Contract Compliance going into week 3

[freightdog188]

I've just spent 3 days of reserve without hearing a single word from Crew Control, and that despite the fact that at least one whole set of crew expired without even leaving the home port because their jet went tech.
I am close to 50h for the month, so it wasn't because I'm expensive to call out.
And I'm way below the 900h mark for the year. RQ FO.

thoughts?

[Trafalgar]

Mr. Churchill,

I've heard there are Nazi spies in the village, and Hitler has deployed super-weapons. We are losing the war. I'm scared and was wondering what your thoughts were....:ugh:

[Progress Wanchai]

Perhaps one nut on one wheel is somewhat less than its ideal torque setting.
Perhaps.

But we're a long way from seeing wheels falling off.


With the current defensive rostering, Cx has more coverage and greater flexibility than ever. It will be well into 2015 before the company begins to feel any negative consequences.


You're well below the 900 hour mark?
So CX hasn't needed you for the past year.
Why did you think that would change in your first 3 days of reserve??

[goathead]

Freight dog
I prescribe a large dose of redtube for your anxiety

[Frogman1484]

yes, so much for ....lets start CC so that we can bring the company to it's knees :\

Total BS! It did not work in the past and it will not work now!:{

[fly123456]

Wanna swap?

Does your last name start with a letter at the end of the alphabet?

I got called every single day, and the new duties even extend into my O day and into my following trip.

[Trafalgar]

Frogman. Then just live on your knees ok? Pathetic. If CC won't work, then explain why RH is so incensed that he has to resort to thinly veiled threats to counter it? Also, explain why the have cancelled numerous flights for the next few months (LAX/LHR)? It will work, just give it time. In the meantime, be an a** and give the enemy a helping hand with some more pathetic posts.

[joblow]

I would kill for 3 days on reserve and not get called out ,what a pleasure
Trust me they may have defensive rostering with more reserve but it will cost them as more and more pilots reach their 30 days on reserve per annum
Just enjoy it and stop complaining

[744drv]

Management weapons ..... close the door into Dispatch and delay the roster ...... watch those pesky pilots squeal!!

[ASH1111]

I'm at 110 hours with 2 days of RSV unassigned. Yeah, they aren't assigning me trips because I am the cheapest!:eek:

[raven11]

Stick with it....any and all crewing flex will eventually be gone.

It's not a question of "will" the wheels fall off, but "when".

[Trafalgar]

Chaps, please see the facts behind the current situation. The only way that CX can maintain the 'appearance' of normality is because they canceled hundreds of flights from the schedule in ANTICIPATION of CC. The reason that things appear untroubled is that they are not flying thousands of pax and freight a week that they would have otherwise been carrying. They would rather cost themselves millions of $$$ instead of lose face. They will only be able to carry that facade off for a short period of time. Eventually people far higher than the RH's of the world will start asking some very difficult questions. Keep doing what you are doing. They emperor has no clothes and soon everyone will see that.

[OK4Wire]

Wot Trafalgar said.

Truth is the first casualty. They will do everything they can to avoid letting us know that CC is working.

Stay the course (and it can be a long course too, mind you! 5 years last time, or something like that...).

[Frogman1484]

Ohhhh I see they started canceling the LAX flight a few months ago because they knew we were going to go into CC over December...Riiiiight!:ok:
I get it now Yes Trafalgar it will work ...this time it is different!:D

[goathead]

Frogman
Your hillarious
100$ YOU WERE AT the staff party having a boogy with 3 rd floor , or are you 3rd floor :ok:

[Air Profit]

Frogman. I made a comment about 'ignorance' on a different thread. I see after reading your comments the same word applies here. You obviously know nothing about the situation, nor do you seem to want to understand the facts. One question: if CC was not going to have an effect, then perhaps you can explain RH's almost hysterical emails that were laced with intimidation, obfuscation and outright lies. Quite a strange reaction if CC was going to be ineffectual.

[Frogman1484]

Yes you are right I know nothing about the situation. You, on the other hand, obviously have a firm grip on reality! Please enlighten me with the facts and help me cure my ignorance!

There is a big difference between a rant email and what is happening on the line.
Let's face the facts...how many passenger services have been cancelled to date?
How many have been significantly delayed due to CC? I'm afraid to say... Zero!

Last week at dispatch out of the 15-20 crew members at dispatch two of us were wearing the red lanyard, the rest were not. When I asked my FO why he was not wearing his, his reply was that he did not want to bring attention to himself.

Please do yourself a favour and look at the history of this company and tell me when did CC ever work in the past? Yes...this time is different!

[Trafalgar]

Frogman. Even if you genuinely held the opinion that you are stating, why on earth would you be so intent on pushing it out here in this manner? All you do is risk weakening the resolve of others who are genuinely making an effort to demonstrate to the company the value of their goodwill. Further, the company had a VERY good idea that CC would be instituted in December, which is why they DID cancel 1/4 of the LAX services for the next two months, and why they have had to cancel a host of LHR services as well. Not to mention many others too numerous and varied to mention. So yes, CC is already having an effect. It has forced their hand early on. Please, feel free to argue about it, but the facts remain. You can continue to help support the company point of view if you wish. I truly don't know why you would wear your lanyard....or question your FO about it. Based on most of your comments, I really don't believe that anyway.

[Hugo Peroni the IV]

Trafalgar,

I would love to believe that all these cancelled flights were caused by CC but suspect that most of those London flights were cancelled by them being between Christmas and New Year; a period when we are unlikely to fill so many 777's between Hong Kong and London.

The LA ones? Is it CC or is it just us being short of pilots all round.

Without doubt, CC will have an impact but it will take time. Many of my friends are already asking whether they will get to their destination over Christmas; public insecurity and doubt is as important a result as cancelled flights.

Frogman; i don't spend much time looking around dispatch but i will give you a snapshot of my flights. All bar one person, who was australian based, has shown up with red lanyards. You might not agree with the path being taken, but its a shame that you cannot fully support the direction that our elected Committee (or should i say our VOTES) has taken.

Hugo

[Threethirty]

Frogman is a classic disinformation troll, ignore him.

[PanZa-Lead]

Froggy

I think you are wrong on this one. Taipei flight was cancelled (next to me in dispatch) as the FO arrived 30 minutes after sign on (called out) and the Captain was 60 minutes late arriving (also called out). I was taken off my flight to fly a new Taipei flight and no crew could be found to fly my flight when I left. In Taipei my flight was cancelled for the return and I was used on a later flight.
Every time I have been to dispatch 80% of crew have red lanyards on and every flight I have crewed all the pilots are wearing red. Take a look at the 747 fleet to see things working.. I agree your posts aren't helpful

[cxorcist]

Froggy is a low level, third floor wannabe. He wears his A350XWB lanyard even now for fear that his ambitions might be ruined by wearing the proper HKAOA lanyard, if he is even a member. He just can't take chances with his big promotion. It's better for him if we fail so he can feel vindicated by his lack of participation.

This is a long term battle. Stay the course...

[Frogman1484]

Hey cxorcist...where have you been all of this time? I was wondering what took you so long to pop up? I thought you were maybe working on your G day.

By the way do you have a A350 Lanyard for me?..I would love one, I think I would look super cool with one!

So one of our 15 flights a day to TPE flights gets canceled...Bang! It must be working then...yep, this time it must be different then!

[Threethirty]

Somebody above has noticed LAX and LHR cancellations Frogger.

[Frogman1484]

LAX cancellations have been going on since September...LHR might have to do with CC, I'll give you that.:D


Buy the way are The G day workers still helping out?

[SweepTheLeg]

Last month both going to LAX and from we had 80 people on board. Being curious, I typed in some random dates in January and February and I can confirm 3 out of 4 flights any day I choose using my pri-11 FOCs...

Somehow I don't think they are canceling some of the 4th daily LAX flights because of CC...

[Air Profit]

Once and for all: spoke to a high ranking mgr in LA. They told me that HK had advised they were cancelling flights for 2-3 months <quote> 'due to current crew shortages'. Do you honestly think that CC will 'help' that situation? Why are so many of you so intent on denigrating the efforts of the vast majority of aircrew, and further, giving 'comfort to the enemy' in your comments? The answer: either you are feeling guilty as sin about your own actions, or you are working with and/or are management. :mad:

[iceman50]

Amen and that is the word of the lord.:uhoh:

[geh065]

There is a notice on the ISD section of the website that details exactly what flights are cancelled these couple of months. As you can see it is a whole bunch to a whole bunch of different destinations.

[ColonelAngus]

Anyone who doesn't choose lifestyle and family over the left seat is a _____

[Numero Crunchero]

Yes the LAX/LHR schedules have been planned to be reduced for a while. I noticed about 4-5 months ago that the leave slots for HK based 777 CNs for Jan-Mar 2015 went from almost even to -30 to -40 slots. That is a huge shortage. So either they cancel all leave, get everyone up to 900hrs or cancel some services.

At about the same time, they decided to 'rob peter to pay paul' by taking guys from the bus to the 777 for the first few months of 2015.

But now with the 30+ US departures (and possibly 50+ more to come) one wonders how they are going to man the 744 and 777?

So I wouldn't say any of the above is the result of CC. But giving pay cuts, housing at 15% of the level of expat FOs, canceling A days etc etc all add up.

You reap what you sow!

[GTC58]

Just read in the FOP update that CX had only 5700 pilot applications for this year. In the previous years applications were more then double and intake of new cadets one third of what they are planning for next year. Will be interesting to see if they manage to get 320 new bums into the seats next year as planned.

[Shep69]

What--it's been just a few weeks and we have people whinging--and this even during the lull before Christmas and NY/CNY ?

There have been many threads here (and elsewhere) talking about what CC is and what it is not. It is a reduction in labour supply (ours) and flexibility by working to contract and nothing more. There is no 'cure' for this; it's a loss of units of labor at an operation that's already undermanned (by taking new deliveries and lack of recruiting going to be even more so) and depends on people to go above and beyond to cover for this. And that it takes time to ripple through. We haven't even got to the discretion issue yet--at least in terms of no discretion--so there's still more cards to be played as necessary.

The company WILL be able to fill its schedule without disruption if it chooses to. Now a large part of this might be canceling/juggling flights, contracting to other carriers, moving people around (with associated costs AND associated reduction in monthly availability), sending oversales to other carriers, and even leasing crews and airplanes. ALL of these options are tremendously more expensive (as are parked airplanes which bleed cash when they're not flying) than an inflation adjustment with pay and negotiating as an adult and hit the bottom line. And as said before it may take shareholders and others with interests in profitability to force the company to do the right thing.

We also have the self-serving (who hurt themselves as well as others) G/L day workers and nonparticipants. These will cost more money in overtime and will have to be forced to 'time out.' Again this hits profitability which IS the key to CC. It's unfortunate we are forced into a position of demonstrating what our goodwill is worth--no one wants this or to see profitability decline--but the situation is not of our making nor do we have any blame whatsoever in it. If anything we've bent over backwards to bargain in good faith. There has been absolutely NO movement toward any real negotiation in any way. None. A rational company would have seen this coming and fixed it. But we apparently are dealing with folks who place ego, power, and position over profit and it will take time for others (who have their money tied up in them) to convince them this is not how a for-profit business behaves. At the end of the day here--just like everywhere else--Money Talks.

For the cry in the beer types what's the worst that can happen ? An imposed pay 'rise ?' Showing up on time where you're supposed to be and doing your job just like you always have ? Crew Control potentially learning how to roster people more efficiently ? Ignoring a few red lights, sheets under the door, third parties telling them they have someone on the line ("I'm not contactable yet" works for this), and phone calls ? Not pulling the lever on crew direct ? Is this really that much of a burden ? And maybe some will find out they like being contactable only when required, and that there's not any reason to feel guilty about ignoring someone you're not really keen to talk to anyway. Days on the road might be a pain, but then again how different is this than the previous status quo ? And maybe lack of contactability will reveal to Crew Control the benefits of hard scheduling, getting away from crisis management all the time, and sticking to something close to a published roster--benefit to all.

And if CC doesn't go as expected there are still a few jokers in the deck which can be played later if such a thing becomes appropriate.

Reserve exacerbates the manning problem and will work itself out (and again as a resource limiting situation decreases personnel availability vice simply flying a hard schedule). Crews held off station on reserve cost money to put up; those held at HKG or on bases severely limit what lines they can fly. ANY of these can cost overtime when a maxed out roster is busted. One thing that we did do wrong in the past is 30 days free reserve; now that the company has unilaterally violated the A day agreement maybe we can fix this in the future by holding out to have credit for ANY reserve, and (real--not some sort of 'monitored' BS that excludes much of the membership by its travel limitations) A days chosen at a lesser credit factor (it should be obvious to everyone by now the A day thing should have been simply left alone). Onshore entities maybe ought to remember this too when they negotiate THEIR contracts where both parties are required to bargain in good faith.

[Long Dong Silver]

amen shep... :uhoh:

[Arfur Dent]

Shep for GMA!! You write a lot of sense, my friend.:ok:

[goathead]

Shep
WORD UP !

[Liam Gallagher]

If Shep is writing sense, he can't be GMA...duh... and he can't be your friend... Double duh....:p

[turnandburn]

46 pax sectors cancelled for Dec/Jan mostly 9+ hour flights
freighter 50+

[Frogman1484]

Turnandburn can you give more details of which sectors they have cancelled?

[turnandburn]

its published on ISD web
Its on cargo web
its on airport arrivals/dep
and a few atc apps carry it
it'd just data matching not rocket science

reasons for cancellations are not shown
can be flight consolidation
no pax
no aircraft
no crew

none of that is known so you can read anything into it to make up nice stories whatever.

Is it due contract compliance hard to prove?
But the info is available for those who wish to search for it.

[Copenhagen]

46 pax sectors over two months is 23 return flights - or one every three days.

50 cargo sectors is probably 15 return flights ex HKG as so many operate via the frozen north - or one every four days.

[OK4Wire]

One of the overnight flights from BNE was delayed about 12 hours a few days ago.

The Aussies can't be doing CC, so it must be down to crew shortages, right?

[Frogman1484]

Probably short of A days! :ok:

[kmagyoyo]

OK4Wire,

They've been rostering the Aussie guys 0600-1800 reserve so with the new 23 hour duty limit, unless they call you early for those overnight duties so you can get 10 hours rest, their **** out of luck.

Unless they can get a G day hero of course.

[joblow]

Isn't it funny how the company manages to find a formula to adjust the lump sum payment downwards but seems incapable of finding the formula to make the necessary additions for HDP and Overtime
Perhaps I could send it to them (the formula that is) or I ,along with everyone else should work out the amount owed individually and send that to the company demanding payment

[Shep69]

km--This is one reason I'll bet they're wishing they left the A day thing alone. The 'old' system was working just fine and use of A days as a 'bargaining chip' would hurt the company more than anyone else--didn't take long for this to demonstrate itself. We called the bluff and now they're hoping the respective AOA's will buy off on a new lousy deal; I only hope they'll stand their ground, not cave, and make sure ALL their members can commute from the new system--at least as well as on the old one. No need to accept or support a lousy deal. 12 hours unrestricted would be fine; 14 even better (avg A day callout far exceeds this). Straight reserve usually cuts availability in half to one-fourth for based crews compared to A days.

OK4--while several entities can't participate in formal CC, there's no need for them to make the individual decision to work above contract either. Based on the latest goings-on I wouldn't expect a lot of goodwill or going above and beyond to be happening on an individual level anywhere until this gets resolved. I'd LOVE to hear the discussion in a courtroom where someone tried to prove folks acting individually and working to contract but only to contract constituted some form of organized IA under any labour law anywhere. Would make a good Monty Python sketch.

[airplaneridesrfun]

Chinese New Year will be a challenge for Crew controllers. We should send each one a gift, to illustrate that we really are in the same team, even with the lack of goodwill we are putting forth that is making their jobs challenging. A starbucks gift card would be fitting.

It's interesting how they are cutting flights that are profitable, only to put airplanes on slightly more profitable routes. Surely, an extra 15-20% for pilots would be more cost effective than even one cancellation a day. Our costs are miniscule when compared to overall revenue. It's not 1984 anymore!

[Oasis]

Great idea!

[crwkunt roll]

You talking about my wife?:}