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Letter to Geoffrey Thomas (Aviation expert)

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Letter to Geoffrey Thomas (Aviation expert)

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Old 23rd May 2011, 08:03
  #161 (permalink)  
 
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On the payroll?

What was said by GT is a disgrace - I ponder whether he is on the Ch7 payroll given their linkage with the West Australian Newspaper
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Old 23rd May 2011, 08:23
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Just a quickie on GT's point 5 (from his first email):

The public will not pay what the engineers and pilots deserve.
Yes they will. They already do, frequently. QF is often not the cheapest option on international routes, but the flights are often running at high load factors. So the punters will pay a reasonable amount over the average.

1. Pilots

What the public would probably prefer, is that the money they pay, go towards paying pilot salaries, rather than making Mr Joyce the best-paid airline CEO on earth, or having Mr Dixon's tax bill paid by his erstwhile employer.

For what it's worth, figures in the paper in Singapore recently had a middle-ranking SQ 777 captain pulling around SGD 250k a year. That level of compensation could hardly be described as very low. So if SQ, the nemesis of QF management, can pay an average wide-body skipper that sort of money, it means QF can and should pay at least that. What does the SQ CEO get? Or LH's CEO?

2. Engineers

As GT later mentioned, QF is getting some A380 heavy work done in Frankfurt, by LH. Since when did Germany become a 'low cost' jurisdiction? If QF (through LH) is willing to pay the wages demanded by German engineers, why will it not pay Australian engineers? Maybe even get some work in?

On GT's point about LH Tek becoming a 787 COE, why could QF HM not do likewise as it will already have a 'critical mass' from its own order book? There will be plenty of 787s in this part of the world to create a market.

It's not all about the wages of the blokes with the spanners.

Had that awful new safety vid rammed down me yesterday, but one line from Travolta which stuck out: "there's no-one I would rather have at the controls, than a Qantas pilot". To me, and 21mil other Australians, that means not a Jetconnect pilot, not a Jetstar pilot, not a labour-hire company pilot, but a QANTAS pilot, flying a QANTAS aircraft.

Last edited by Taildragger67; 23rd May 2011 at 11:54.
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Old 23rd May 2011, 09:44
  #163 (permalink)  
 
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The public will not pay what the engineers and pilots deserve.
The public do not set Pilot's salaries. Management does. So it is managment that doesn't want to pay Pilots and Engineers what we deserve.
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Old 23rd May 2011, 10:38
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And don't forget that the Singapore captain hasn't paid for any of his flying training
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Old 23rd May 2011, 10:47
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Management are a lifeline

managment that doesn't want to pay Pilots and Engineers what we deserve.


So the truth is revealed I see?
You state ‘management doesn't want to pay Pilots and Engineers what we deserve’. And what quantum process or mathematical formula do or would you use to decide what you are worth? Do you think that you of all people would or should set remuneration scales? And if so, based upon what process?
If Pilots and Engineers were paid what they think they deserve then an airline would go broke within 48 hours. That is a fact.
Management has Master’s Degrees, accountancy skills, an actual education, solid and robust business acumen, business smarts and an ability to ‘think outside the square’. That is why we set the pay scales and you always comply. As painful as it may be to some individuals the fact is this – Management is the mother, frontline staff is the suckling child and our breast milk is your salary. We decide how much to feed you because we know how much you actually need. It is a simple yet accurate equation which cannot be understood by a suckling infant. The management team that I belong to cares for its infants needs, but know that they must never be overfed. This will not occur in my lifetime or even in another. Now let me pass you a pacifier and allow you to go back to sleep.

Sweet Dreams
The Boardroom Beckons

Last edited by Management In Charge; 23rd May 2011 at 11:52. Reason: Grammar Correction, thank you Worrals.
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Old 23rd May 2011, 10:56
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Ah poetry and satire.

Seriously

What exactly are the requests that are being asked for by QF pilots because unless alternative are offered Journos and the public are going to chew up the lines expounded by aviation writers and Qantas. Remember that there is a whole crony of P.R people employed by Qantas.
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Old 23rd May 2011, 11:02
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That last post was the funniest thing I've ever read...
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Old 23rd May 2011, 11:31
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And what quantum process or mathematical formula do or would you use to decide what you are worth?
Well of course quantum physics is concerned with the study of very small things (and cat survivability, but we're not talking about Schrodinger or Olivia ) so it may be the right term to use when discussing Qantas pay rises...

Any company's management answers to the shareholders, who are strangely absent from your analogy. If you're the Mother, maybe they're the ones who...nah, that'll get me banned.
Do you think that you of all people would or should remuneration scales?

The management team that I belong to cares for its infants needs,

P.S. Your grammar needs work. I only point this out because you are ostensibly a manager.

Last edited by Worrals in the wilds; 23rd May 2011 at 11:52.
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Old 23rd May 2011, 11:50
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Management in charge you defiantly sound like the current management type making the pathetic decisions at QF that will ultimately will be the downfall of this airline
I think if I where to classify you lot as an animal I think you would be a hyena an animal that skulks around and eat the left over scraps and if you had half the chance you would eat your own suckling infant instead of fighting to preserve there life.
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Old 23rd May 2011, 11:55
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unionist1974

nah, that'll get me banned.
Is that hat has happend to our "friend"?
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Old 23rd May 2011, 12:02
  #171 (permalink)  
 
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Management in charge you defiantly sound like the current management type making the pathetic decisions at QF that will ultimately will be the downfall of this airline
I think if I where to classify you lot as an animal I think you would be a hyena an animal that skulks around and eat the left over scraps and if you had half the chance you would eat your own suckling infant instead of fighting to preserve there life.
I hope you are posting blogs either before or after shift, not during ??
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Old 23rd May 2011, 12:11
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Unlike yourself I don’t piss away shareholder money
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Old 23rd May 2011, 12:20
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I hope you are posting blogs either before or after shift, not during ??
Believe it or not people still get rostered days off. In these modern times they're not always on Sunday.
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Old 23rd May 2011, 12:38
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Some of us actually fly aircraft for a living, so no pprune at work,unlike "management" types.
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Old 23rd May 2011, 12:40
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Management has Master’s Degrees, accountancy skills, an actual education, solid and robust business acumen, business smarts and an ability to ‘think outside the square’.
So do lots of the pilots and engineers.

Yet we don't phuck up. Whats your excuse?
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Old 23rd May 2011, 12:41
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Management...

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

T.S. Elliot, The Hollow Men.
Posted before, but still has relevance. Stuffed is the key word, and not in the way Elliot meant but using the Australian definition ...
Stuffed. Totally Stuffed. No matter how many PR poppets can jump on the intramanet with shiny new usernames... still stuffed.
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Old 23rd May 2011, 13:42
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Management In Charge
If Pilots and Engineers were paid what they think they deserve then an airline would go broke within 48 hours
If management was paid what they actually deserved, there would be enough "breast milk" to feed the rest of the company what they think they deserve.

If management was paid what they actually deserved, the rest of us probably wouldn't push so hard for so much. After all you are our "mother" and we are just following your example.

If management was paid what they actually deserved, our profit last year would have been 10% - 20% higher.

I hope you are posting blogs either before or after shift, not during ??
QF management (our "mother") must also be a communist as pprune.org has been and can't be accessed on our excellent (rubbish, slow, out dated, unreliable) computer system... Unless, of course, you can think further 'outside the square' than the manager (mother, communist... you choose) who felt threatened enough to have it .

l.s.a.A.
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Old 23rd May 2011, 15:39
  #178 (permalink)  
 
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Management in Charge,
Obviously you`ve posted that outburst as a `G` up. You can`t be that seriously brainwashed. The whole mother was interesting though. Most mothers give their infant`s enough to survive eg above inflation! What`s inflation at now 3.3% I think? What are you embeciles offering 3%!!!!!!! You idiots get into management because you can`t handle the real world.
I did hear a certain story about a young up & coming management want-to-be that told his leading hand that the gas generator fairings were installed before an engine run. Yet low & behold during the post run inspections guess what? The fairings were never installed. There the managers we`re dealing with.
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Old 23rd May 2011, 16:10
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Satire is lost on so many
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Old 24th May 2011, 02:31
  #180 (permalink)  
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for those still interested......


Hey Geoff,

I’m glad we got a few things off our chests and clearly I have used my writings to not only give you a better understanding of where the LAMEs are at but also to outline our concerns and claims to our members and others in the industry. I’m no expert on Low Cost Carriers and the global battle going on between the airlines, I won’t pretend to be able to tackle those issues you have raised. My initial email was not about that, it was a response to your unfair attack on Qantas workers on Sunrise that was not properly researched and extremely one sided. As you are aware the episode has been posted on an industry website and I think it is fair to say that my feelings are replicated universally from those in the industry. You’ve asked me a few questions and touched on matters that I am however extremely well placed to respond to, I will do that now and leave you with one final question to close this affair.


Dot point 3 - There is no way that I am a Qantas mimic as you constantly say – hardly! The fact is simply this. LH Lufthansa Technik, HACEO and Singapore Airlines facilities are world class and used by airlines across the globe. If you have serious concerns about their facilities why not name them? You would be hard pressed to question the maintenance record of airlines such as Cathay Pacific and Lufthansa.

I’m sure you haven’t worked in these facilities and have no qualification to describe them as world class. Just because an MRO that is selling a product describes themselves as world class or Qantas, who use them repeat the same, matters not. They have a vested interest in telling people how good they are. I did name them in my original email to you. I gave you examples of real life mistakes they have made on Qantas aircraft. I told you why they are not world class by outlining the LAME/AME ratios and drew on a damning report issued by Qantas’s own Quality assurance department against the Singaporean facility. Of course Cathay and Lufthansa use these facilities but I have not attacked their (the airlines) maintenance record, just the facilities they use to sell services to others. What happens is this, Haeko have a number of bays to carry out Heavy Maintenance checks. Some are reserved exclusively for Cathay aircraft that cycle through the hangars, the LAMEs who work on them are equally as skilled as an Aussie who works a Qantas aircraft. The LAME/AME ratios are also not too bad because it is constant work. Next in line come the other regular customers, the LAMEs who work there are knowledgeable but have to share that knowledge across many different variants that the customers bring in. Subsequently the licences are spread thinner and the ratio suffers. Finally come those who bring in work on an adhoc basis, Qantas being one of them. To work a Qantas aircraft they train the bare minimum, quality suffers and so does safety. That’s how an aircraft gets released with 3 of its 4 engines bolted on incorrectly. I hope you understand this a little better now and in future support the Australian product.


Dot point 4 - You say: “Qantas has said that it does and will not have enough A380s in their fleet to justify HM on this aircraft type. Qantas will ultimately have 20 A380s. Lufthansa on the other hand have 8 in service and 7 on order. Please do not support Qantas statements about aircraft numbers to justify maintenance facilities knowing that Lufthansa can do it with less planes than Qantas.” This reasoning is simply not correct and you know it. As everyone in the industry knows LH Technik is the world’s largest aircraft engineering business and it has set itself up as an A380 service centre for a host of airlines regardless of how many A380s they have. Which is why it will be - and is advertising as such - a 787 maintenance facility when it has not ordered one 787!! Steve, your point is a distortion of the facts which possibly raises questions about other items that you highlight.

My statement is spot in. The numbers in each fleet are correct, I’m assuming you have a different view than many Australian LAMEs (the real experts) and I have. Lufthansa can set themselves up as a maintenance provider as can Qantas. I wonder what could be a more saleable product of Qantas than their Engineering services. They used to carry out Heavy Maintenance on their own fleet and the aircraft of many other companies. Until recently, they were even overhauling aircraft engines for NASA. If Lufthansa can do it, so can we. The problem is that that reporters who don’t really know the industry have a distorted view about Lufthansa Technik and what they provide. It is not the case that their facilities in Bulgaria, China, Malta and the Philippines are teeming with on time bespectacled Germans who live and breathe aircraft maintenance. They are just rebadged local facilities utilised because of both their location and convenient labour laws. The good Lufthansa Technik name is placed on the hangar door to confuse customers and bystanders into thinking that a precision operation is underway within.

LT also provide Line Maintenance services to others, so did Qantas until recently. In case you weren’t attuned to the fact yet, Qantas are getting out of maintenance and we think their logic behind this is flawed. On the Melbourne tarmac my services were sold by Qantas to work on Cathay, Malaysian, Thai, Polar, Evergreen, Lauda, Garuda, Singapore, British, Air NZ, Freedom, Emirates, Air China, China Southern, China Eastern, Olympic, Alitalia, Vietnam and without reviewing my log books, most likely a dozen others. The income generated from contract work paid for the entire wage bill of the Engineers in my department. All of the contracts were ditched. This income allowed us to service the entire Qantas Long Haul operation through the base for free and people are now asking us to review the way we work to save that same operation.

Don’t think the contracts were lost because of uncooperative unions. Qantas used to charge Air NZ $600 for an A320 transit with two Engineers supplied. Qantas approached our union and asked if we could change the way we worked so they could reduce the price and keep the work. We agreed that this work could be done with one man, so long as the equipment allowed it to be done safely. This was arranged and the price was reduced to $295 per transit. 12 months later Qantas put the price back up to $600 for one man and the contract was lost. Now Qantas don’t mind urinating in the pockets of their workers. As all the profitable contracts were going down the tube, management were arranging meetings with our members where it was explained that they were doing all they could to win contract work. We knew this wasn’t the case and our suspicions were confirmed in Aviation Week in November 2010 when Chris Nassenstein said this about third party work - We are not looking for any at the moment, though. The ditching of contracts started four years ago, well before our last dispute when Singapore went. I was made redundant because of it. Again, if Lufthansa can do third party work, so can we. At least we expect to work on our own aircraft and that position should be supported by every Australian.


Point 5A - Steve your claims regarding the 737s are at odds with my engineering sources and also Qantas’ so I am not sure where that leaves us. Can you produce the list of the 500 defects?? Perhaps you can post it on PPrune?

Yes I can. Our office are converting the hand writing documents as we speak but it will take a week or so as it is extensive. Of course your sources are different than mine and Qantas are in continual denial. My sources are the LAMEs who were up there and reported the maintenance errors in the first place. Just so you can understand it a bit more before they are posted. A few Qantas LAMEs were up there overviewing the operation. As they walked around inspecting things they were on the spot to have all the errors corrected. They jotted them all down though as a report so formal paperwork could be submitted to make sure these errors did not re-occur. The list was given to the manager of the outsourced aircraft and the list was later found in the bin. This is why Qantas will claim that they have no record of the problems.


Point 5B - With regard to the 90 defects I think in the end only 6 were confirmed as of Malaysian origin –which they deny - but regardless six is not acceptable I agree and I understand QF is not using them anymore.

Six is the figure that were undeniably originating from the overseas facility. The other 84 were also most likely things that were either overlooked or mistakes by that facility but in many cases you can suspect but don’t have 100% confirmation that this is the case. The fact is the plane left in a serviceable state and had 90 defects when it returned.


Point 6 - You say that you don’t expect all your claims to be met but why include claims that will be ridiculed by the media. Not just by me but many others. Problem is just one silly claim in 28 can crucify you even if the other 27 are really valid and some clearly are.

Claims can always be twisted but there is an expectation that a person in the media will seek more than one source to confirm what they are being told. Qantas are crowing on about 28.6% wage claims over 3 years, this is being repeated by members of the press despite the fact it is a made up figure. You said that our claims would cost them $300-$400 million a year. That’s 250k per Engineer. I am just extremely concerned that you would say something like that, particularly after I made contact with you a couple of years ago with similar concerns.

So I just have one question out of this, I think you will have a few eyes also gazing your way for a response because it is the question on everyone’s lips. Why did you report on matters based on information Qantas have put out there without contacting either the Pilot or LAME unions beforehand to verify their accuracy?

Kind Regards
Steve Purvinas
ALAEA
Federal Secretary
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