Qantas Exodus II

[Me Myself]

Mohikan

Where do you get those 1000 pilots out of a job figures. Sounds to me like half the Qantas pilots are goners ?? Is this not a tad exagerated ?

Second, no one is enjoying the fact that another airline is losing a good contract. Actually quite the contrary because we are bound to be next in line.
Nor are we happy to see people go to EK who is just bringing the airline world to a pile of rouble.......with thebhelp,of ex legacy airlines pilots ! How so ironic.

My point, only based upon a few posts I have seen , is that I strongly doubt EK will be the Bonanza you pretend it will be just because you're angry and frustrated.

That QF don't want to reach an agreement looks bloody obvious and that's how well your red tie tactic worked in the end.

I personally find nothing attractive in Dubaï. It is tacky and vulgar, scorching heat ( mind you no flies exept around camels ) and worst of all....no decent pub.
I've worked there, I still fly there and each time, I just can't wait to go home.

[Oakape]

but all people are trying to do now is keep food on the table and get through to retirement in an occupation and industry that is toxic, exploitative and in terminal decline.

Ain't that the truth!!! And not just in Oz.

[Going Boeing]

Posted by Me Myself
Where do you get those 1000 pilots out of a job figures. Sounds to me like half the Qantas pilots are goners ?? Is this not a tad exagerated?

You obviously don't understand the Clifford/Joyce long term plan. The aim is to move every job possible offshore which in reality means that as many as 20,000 Qantas jobs will go - the only staff remaining will be the customer contact/ramp/baggage staff who cannot physically be based elsewhere. They want all pilots & cabin crew domiciled offshore (yes, even all the domestic crews) as the salary/superannuation/tax savings will more than offset the increased cost of accommodation/allowances (well, in their view). The big item in their thinking is that they will be rid of the legacy Certified Agreements and those "bully boy" unions.

This won't happen overnight because it would be impossible to implement, but the B767 fleet is the first to face the chop, followed by the B747 fleet. The replacement aircraft (& crews) will be based out of places like Singapore and Auckland and will take over the routes flown by the retiring fleets.

Will this scenario really happen - if we don't fight them, it would.
Personally, I think that the public is onto Clifford & Joyce and the noose is beginning to tighten. I know that I will continue to fight these PR1CKS all the way and will celebrate wildly when this example of "corporate greed" is sent packing.

So, back to your question - no, this is not a tad exaggerated!

[Me Myself]

I wouldn't ask the question if I did......would I ?
Well, at least one person is going To be happy to see this plan implemented : I mean Richard de Crespigny who said it would be grand to have the opportunity to work in Singapore, according to his Australian interview 2 weeks ago.
Your wish has been granted ! Nasi Goreng and a schooner of Tiger...on the way !


You mention short haul being based off shore too ? How can this work out ??

[breakfastburrito]

You mention short haul being based off shore too ? How can this work out ??

Just the way Jetstar do it with the Thai flight attendants right now domestically (see Senate inquiry transcripts), 17 Day "tours of Oz".

[Going Boeing]

You mention short haul being based off shore too ? How can this work out ??

BB answered it well. J* has been the proving ground for the concept and if the laws aren't changed then Asian crews will become the standard on all QF flights - domestic or international. The 1000 jobs announced in August are just this year's instalment with thousands to come in subsequent years.

RDC is as entitled to his views as much as anyone else - he incurred the wrath of his peers because he chose to allow his views to be printed in a national newspaper at a time that undermined the efforts by his peers to keep the jobs in Australia.

[V-Jet]

And the small fact that RDC has very little (if any) respect from his peers due to his outstanding achievements in the field of mediocrity. All things considered, I think most who know the guy would believe that statement to be a great compliment.

Believe me, his comments in The Australian did little other than to enhance his well earned reputation.

Current Qantas management do not understand airlines. This is the issue. Of course they would argue differently, but they are utterly incompetent. I would happily buy an airline from them. Unlike Borghetti.

The No1 rule of any LCC is to raise prices. Qantas is the ideal brand to charge the earth, but they literally have no idea how to tap into it.

Incompetence at my level kills people. Incompetence at their level gets deca million bonuses (which I wouldn't begrudge JB) and fawning press...

[Jetro6UL]

Originally Posted by Going Boeing

....The aim is to move every job possible offshore which in reality means that as many as 20,000 Qantas jobs will go - the only staff remaining will be the customer contact/ramp/baggage staff who cannot physically be based elsewhere.....

Nup.

That's the beef that the TWU have.

Those jobs will be with the "Bill Smith Ground Support Co" who will win the contract by chopping the floor out from under the current staff and making nearly all positions part time/casual.....

"Casual" means no long service, no annual leave, no sick leave (or else).....

Welcome to Tigerland.

[Me Myself]

The No1 rule of any LCC is to raise prices. Qantas is the ideal brand to charge the earth, but they literally have no idea how to tap into it.

Jetro, you were getting my full undivided attention......until you mentioned the above.
Very sorry mate and I'm not trying to be mean........your service sucks big time and thank God no one is rising the prices or else you would really get the meaning of the word " Exodus ".

I have been coming here for years, every time on QF and every time I've had to deal with these crusty " don't give a s...t let's get these trays out of the way so we can go to bed and don't brake my nuts asking for a second cup of coffee over breakfast " type of cabin crew.....you know.....down the back....near the toilet....when you're staff. Well, from another airline that is.
Even traveling staff, it does get tiring after a while. The other passengers were not treated any differently.
So, in a nutshell, once you've been all teary and fuzzy listening to " I still call Australia home " until the cows come home........there isn't much left to gloss about.
And trust me, I am not the demanding type. You know, a glass of water on a regular basis, no face when asking for somerhing " how dare he ???!!! " That's why I flew Singapore this time......full fare because I didn't want to have my holliday ruined by either a chocker block aircraft or upset Qantas employees, whichever airlinenI

Not very supportive of the cause, I know, but I also work hard for my dollar.

You want to charge more ???? Well, simple enough.......give me somerhing that's worth it !
What do people want, and I'm no different ? Just reliability, somebody nice to look after you and no " I don't give a toss, go to sleep " cabin crew. No insane prices. Added to that your suitcase on the luggage belt and arrive alive at destination.
Is that too much to ask ?

Understand me, I also work for a legacy airline and what you are going through is also going to happen to us. I have no desire to be sent to Sinagapore, Timbouktou or where ever.

[Jetro6UL]

Quote:
The No1 rule of any LCC is to raise prices. Qantas is the ideal brand to charge the earth, but they literally have no idea how to tap into it.

Originally Posted by Me Myself

Jetro, you were getting my full undivided attention......until you mentioned the above.

Hey...not my words!!

Blame V-Jet.

[Going Boeing]

Posted by Jetro6UL
Those jobs will be with the "Bill Smith Ground Support Co" who will win the contract by chopping the floor out from under the current staff and making nearly all positions part time/casual.....

I do understand that the "Bill Smith Ground Support Co" already exists in the form of QGS (Qantas Ground Services) and its role is to undercut the Qantas employees in the Ramp/Baggage handling areas. My comments in the earlier post was about offshoring jobs and I hadn't expanded to including the outsourcing of jobs as well.

Joyce's selection of words at the Senate Inquiry (over 90% of maintenance is done in Australia) conveniently omits the fact that it is not Qantas engineers doing all that maintenance but is largely done by MROs such as Forstaff, JHAS etc. Outsourcing has been a trend for quite a while and most of us regret not drawing a line in the sand during earlier EBAs.

[V-Jet]

They dont know how to tap into it. They dont know how to do mundane things like improving service etc.

Interestingly you went straight to the nub of the issue.

No-one working at Qantas would be anything other than supportive of competent management, but they aren't!

Because of their utter incompetence the only way they can 'improve' is by cost cutting. And that brilliant idea ran out of sensible steam more than ten years ago.

So, far from arguing with you and without giving too much of my varied history away, I understand business, airlines and hospitality very well and I cannot agree with you more.

Business on all levels is about people and it is really pretty basic stuff.

AJ, GD, JS etc etc have not employed one person that is schooled in any way in the basic aim of business - making people happy.

[Worrals in the wilds]

What do people want, and I'm no different ? Just reliability, somebody nice to look after you and no " I don't give a toss, go to sleep " cabin crew. No insane prices. Added to that your suitcase on the luggage belt and arrive alive at destination.
Is that too much to ask ?

I think it's pretty obvious from the current press that Qantas management don't give a about service. Maybe they don't understand the concept. IIRC it's never been mentioned by AJ et al, not in all the hours of TV interviews, columns of newspaper print or even the advertising. It's like it doesn't exist.

According to the spin, all their alleged woes are due to the nasty staff and the fact that as an Australian airline, they have to employ some Australians. Like, how rude! Nothing to do with their competitors like SQ, EK and CX being good at service for a similar price. The grounding debacle shows just how much respect Qantas has for any innocent customers who made the mistake of buying their product, so service is probably not going to become a selling point any time soon.

[Me Myself]

........and that's a shame for it is incridible how fast one changes one's traveling habits once one has decided to change shop.
Going back doesn't sound too appealing.

Honest....it wasn't much better in Dixon's days or with the bow tie guy. There was almost no competition on long haul until EK and the lots came around.

QF management might be crap but is this an excuse to deliver poor service once on board. It's the best way to kill what's left of the business and if I'm going to work, it'll be a lot less depressing doing it correctly. But, personal choice really.

What's happening here is what is threatning every legacy airline who doesn't wake up in time and smells the coffee.

Sorry for,the mix up Jetro.

[V-Jet]

Management at Qf has not the first clue about operational issues. Look at UK TV series 'Back to the floor'. Not a single person in QF management would even know where the floor is!

A manager is supposed to know and understand the jobs of thepeople under them. In JS, GD and AJ's world that is just an old fashioned idea that went out with the dinosaurs, replaced by canon fodder grads with no experience but told they will get a raise by cutting a budget. They are as incompetent as the people above them but it doesnt matter because these guys arent interested in running a business at all - it is just a vehicle to accumulate personal wealth.

23yo business managers forcing inane decisions on staff who know what they are doing is ludicrous! Like a recent decision by some genius that you have to make 8 cups of tea from one tea bag - IN BUSINESS CLASS FOR GODS SAKE!!

And this garbage has been going on since the bow tie boy - company wide and in thousands of ways.

How can staff possibly feel good about themselves and even want to do a good job when this type of decision is made every day by some idiot who wants a bonus?

No one at Qantas wants to work for Air Enron.

[Groaner]

Devils advocate (who happened to be an airline manager) would say, if the pilot body is coming to them with a proposal to improve productivity by 22%, then the DA might well say (in this order):

"Why haven't you done this years ago?", then

"OK, whatever is the basis of your proposal is obviously acceptable to you, so we're going to get a 22% improvement, but my starting point is you get no pay rise because that still gets us not even up to my competitor", then

"OK, fair dos, you can have 5%, but we're going to get another 5% productivity the next year".

Not saying it's right, but it's the way it works everywhere else in the real world.

[breakfastburrito]

Groaner, that is precisely why the workers don't come up with productivity improvements in this environment. Any productivity gain they suggest is passed on as increased profitability to the company, not the workers. If you look at how things run in Germany, management & workers sit down and divide up the spoils together. This has allowed them to be highly productive, highly paid & with high profitability. If I recall correctly, they work less hours on average and have more holidays compared to rest of Europe.

There are solutions, but they need to avoid the current zero-sum game mentality, ie work with the workforce to improve profitability and share some of that additional profitability with them. Seems so simple doesn't it.

[ramius315]

"Why haven't you done this years ago?"

"Because as an airline manager that's your job. You signed off on each EBA so why don't you go back and ask yourself the same question, fools?!"

[Keg]

"Why haven't you done this years ago?",

Which would just highlight the stupidity of said manager.

[Me Myself]

This has allowed them to be highly productive, highly paid & with high profitability. If I recall correctly, they work less hours on average and have more holidays compared to rest of Europe.

Sorry Breakfast......simply not true. I spend half of my time over there and if it is correct that germans sit around a table and walk out with a compromise, it is also true that work relationships have deteriorated a lot in the last year.

German TV has come up with numerous reports about the rise of burn out cases at work.
10 years ago, Gerhart Schröder, the then Chnacelor, came out with a plan that was supposed to make Germany poor competitiveness the star of Europe.
This was mainly achieved by an iron fisted control over salaries and benefits in order to spare employers.
It didn't go without casualties and the famous law HARTZ 4, bearing the name of the poor functionary who wrote them, sent a lot of unproductive people packing and the lucky one's on temp work.
You have to admire the Germans, for they bit the bullet for 10 years rising to where they are today. Which explains why no Greek is going to bust their nuts calling them NAZI 's which they do just because the germans do not want to cough up free money to they can go on doing...eeeeeeeeh....no one knows exactly.......but it costs a lot !!!!!
German Air Traffic controlers just had a bitter dispute with their employer and threats of strike where ruled illegal a couple of times. The mere threat created chaos. One thing the germans hate.....is uncertainty.
They finally reached an agreement and with very minimum disruption to the travelling public.
The same thing in Spain finished with the minister of Justice prosecuting them immediatly after 3 days of total Armagedon. For what ?? a big fat ZILCH !

So, you're right. The kind of stunt Alan Joyce is putting up would never ever take place in Germany..........but all isn't rosy. Still, great place !

They do not have more holliday than the rest of Europe, they very much average what the french have but when a german is at work.......HE IS !
No Friday lunch that last well into the afternoon and quiet convieniently .....'bridge with the week end.......'if you get my drift !

One more thing......no Lufthansa pilot would deem to walk around with a silly red tie making useless PA adress and would not take his grievance to the public. I tell you, wen zey are at woerk.....zey arrrrre !