Australia, New Zealand & the Pacific Airline and RPT Rumours & News in Australia, enZed and the Pacific

Jetstar A330 deal

Old 31st Jan 2006, 23:38
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Jetstar A330 deal

Rumour has it that the JPC is about to recommend that J* pilots accept around 165K or about 185/hr to fly the A330 until the 787 arrives.

I find it difficult to believe that such an offer would be accepted by the rank and file on a number of levels.

Firstly, it is about 2/3 of what QF pays pilots to fly the same aeroplanes.

Secondly, the 787 will be a 250 seater; What sort of rate are the JPC going to negotiate for that when it has accepted pretty much a A320 rate to fly an A330? 120k... 717 rates?

Have some ballz guys. You accept this offer and you screw the OZ airline scene for decades to come. It is not just about you.
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Old 31st Jan 2006, 23:54
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Truckster,
165k a year is about standard as a base salary for this size it is the allowances that kick the wage up into the mid 200k. If my memory serves me correctly 767 base wage at QF for a skipper is not too far off this mark? anyone confirm...
If this is true this is a good position to be in for the low cost carrier so long as the overtime and allowances kick you over the 200k mark. albeit the 787 is not a 767 granted but its a better start for the vote than 145k
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 00:30
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Rostov, if the J* rate you are talking about is a 'credit' hour as opposed to a stick hour then $185 isn't too bad. If it's a stick hour then it's going to be in the vicinity of 25% less than what a QF 767 driver gets- about 1050 credit per annum for about 750 stick.

O/T may make a difference to the J* rate and I don't know how that works. $185K per annum plus allowances and O/T would strike me as an 'adequate' start point for a 'low cost' carrier flying the A330. Total package just over $200K or thereabouts. Anything beneath that is selling yourself short- just as us QF drivers did with our last EBA.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 00:59
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I heard they've settled for A320 + only a few %, with an optimistic step for the 787 promised in a couple of years... Sounds like the Virgin promise of 'a raise when we're up'n'running.' I hope the J* pilots get decent allowances and a safety-net work credit system because;

a. sitting somewhere for up to 4 days,
b. because J* flies there only twice/week,
c. while getting nothing but stick-time pay,
d. as the company say you're on days off since you're not flying,
e. only to get home for a day then do it again (because you've just had 3 days off in slip port!),

is not conducive to family, friends or 1000 hours per year in stick pay.

I believe it still has to be voted on. J* guys and gals; consider wisely.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 01:02
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It's important for the JPC to consider "stick" hour vs "credit" hour when planning international flying. I assume that most of the Jetstar pilots have had a purely domestic background and have not had the situation where a port is serviced infrequently ie 2-3 times per week. In this situation, if their pay is stick hour based then they effectively are unpaid on the days that they are hanging around the pool in the slip port hotel. If a large amount of flying is to low frequency ports then their pay will be significantly reduced. Apart from accomodation and allowance costs, there is no incentive for management to make the flying patterns highly efficient. A "credit" hour system forces management to make the patterns efficient otherwise they pay pilots for the time that they are unutilised. J*'s international destinations will initially be Bali and Honolulu which do have infrequent services so this is a situation that has to be discussed prior to signing any agreement.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 01:10
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185 stick is what I heard. The current QF stick rate is around 300.

You guys will be selling yourselves out if you accept. As JB says, stick time on low density international ops is a recipe for disaster... on 55 hours a month the J* A330 drivers would be on far less than the A320 drivers.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 01:27
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Anyone get the feeling that these blokes should be represented by an association that has several decades of experience in this stuff? AIPA!!

They are either about to be sold a pup, OR, they know damn well the conditions are seriously inferior to that of mainline pilots and don't care.

If it's the latter, it seems they are about to do something that in my mind ranks LOWER than what various people did back in nineteen eighty nine.... They are about offer to do one group of pilots' work for less - while that first group is currently still doing the work, indeed flying the actual aeroplanes. They should hang their heads in shame at what they are doing to the "profession" by playing the divide-and-conquer game with Dixon against the mainline pilots.

This industry is a disgrace.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 01:45
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2 thirds of QF 330 pay sounds pretty good to me. But the real deal is not known and will be annouced any day know.

AIPA representation, you have got tobe kidding.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 01:55
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Word from within is that three A380's are going to Jetstar with a captains wage of $180,000 per annum.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 02:05
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Zed,

2 thirds of QF 330 pay sounds pretty good to me
Why settle for 2/3? The JPC obviously doesn't value it's pilot body very highly. There are other efficiences to be made in rostering practices, allowances and standard of accomodation etc etc. That's how the Australian Airlines pilots did it, why can't Jetstar? Cutting your actual salary isn't the way to do it - it's just the easy way out.

Z Force,
nice wind up mate!

TL

Last edited by Transition Layer; 1st Feb 2006 at 07:13.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 02:10
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Jetstar pilots are paid based on 75 hours per month and they don't get any extra pay unless they exceed that. Bear in mind this is flying hours and not the Qantas long haul style of credit hours based on duty time and min daily credit.

My information is that it shakes out to $147,000 for a Jetstar A330 Captain initially and keep in mind what I described above, minimal opportunity of over time or any other extra pay.

With the density and type of flying that long haul international is, the average pilot will be away from home at least half the month. To add insult to injury they will be operating to the CAO 48 exemption which entails 10 stick hours in one sector two crew extendable by 4 hours.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 03:11
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“Anyone get the feeling that these blokes should be represented by an association that has several decades of experience in this stuff? AIPA”

AIPA is half the reason mainline pilots are in such a pickle. Too much greed will eventually see you sidelined by a more realistic set of employment conditions.

“sitting somewhere for up to 4 days - because J* flies there only twice/week - is not conducive to family, friends or 1000 hours per year in stick pay.”

This may be true but jetstar are not going to change destination frequency just to suit the lifestyles of pilots. More importantly, how is more money going to improve the family life when sitting down route for “4 days”. It sux no matter what the income is.

A "credit hour system” is as outdated in airline flying as roster seniority and blanklines. The whole aim of jetstar is to ditch such inefficient garbage. Very few (if any) startup airlines use credit hours. Airlines are moving away from paying crew unless the engines are turning. Deal with it.

The reality is that there are tons of guys in asia and mid e knocking the door at jetstar down to get a job back in oz. The circumstances in oz changed the second the highly unionized ansett shutdown to be replaced by virgin. It seems the last people to realize this will be the pilots at qf.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 03:34
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Does any other airline make it's crew take their days off in slip ports?
If so, what are the ramifications re: allowances, DTA, WorkCover, etc??
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 05:27
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Perhaps the professor believes that the Jetstar International wages are realistic and if that is the case he can go and work for them.

As long as pilots in airlines behave in the GA manor no ones wages will ever rise. The next start up will pay the pilots even less and they will accept it, just to get the jobs. And as history has shown us with Virgin Blue and now Jetstar, the promise of it improving pay and conditions once the airline has bedded in is utter fallacy.

It is true that we live in an economic rationalist world and airlines will from now on give the flying to lowest bidder. But from now on there is a new bench mark that all wide body pilots in Australia will have to work from and it will be very hard to break.

If the rumors come to fruition then I have bridge I want to sell to the JPC. Don't tell me, Jetstar threatened to set up a green field operation or was it that they would give the flying to Jetconnect. If you tell me the business case didn't stack up for better pay I think you need a Becks and a lye down. The business case never seems to get in the way of the execs self managed company funded largess.

You already are the lowest paid airline pilots, Jetstar were or are never going to give the flying to anyone else.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 05:32
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G'day Prof

My point was that many Jet* pilots may simply translate their current days off, hourly rate, the prospects of 'overtime' for exceeding 75 hrs/mth and 1000 hrs/yr onto their coveted international opportunity and conclude 'PAYRISE-TAKE IT' only to have the reality, learned through many years of QF flying by AIPA, turns to relative dust.

'Stick pay' contracts to which you refer, like the QF short-haul contract, are efficient when the flying is multi-sectored & minimum rest between duty days; they afford opportunities for max ours at higher pay rates, more nights in your own time-zone (if not your own bed) and more days off because of flying density. The QF long-haul contract, while far from perfect and not lacking in opportunity to improve efficiency, has been framed over many iterations, each of which the company has agreed upon in EBAs, which address exactly the type of situation where commercial decisions failed to address any humanising factors.

I sense that the JPC has been skillfully bamboozled into accepting the worst of both styles of contract; low pay and poor conditions. In light of the discussions which have transpired, and advice offered re the pitfalls of unfettered enthusiasm without consideration for the realities of rostered life as long-haul plots experience them to be, I'm disappointed at the acceptance reached but trust that the JPG will yet realise the deal (as heard here anyway) is not what it's cracked up to be.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 06:04
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And what are you QF pilots doing to help.





waiting





waiting



vote up thier EBA



waiting



waiting




On strike yet over Jet star international



No didn't think so.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 06:59
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Some posters on this thread completely miss the point of Jetstar. It was launched for no reason other than to achieve the cost savings that QF mainline obviously could not achieve. Such cost savings are beyond reach for a variety of reasons, an important one being the industrial roadblocks being created by various labor unions.

Jetbest tries his best to convince us that jetstar pilots should negotiate a longhaul style award including credit hours, but this is exactly what QF are avoiding by contracting non AIPA pilots to fly the aircraft.

I cannot wait to have this same discussion here on pprune in the future when the penny finally drops at AIPA headquarters as more and more flying is transferred to franchise operations leaving nothing but select longhaul premium routes for QF mainline crew. Hopefully then, AIPA will become pragmatic enough to understand that compromising on pay and conditions is a more effective way of managing inevitable change than continually being a victim of it. AIPA (and many labor unions in developed countries) stands a good chance of driving itself into irrelevancy.

“You already are the lowest paid airline pilots, Jetstar were or are never going to give the flying to anyone else.”

Smoke on go, I am interested to know if you are one of the QF pilots often quoted as saying that QF 767 pilots are the lowest paid in the world?

It has been pointed out here before that the deal on offer by Jetstar is still as good or better than a lot of similar jobs being offered in Canada, the US, South Africa, Europe and even Asia.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 08:00
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Originally Posted by Zed
And what are you QF pilots doing to help.
waiting
waiting
vote up thier EBA
waiting
waiting
On strike yet over Jet star international
No didn't think so.
I believe the hand of co-operation was extended to J* pilots, but was politely declined.
Get the jobs now at any cost & leave the crumbs to long suffering qf f/o's via a MOU???
I hope that's incorrect but that's how it looks.
I can't believe the thoughts of so many here trying to put down qf pilots & their pay & conditions. Surely that is the standard where we all should be aiming.
Could someone please explain the smug altruism that some seem to get by working for peanuts?
Is it that aussie theme.."I haven't got it so no-one should have it either"??
Bet Geoff* get's it nicely in the hip pocket.
Divided we beg.
I'm Miles Long
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 10:09
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Here's a smug altruism for you.
Aipa declined to cover impulse pilots when QF bought them out. The way I see it they made their own bed then. No point playing the victim now that it suits you.
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Old 1st Feb 2006, 10:33
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Talking

Rostov. Very well put. The facts are, that if AIPA had given a rats about the Impulse guys when qantas brought them out in the guise of Qantas link, then jetstar would not exist today. I was at the meeting in Sydney when CM decreed that AIPA could and would not ever cover any " Impulse Pilot".

The high and mighty amongst the QF ranks prefer to think of any others forging a living in the industry as interlopers and detractors. Frankly, amongst most experienced guys who have been around, your pathetic attitude towards other professional members of the same industry speaks volumes. The spoilt brat whingings on this forum and the company one, highlight the head in the sand mentality that is gradually cutting you all off from the rest of the industry.

Obviously we all want as much as we can get for working. Thats a given. The quicker we can all unite and provide a barrier, the better.

Where do we go from here? Its obvious. The future is already here, thanks to the we are better than every one else attitude.

DM
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