their commercial flying licence.

There will be around 40 places available on this programme.

The training will be conducted in Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong.

Jetstar Asia chief executive officer Chong Phit Lian said these programmes would play a critical role in securing an additional source of trained pilots to support the carrier's growth aspirations, particularly in Asia over the next few years.

The programme is a result of a partnership between Jetstar and Oxford Aviation Academy.

In support of the new partnership, the academy is establishing a dedicated Ground Training Centre in Singapore.


Does anyone know if JQ are going to re-register their a/c in Singapore under the new entity?

If the senate enquiry puts an end to low hours in jet rpt then this is going to be a waste of time and money for singaporeans.

Think jetstar should just wait and see what happens with the enquiry before getting more young people to risk parting with their cash. But then again JQ take no risk so suppose they will just push on regardless such is their arrogance.

Pilots working on Aus registered aircraft should be paid Australian wages and be subject to australian immigration rules given that if there is an incident it will be casa and our government who take the flack.

With cadet applications due to open soon in both Aus and singas the time is nearly right to expose the cadet programme for what it is......

Seems JQ are well in bed with Oxford who both spoke highly of the success of cadet programs in their submissions to the senate enquiry. Petteford from Oxford makes a statement that they are successfully but poor t+cd will seriously affect the outcome. Does he know what JQ are planning to pay cadets or is he just blinded by the business income for Oxford? It is interesting that the success stories Petteford refers to in his senate submission (BA,, lufthansa etc.) are all funded by the airline!!!

More to follow

The Kelpie


Ps. I wonder if Oxford know that JQ are quietly talking to other training organizations about running the cadetship 'approved course' and their oz exclusivity days may be numbered!! Rumour has it anyway!

[Sunstar320]

Airasia are doing the same in KL, last I heard they had something like 900 people on the waiting list :\ Except the majority of their fleet are crewed by these low houred folks.

Tiger have done the same in Singapore also, the guys are already online.

[The Kelpie]

The JQ Asia ab-initio program is a minimum of $20,000 cheaper than the Australian candidates and the advanced course is over $42,000 dollars cheaper.

Oh and accommodation is included for both courses for their entire duration- something that was not a feature of the Australian program.

Hey Swinburne guess what? You ain't part of the picture anymore as they don't need to use you for access to fee help they are gonna get cadets to source their own funding through a tie up with a commercial bank.

A true indication that the Australian cadet candidates are getting ripped off!!

More to follow

The Kelpie

[Mr. Hat]

Think jetstar should just wait and see what happens with the enquiry before getting more young people to risk parting with their cash. But then again JQ take no risk so suppose they will just push on regardless such is their arrogance.

Dare say Jetstar and big business are fairly confident they can control the outcome of the enquiry. This is Australia afterall.

You want the short cut to an airline seat? You take the risk. Not one of us gives a damn if you blow 200k and get nothing.

As I said I wouldn't worry Big Business ALWAYS wins:ok:.

[The Kelpie]

Aussie JQ cadets are based in NZ on an individual contract that pays peanuts and provides t+cs that make REX look attractive.

Word is they will get lwop to enter into a sh1t temporary contract to allow them to take up an oz base on a deal that is not the current eba and well below award wages and conditions (no 9% super or loss of license or allowances other than overnights).

I intend to post an expose soon that lays the facts of the cadet program bare so that potential candidates know exactly what to expect before they consider paying Oxford or ctc for selection as the information posted on the websites and that issued prior to selection is very misleading.

Potential applicants can make their own minds up but they deserve to have the facts up front! Oxford and ctc made over $1.2m on the last round of selections alone!!

More to follow

The Kelpie

[The Kelpie]

Leave With Out Pay.

Basically you are released from your contract and your length of service suspended.

[The Kelpie]

The setup is complicated but basically cadets will have the opportunity to be released from the initial NZ contract that they will be signed up to at the end of the 'approved course' to take up an Australian base. Whilst working in Australia they will be given a temporary contract from a different jetstar entity. The precise details are nor known yet but what is known is that the terms will be no more favorable than the NZ contract which pays 70nz per SCHEDULED block hour with no super, no redundancy provision, no relocation allowance when you get xferred amongst other notable deliberate exclusions.

Yes you read right you don't even get paid block hours flown only scheduled block hours so if you get a one hour Atc delay in the air you are expected to work for nothing!!!

More to follow

The Kelpie

[Mr. Hat]

In other words you'll be on worse conditions than someone working at a service station or driving a cab.

You'll get to walk around in a pilot uniform (grey, not silver bars) and have all the girls wish they could talk to you at security but you wont ever be able to afford to buy a house.

Your smarter friends will go and become plumbers and will be down at the BMW dealership.

By the way once the girls work out that you are actually poorer than a uni student they'll go for the bronzed chippie with the M3.

[The Kelpie]

Soseg

I can assure you the source of the information is reliable and some is taken from internal JQ documents that are not in the public domain. I am awaiting to see what evidence is given to senate before I release them but will post some facts on pprune soon.

Read some of my posts on the senate enquiry about what the cadet program costs and what you will get paid-it does not stack up and will leave you worse off than a student. In the case of ab-initio you will have a negative wage for 6 years!!!

If you want to research the 2010 modern award, it is available on the fairwork website.

[73to91]

Just noticed this on the news.com.au site,
How Australian is Jetstar? (http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-australian-is-jetstar/)
the link takes you to How Australian is Jetstar? | Article | The Punch (http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-australian-is-jetstar/)


The key take out that everyone in Australia got from the recent Qantas incident in Singapore is that pilot experience is critically important.

As more and more information filters about just how serious the situation was with QF32, pilot training and experience are being widely acknowledged, from the CEO of Qantas down, as having arguably made the difference.

Given the travails of Qantas over recent weeks, you would think that Jetstar would think twice about its absurd plans to put less and less experienced pilots in the cockpit of its aircraft.

Until now Jetstar have employed pilots with a minimum of 2000 hours flight time and in fact, most, if not all, have more than 2000 hours flight time experience.

What the company, however, is proposing to do in the near future is employ cadet pilots with as little as 200 hours total flight time.

Whilst the 200 hours will be supplemented by a further 1000 hours “supervised training”, what it neglects to mention is that some of this “supervised training” refers to actual flying time with fare paying passengers onboard.

That effectively means that pilots with a minimum of 200 hours total flight time experience will potentially be cutting their teeth with fare paying passengers onboard in an operating environment considered to be complex and demanding of even highly experienced pilots.

These cadets will pay up to $180 000 out of their own pockets for their training with no guarantee of employment at Jetstar. If they are indeed employed by the company they will be paid wages that are proposed to be less than half that of a regular newly recruited pilot at Jetstar.

In fact, their proposed salary is well below the Modern Pilots Award, which sets the minimum standards of employment in Australia.

Despite the cadets huge training debts they will be “bonded” to the company for up to 6 years and during that time will, based on my information, earn approximately $42,000.00 (New Zealand Dollars) a year, less than most secretaries or factory workers (before making the payments on their huge debts).

The people who are really paying for Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan’s aggressive cost-cutting strategy could be Jetstar’s fare paying passengers. Is a pilot with 200 hours actual flying experience as safe as a 2000 hours experienced pilot? Are you as competent a driver when you had your P plates for 2 months, as compared to now?

You be the judge.

Jetstar’s Australian pilots feel their job security to be coming increasingly under threat as the company moves aggressively to undermine Australian working conditions by creating artificial offshore entities that are able to circumvent the Fair Work Act and pay pilots less than the relevant minimum Australian standards.

The company has recently offered employment to Australian pilots in off-shore entities to operate in and out of Australia and AIPA believes that if this trend is allowed to continue unchecked, the entire Australian Aviation industry could be off-shored using artificial foreign corporate entities to circumvent Australian workplace laws.

This would deprive an entire section of Australian society of their livelihood and irreparably diminish Australia’s reputation for aviation safety and excellence.

Mr Buchanan stated in his address to the National Aviation Press Club on the 15th of November that “Our cost base must reflect the markets we sell seats in and enable us to provide a competitive relevant offering to consumers in each of these markets.

To achieve this we are developing significant local bases with locally relevant network offerings”.

Strategies such as these will see Australian Jetstar pilots, having to move their families to bases overseas, fly in and out of Australia, on third world pay rates.

What is the “regional relevance” of paying a pilot in New Zealand Dollars (less than the Australian Award) to fly an Australian aircraft from Sydney to Fiji or even worse, using these NZ$42,000.00-cadet pilots to operate domestically in Australia?

The passengers on those flights are paying their fares in Australian Dollars.
It is Australian flying by an Australian company and they should be paying the appropriate Australian salary. It is not about obtaining “regional relevance”.

This term is merely a façade to justify employing people on third world wages to work for an Australian airline, doing Australian work. It begs the question, how ‘Australian’ is Jetstar? Is what Jetstar doing ‘Australian’?

Australian aviation is at the crossroads. I understand that everyone loves cheap fares but nothing is for nothing and those who run Jetstar have failed to comprehend the lessons from recent events: experience may cost a little bit more, but it certainly counts for much, much, more – and I don’t think the travelling public will disagree.



Read the associated comments as well, some good and some, well, maybe written by management!!

[Oxidant]

bananabender says:01:23pm | 22/12/10

Airliners are not flown by pilots. They are fully automated machines flown by computers.

NASA has already declared airline pilots to be redundant. The only real reason for having airline pilots is legal liability and to reassure the public.

An A380 (and any other modern airliner) can take off, fly to it’s destination and land safely without the pilot touching the controls.

The credit for the recent QANTAS landing is 99% due to to the Airbus software not the pilots.

Nice to see the average brain cell count of the population is still in decline..... (Now, where is that automatic take off button?:rolleyes:)

[Mr. Hat]

Whilst sucking back on some JD and coke that night Wal says to Deano:

"Pretty good computer on board QF 32. Bloody pilots mustv just sat back and watched it do it stuff. There bloody amazing these iphones"



Seriously I don't care. Travelling public want a cheap fare they get a cheap pilot. Couldn't give a damn if it ends up in a ball of flames and smoke at the end of the runway as no one I know flies low cost neither do I.

We all make our choices..

[c173]

my god, 'Macca' (from the article comments) needs to be strapped to a rocket and fired at the sun

[psycho joe]

Mike says:10:26am | 22/12/10

Great idea.


Now let’s replace the Jetstar CEO with a business grad on $40K.


Better still, let’s replace him with an iPod running a $4.00 Management Consultant Application.


The Board will love that.


It will have a massive impact on the bottom line, and, it will be vastly improvement management at the same time.


That's the best idea that I've read all year. :ok:

[jibba_jabba]

How Australian is Jetstar? | Article | The Punch (http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-australian-is-jetstar/)


As more and more information filters about just how serious the situation was with QF32, pilot training and experience are being widely acknowledged, from the CEO of Qantas down, as having arguably made the difference.
Given the travails of Qantas over recent weeks, you would think that Jetstar would think twice about its absurd plans to put less and less experienced pilots in the cockpit of its aircraft.
Until now Jetstar have employed pilots with a minimum of 2000 hours flight time and in fact, most, if not all, have more than 2000 hours flight time experience.
What the company, however, is proposing to do in the near future is employ cadet pilots with as little as 200 hours total flight time.
Whilst the 200 hours will be supplemented by a further 1000 hours “supervised training”, what it neglects to mention is that some of this “supervised training” refers to actual flying time with fare paying passengers onboard.
That effectively means that pilots with a minimum of 200 hours total flight time experience will potentially be cutting their teeth with fare paying passengers onboard in an operating environment considered to be complex and demanding of even highly experienced pilots.
These cadets will pay up to $180 000 out of their own pockets for their training with no guarantee of employment at Jetstar. If they are indeed employed by the company they will be paid wages that are proposed to be less than half that of a regular newly recruited pilot at Jetstar.
In fact, their proposed salary is well below the Modern Pilots Award, which sets the minimum standards of employment in Australia.
Despite the cadets huge training debts they will be “bonded” to the company for up to 6 years and during that time will, based on my information, earn approximately $42,000.00 (New Zealand Dollars) a year, less than most secretaries or factory workers (before making the payments on their huge debts).
The people who are really paying for Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan’s aggressive cost-cutting strategy could be Jetstar’s fare paying passengers. Is a pilot with 200 hours actual flying experience as safe as a 2000 hours experienced pilot? Are you as competent a driver when you had your P plates for 2 months, as compared to now?
You be the judge.
Jetstar’s Australian pilots feel their job security to be coming increasingly under threat as the company moves aggressively to undermine Australian working conditions by creating artificial offshore entities that are able to circumvent the Fair Work Act and pay pilots less than the relevant minimum Australian standards.
The company has recently offered employment to Australian pilots in off-shore entities to operate in and out of Australia and AIPA believes that if this trend is allowed to continue unchecked, the entire Australian Aviation industry could be off-shored using artificial foreign corporate entities to circumvent Australian workplace laws.
This would deprive an entire section of Australian society of their livelihood and irreparably diminish Australia’s reputation for aviation safety and excellence.
Mr Buchanan stated in his address to the National Aviation Press Club on the 15th of November that “Our cost base must reflect the markets we sell seats in and enable us to provide a competitive relevant offering to consumers in each of these markets.
To achieve this we are developing significant local bases with locally relevant network offerings”.
Strategies such as these will see Australian Jetstar pilots, having to move their families to bases overseas, fly in and out of Australia, on third world pay rates.
What is the “regional relevance” of paying a pilot in New Zealand Dollars (less than the Australian Award) to fly an Australian aircraft from Sydney to Fiji or even worse, using these NZ$42,000.00-cadet pilots to operate domestically in Australia?
The passengers on those flights are paying their fares in Australian Dollars. It is Australian flying by an Australian company and they should be paying the appropriate Australian salary. It is not about obtaining “regional relevance”.
This term is merely a façade to justify employing people on third world wages to work for an Australian airline, doing Australian work. It begs the question, how ‘Australian’ is Jetstar? Is what Jetstar doing ‘Australian’?
Australian aviation is at the crossroads. I understand that everyone loves cheap fares but nothing is for nothing and those who run Jetstar have failed to comprehend the lessons from recent events: experience may cost a little bit more, but it certainly counts for much, much, more – and I don’t think the travelling public will disagree.