QF Pilots PIA
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From Qrewroom, apologies if its been posted elsewhere
now we know why the little pr*ck hates us so much!! Its because we have the job he wanted!! hahahaha idiot!!
Quote from: The age.com.au
By Lucinda Schmidt
January 24, 2007
"The Jetstar boss is in no hurry to return to his native Ireland.When Alan Joyce worked as a research analyst for Irish airline Aer Lingus he applied for a job as a pilot but was knocked back."
By Lucinda Schmidt
January 24, 2007
"The Jetstar boss is in no hurry to return to his native Ireland.When Alan Joyce worked as a research analyst for Irish airline Aer Lingus he applied for a job as a pilot but was knocked back."
that works out at 36 hours and 25 minutes per week for your 4 week roster which puts you 1 hour and 35 minutes ahead of most award workers in Australia
No pilot in the world flies 40 hours per week (2000 hours per year)
In fact at a limit of 90 DUTY hours a fortnight doesn't that put pilots BEHIND most of the workforce by 6 hours?
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Icarus, I am fully aware of the difference between duty hours and flying hours.
The reference to pilots only flying X hours a week as some way of suggesting we have it easier than the general workforce is dissembling at its worst.
Bruce Buchanan is the most culpable offender in this area.
The reference to pilots only flying X hours a week as some way of suggesting we have it easier than the general workforce is dissembling at its worst.
Bruce Buchanan is the most culpable offender in this area.
When Alan Joyce worked as a research analyst for Irish airline Aer Lingus he applied for a job as a pilot but was knocked back.
Suddenly it all starts to make sense.
In a strange reversal of our fates... as a pilot I applied for the QF CEO job, but apparently having a spine made me ineligible.
He didn't get turned down for a LAME position too, by any chance?
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clotted, I'd be loathe to say your friends are lying. Much more likely, they misunderstand the Qantas system and its nuances. This is common.
"MDC" is a thing called "Minimum Daily Credit". This is something which was primarily pushed by the pilots to make flying patterns more efficient. The aim, with the full support of pilots, was to encourage planners to not have them flying down to melbourne, sit around for 6 hours, fly back to sydney, and get 2 hours pay for an entire day away from home. Rather, they would get 5 hours 30 minutes pay per calendar day away, and Management could then do with them as they please. This suited the pilots, and it suited the managers, and it was strongly pressed home in negotiations by those "rogues" in the pilots union, AIPA.
One in-built protection is that if the flying hours exceeds 5:30 per day (as it often does), then you get paid a little extra directly proportional to those extra hours. However the catch is that we are paid at a lower hourly rate than the guys who are specifically paid by the flying hour.
If I do 10 hours duty during the day, or 10 hours duty during the night with toothpicks propping open my eyelids, it doesn't matter a fig. If I do back-of-clock flying, doesn't matter. More duty hours due to delays etc? Doesn't matter. No extra pay for me (with the exception of unplanned extensions above the normal CASA limits, as permitted at the pilots discretion by CARs). I am honestly at a loss to explain what more Alan Joyce wants from me, unless he wants to change Civil Aviation Regulations to allow far more flying hours to be flown or much longer tours of duty. Of course, Alan knows he can't do this. But he also knows that if you base your airline crews in an Asian country, you're generally unhindered by such ancient dinosaur western work practice concerns based around outdated principles like fatigue management, risk assessment, & so on.
Much like some company execs who appear quite happy to have their running shoes made by a 12 year old working a 15 hour shift for $0.30/hr in a factory somewhere north of Manila. Similar principle and mentality.
"MDC" is a thing called "Minimum Daily Credit". This is something which was primarily pushed by the pilots to make flying patterns more efficient. The aim, with the full support of pilots, was to encourage planners to not have them flying down to melbourne, sit around for 6 hours, fly back to sydney, and get 2 hours pay for an entire day away from home. Rather, they would get 5 hours 30 minutes pay per calendar day away, and Management could then do with them as they please. This suited the pilots, and it suited the managers, and it was strongly pressed home in negotiations by those "rogues" in the pilots union, AIPA.
One in-built protection is that if the flying hours exceeds 5:30 per day (as it often does), then you get paid a little extra directly proportional to those extra hours. However the catch is that we are paid at a lower hourly rate than the guys who are specifically paid by the flying hour.
If I do 10 hours duty during the day, or 10 hours duty during the night with toothpicks propping open my eyelids, it doesn't matter a fig. If I do back-of-clock flying, doesn't matter. More duty hours due to delays etc? Doesn't matter. No extra pay for me (with the exception of unplanned extensions above the normal CASA limits, as permitted at the pilots discretion by CARs). I am honestly at a loss to explain what more Alan Joyce wants from me, unless he wants to change Civil Aviation Regulations to allow far more flying hours to be flown or much longer tours of duty. Of course, Alan knows he can't do this. But he also knows that if you base your airline crews in an Asian country, you're generally unhindered by such ancient dinosaur western work practice concerns based around outdated principles like fatigue management, risk assessment, & so on.
Much like some company execs who appear quite happy to have their running shoes made by a 12 year old working a 15 hour shift for $0.30/hr in a factory somewhere north of Manila. Similar principle and mentality.
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Mr Joyce and all else in QF in management thought that the year was 1989. They are living with a sad reality of a new generation of awareness that it is clearly not...and at their own peril.
Clotted... another explanation
MDC (minimum Daily Credit) works exactly as Dutchy describes. It works well when there's plenty of services to many destinations. But what would you say is fair when the following happens? It's a real example;
- Sign-on at 2110 Wednesday night,
- fly to an asian destination, about 10:10 'stick' hours and 11:40 'duty',
- spend 108:40 on the ground (yes... 4.5 days) between flights because that's when the next jet comes in,
- fly home Monday night, about 9:50 'stick' hours and 11:20 'duty',
- sign-off on Tuesday morning at 08:50, about 5.5 days after you signed-on (ie 7 days of 'home' time impacted by flight duties).
Total elapsed time from sign-on to sign-off? 130:30 hours.
Total "Stick time" for that duty? About 21 hours.
Total "credit" for that duty using the company-agreed MDC formula? About 38:30 hours(ie 5:30 hours x 7 days impacted by company 'duty').
Time wasted by inefficient use of a pilot resource? 4 days more than the contractual minimum allowed... ALL due to scheduling... not the pilot or the contract!
The advocates of 'stick pay' love to say that pilots should be paid only21 hours for their 5.5 day absence. I also know that, precisely because of such vagaries, the stick pay for the 'short-haul' award is higher than the 'longhaul' MDC rate but, in this example, would still not compensate for the surprising inefficiency of this scheduling in my view.
Much as QF would misrepresent this, pilots do want to be efficient but why should the employee unnecessarily surrender 4 days of their home-life because the employer's resource utilisation is so wasteful! MDC mitigates against the complacent, no cost, adoption of such inefficiencies by any company. That's a point QF conveniently omits addressing.
It rankles that QF would, in effect, create the very type of inefficiencies it so obviously seeks to use as a weapon against its own. Dirty pool!!! And it doesn't need to be that way!
- Sign-on at 2110 Wednesday night,
- fly to an asian destination, about 10:10 'stick' hours and 11:40 'duty',
- spend 108:40 on the ground (yes... 4.5 days) between flights because that's when the next jet comes in,
- fly home Monday night, about 9:50 'stick' hours and 11:20 'duty',
- sign-off on Tuesday morning at 08:50, about 5.5 days after you signed-on (ie 7 days of 'home' time impacted by flight duties).
Total elapsed time from sign-on to sign-off? 130:30 hours.
Total "Stick time" for that duty? About 21 hours.
Total "credit" for that duty using the company-agreed MDC formula? About 38:30 hours(ie 5:30 hours x 7 days impacted by company 'duty').
Time wasted by inefficient use of a pilot resource? 4 days more than the contractual minimum allowed... ALL due to scheduling... not the pilot or the contract!
The advocates of 'stick pay' love to say that pilots should be paid only21 hours for their 5.5 day absence. I also know that, precisely because of such vagaries, the stick pay for the 'short-haul' award is higher than the 'longhaul' MDC rate but, in this example, would still not compensate for the surprising inefficiency of this scheduling in my view.
Much as QF would misrepresent this, pilots do want to be efficient but why should the employee unnecessarily surrender 4 days of their home-life because the employer's resource utilisation is so wasteful! MDC mitigates against the complacent, no cost, adoption of such inefficiencies by any company. That's a point QF conveniently omits addressing.
It rankles that QF would, in effect, create the very type of inefficiencies it so obviously seeks to use as a weapon against its own. Dirty pool!!! And it doesn't need to be that way!
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"The Jetstar boss is in no hurry to return to his native Ireland.When Alan Joyce worked as a research analyst for Irish airline Aer Lingus he applied for a job as a pilot but was knocked back."
Last edited by The Kelpie; 5th Aug 2011 at 04:48.
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Thanks DutchRoll and Jetsbest for the explanation. I do have several other questions if I may. Are you Jetsbest suggesting that your employer should put on extra services so that you don't have to layover so long or are you suggesting that your airline shouldn't go to that destination because you have to layover so long or are you saying that they should bring you home and fly someone else in to replace you?
For both of you or anyone else who has enough knowledge to answer, does Singapore Airlines, Cathay, Emirates, Etihad have MDC and if not, do the pilots get any pay recognition for the long layover as detailed in Jetsbest post?
For both of you or anyone else who has enough knowledge to answer, does Singapore Airlines, Cathay, Emirates, Etihad have MDC and if not, do the pilots get any pay recognition for the long layover as detailed in Jetsbest post?
Are you Jetsbest suggesting that your employer should put on extra services so that you don't have to layover so long or are you suggesting that your airline shouldn't go to that destination because you have to layover so long or are you saying that they should bring you home and fly someone else in to replace you?
Nunc est bibendum
Prior to MDC (late '90s), QF crew were regularly doing 21:30 duty hours for 8 hours pay over two calendar days. I recall eight week rosters where I had 18 days off and got paid 132 hours pay (min guarantee as it was back then). The duty hours were astronomical but with long transits. SYD-MEL 2:30 doing nothing, MEL- SYD 2:30 doing nothing, SYD-MEL. 4 hours pay.
With 5:10 per day and then 5:30 as MDC, QF has managed to increase the utilisation of crew significantly to the extent that there are now many trips where the trip credits exceed 5:30/ day. Good for QF due to high utilisation. Good for crews due to more time at home.
To give you another example, in about 'the early naughties, I was doing 140 stick hours for 245 duty hours (and 172 hours pay) and getting 22 off every 8 weeks. Now I do (or did.... don't do those hours anymore) about 165 hours (175 hours pay) for 240 duty hours and get 25-26 days off.
With 5:10 per day and then 5:30 as MDC, QF has managed to increase the utilisation of crew significantly to the extent that there are now many trips where the trip credits exceed 5:30/ day. Good for QF due to high utilisation. Good for crews due to more time at home.
To give you another example, in about 'the early naughties, I was doing 140 stick hours for 245 duty hours (and 172 hours pay) and getting 22 off every 8 weeks. Now I do (or did.... don't do those hours anymore) about 165 hours (175 hours pay) for 240 duty hours and get 25-26 days off.
Nunc est bibendum
Are you Jetsbest suggesting that your employer should put on extra services so that you don't have to layover so long or are you suggesting that your airline shouldn't go to that destination because you have to layover so long or are you saying that they should bring you home and fly someone else in to replace you?
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Clotted, the question is who should pay for inefficient flight scheduling practices, the operator or the pilot. If the operator wants to have one or two services a week, there is a cost. Who should bare it? MDC protects the pilot from sitting in a hotel room at the operators pleasure for most of his monthly roster period, returning home only for his designated 9 days off a month. Some operators attempt to call the days away in the hotel as "day off" to be deducted from those 9.
Do you think it is reasonable to spend most of your time away from home doing nothing, & unable to do anything about it - effectively unpaid? Pilots don't like inefficient flying. They want to do their work as efficiently as possible and go home to their families, like most other people. If they cannot be rostered efficiently, this is the operators issue & they have to figure those costs into their budget.
Do you think it is reasonable to spend most of your time away from home doing nothing, & unable to do anything about it - effectively unpaid? Pilots don't like inefficient flying. They want to do their work as efficiently as possible and go home to their families, like most other people. If they cannot be rostered efficiently, this is the operators issue & they have to figure those costs into their budget.
Are you Jetsbest suggesting that your employer should put on extra services so that you don't have to layover so long or are you suggesting that your airline shouldn't go to that destination because you have to layover so long or are you saying that they should bring you home and fly someone else in to replace you?
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Is it just me or are these twits still missing the point?
Funny that the 'spokesman' isn't named I wonder why that is??
The link for the article is here, it is interesting the spin the writer puts on it as well.
"The change of video has absolutely nothing to do with the pilots' union," he told AAP.
"It was always intended to be a temporary feature."
He added in a later statement that the arrangement with wholly-owned Qantas subsidiary Jetconnect, whose staff are employed under the New Zealand award, was "entirely appropriate" given that all Jetconnect services either departed or landed in New Zealand.
"Jetconnect poses no threat whatsoever to the employment of Qantas pilots," the spokesman said.
"It was always intended to be a temporary feature."
He added in a later statement that the arrangement with wholly-owned Qantas subsidiary Jetconnect, whose staff are employed under the New Zealand award, was "entirely appropriate" given that all Jetconnect services either departed or landed in New Zealand.
"Jetconnect poses no threat whatsoever to the employment of Qantas pilots," the spokesman said.
The link for the article is here, it is interesting the spin the writer puts on it as well.
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From the article: "public in tune with qantas pilots push" from the Australian a good article showing how AIPA is travelling so far. However this point needs to be made clearer throughout the media outlets:
Cause the company is winning the propaganda war on this front.
AIPA get the message out better!
It would also work to counter Qantas claims that the union job security demand would mean Jetstar pilots would end up being paid Qantas rates, a situation they say would undercut the low-cost carrier's viability, resulting in flights and jobs being axed.
The union was not claiming all Jetstar pilots should be paid Qantas rates, he said.
"If it's a Jetstar flight, go right ahead, but if you're claiming it as a primary Qantas flight number then it's got to be flown by somebody on our award."
The union was not claiming all Jetstar pilots should be paid Qantas rates, he said.
"If it's a Jetstar flight, go right ahead, but if you're claiming it as a primary Qantas flight number then it's got to be flown by somebody on our award."
AIPA get the message out better!