When is the next cull at QF Engineering?

[Jacana]

You guys need to stop listening to to crap the guys talk on the floor and all the rumors. Just listen to what your managers and union members are saying. The company is winding up operations (which everyone is obviously aware of) and the union is trying to to get as much work for you guys as possible and find solutions to keep some sort of income coming in for you guys. That's the situation. Try and keep a positive attitude and keep doing a good job while your being paid, but start making plans incase things go to crap.

[Ngineer]

wake up and take control,you are loosing the trust from your employees

They are in control.

Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian

[Bagus]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JETSTAR ASIA AWARDS ST AEROSPACE THREE-YEAR LINE MAINTENANCE CONTRACT
Singapore, 28 October 2013 – ST Aerospace and Jetstar Asia announced today a three-year line maintenance contract for Jetstar Asia’s existing and future fleet of A320
~ CHANG Cheow Teck, President, ST Aerospace
Maintenance services for Jetstar Asia’s A320 fleet will be undertaken by a dedicated line maintenance team located at Changi Airport and supported by ST Aerospace’s base maintenance facilities in Changi, where a new narrow-body hangar has recently been added. This new hangar is able to cater for the maintenance of two A320 aircraft simultaneously. This increases ST Aerospace’s global hangar capacity to 38 wide-body bays, 27 narrow-body bays and 24 general aviation bays.
“ST Aerospace knows our business well and we are very confident in our ability to work together to meet Jetstar’s high standards of safety and operational performance. This agreement will help service not only today’s fleet of 19 aircraft but future A320 aircraft that we take in the next few years which will continue our growth in Southeast Asia. The new narrow-body hangar added at Changi has further strengthened our partnership and improved our efficiency as our aircraft can now be maintained right at our doorstep.”
~ Barathan PASUPATHI, CEO, Jetstar Asia

[Jethro Gibbs]

Avalon time off no pay idea slammed by employees in todays geelong advertiser hot topic as unworkable they are pissed off .

[Boeing buster]

Jethro
Are you for or against the proposal ?
Interesting that although QF complain the proposal only covers 2 years both Texas Tony and Steve P know there is work that could be done at AVA starting late 2015.
One group wants AVA closed and the other group wants to keep it alive.
For those who are offended at the proposal I suggest you shut the f--k up,take your redundancies and let others who want to battle on do so.
For those of you unhappy with the ALAEA and it's leadership remember the people who run the airline are the ones who want you gone.

[BrissySparkyCoit]

Jethro, could you tell us what you expect the ALAEA to do?

Probably wasting my time asking you as you never have answers..... just complaints.

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by Jethro

Avalon time off no pay idea slammed by employees in todays geelong advertiser hot topic as unworkable they are pissed off .

Any potential solutions offered?

Or just an ongoing expectation that work and jobs will continue when they could be done at a fraction of the price elsewhere?

As I said before and will continue banging on about - you and your base of operations are a VERY high cost provider. Unless you change that you are going to be closed.

Simple as that.

If management of a certain MRO had their wits about them you would have been gone long ago.

[Jacana]

I hope Avalon stays around as long as possible. Its a shame Syd and Mel lost heavy, but the horse has bolted on that one. Lets do what we can to keep Avalon going to atleast retain as much of the industry as possible on Australian soil.

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

As I said before and will continue banging on about - you and your base of operations are a VERY high cost provider. Unless you change that you are going to be closed.

I wouldn't be so sure they are high cost. Avalon bid against Haeko of Hong Kong for the 747 reconfig work and the difference in the tender price was a mere 2.5%. (info supplied by Qantas)

Avalon time off no pay idea slammed by employees in todays geelong advertiser hot topic as unworkable they are pissed off .

That's funny. Not one member has contacted the ALAEA to express a negative view on what we have offered. Looks like some of the union officials from the other unions have been busy pretending they are Avalon employees. It is not in the interests of the ALP unions to keep the place open considering they have virtually no members there.

[Jethro Gibbs]

pretending they are Avalon employees

Buy the Paper read it they have there names there and yes they do work there long term employees .

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

I'll have to get a copy. If they are members of ours repeating the lies of management, they need to be set straight. There is plenty of Qantas work over the next few years, too much to fit into their Brisbane facility.

Got a link Jethro? Nobody I have spoken to this afternoon has seen it.

[Boeing buster]

While QF hang the dead weight of Forstaff around the neck of AVA it will always be behind the 8 ball.
QF are notorious for fudging the figures, remember the 90 million hangar that was really 50 mil to build. Qantas want to outsource H/M and if they decided the time is right politically they will tell all and sundry AVA is way to expensive.
I think they made their minds up months ago, this process is just a fishing trip for future reference for when they decide to turn on Bris Vegas. Not that line maint is safe either.
I always thought personally that senior QF management got a hard on thinking about their alternate workforce at Avalon, just down the road from Tulla. H/M MEL is gone and no one in Brissy is worried by Keith's Avalon EBA storm trooper's anymore including KC.
Maybe they will stick to there old habits and build Avalon into an alternate option to Brisbane. The Fed sec is certainly doing all he can to to keep the place going. This would be a longer sighted strategy not really suited to our current, foreign, short term orientated management team. ( excuse my use of the HR : team : terminology wank )
Only time will tell.

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by fedsec

I wouldn't be so sure they are high cost. Avalon bid against Haeko of Hong Kong for the 747 reconfig work and the difference in the tender price was a mere 2.5%. (info supplied by Qantas)

There's a difference between the cost of a given check and the actual full cost of the facility SP.

All the whitespace during downtime is the real crux of the issue,there's a huge cost there that needs addressing.

[Ngineer]

As I said before and will continue banging on about - you and your base of operations are a VERY high cost provider.

When you consider the levels of management, their bonuses, the IR/HR head-kicking machine that keeps getting larger and stronger, I would hardly consider a lowly LAME's wage to be the root cause of a high cost base.

The reasons they want us gone are purely and solely personal reasons (in my honest opinion).

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

There's a difference between the cost of a given check and the actual full cost of the facility SP.

When a company does it's quotes it generally rolls in overhead costs. The tender should reflect all these. The quote was not just for one aircraft. It was a $200M reconfig price across an entire fleet. 2.5% difference.

All the whitespace during downtime is the real crux of the issue, there's a huge cost there that needs addressing.

Very true. If you strip out all your work and create a maintenance plan with a lot of holes in it, of course it will be inefficient. Qantas chose to plan it that way. We answered the plan with a solution made to match. No work to do-no pay.

Of course now they have a problem. They only pretended they had no work to do so they could send this work offshore but our answer has negated their pretend reason.

On Wed we will be releasing the real workloads showing available work on Qantas aircraft. They say there is 44 weeks whitespace. We have re-adjusted their plan so it has been cut back to 4 weeks. That's right, they should be running Avalon with 4 weeks whitespace and that information will be made public on Wed.

Ian if you are reading this let Alan know that the truth will come out. Better we make a joint good news announcement later this week.

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by ngineer

When you consider the levels of management, their bonuses, the IR/HR head-kicking machine that keeps getting larger and stronger, I would hardly consider a lowly LAME's wage to be the root cause of a high cost base.

The reasons they want us gone are purely and solely personal reasons (in my honest opinion).

Get over the bonus issue, it clouds too much thinking.

The QF IR/HR machine is, somewhat bizarrely, protecting you. Too scared of losing the established grip and ability to hoover up billable hours or the fact that any real change achieved will show up their own lack of ability to deliver change a certain individual stymies attempts to deliver what needs to be done.

Paradoxically that will ultimately bring everything down around you because you cannot ultimately keep avoiding the issue which is that in a global environment there are much cheaper and equally valid options available.

Ultimately QF engineering is a minimum of 33% too expensive, and that's against other flag carrier benchmarks. If the IR/HR function was really in synch with what QF can and ultimately must do then there would be massive change. But it won't happen because they lack the capability to genuinely lead in painful times.

To me that is the utter failure of management. Their job is to lead through the utter cr*p you are facing and provide a future for as many as possible. Yes some, many, will leave. Like it or not that is the reality. Yell, scream, carry on all you like but you're getting more and more up against it. The IR guys are building their case to take you out entirely because "change is impossible", that is their only escape from their own incapability to deliver what needs to be done. So ultimately instead of losing numbers you are going to lose in entirety.

I don't know the details of the ALAEA unpaid leave offer but it addresses, at least partially, the biggest single issue facing Avalon. Whitespace. 50% whitespace doubles the cost of each hour on the tools. How that issue is handled is the single most critical factor to your future as an industry. Your overseas competition like SIAEC have that issue sorted far more efficiently than QF do.

If you guys have the long term in mind you need to get behind SP and the ALAEA because otherwise you are rooted.

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by Fedsec

Originally Posted by romulus

There's a difference between the cost of a given check and the actual full cost of the facility SP.

When a company does it's quotes it generally rolls in overhead costs. The tender should reflect all these. The quote was not just for one aircraft. It was a $200M reconfig price across an entire fleet. 2.5% difference.

That's not the QF way. When we were supposedly competing against the benchmarks we soon realised QF central was paying a number of key costs (eg insurance) that were not broken down and included in the competitive model.

Sort of. That competition didn't take the fully costed facility into account. As I understand it that was a key determining issue.

Originally Posted by Fedsec

Originally Posted by romulus

All the whitespace during downtime is the real crux of the issue, there's a huge cost there that needs addressing.

Very true. If you strip out all your work and create a maintenance plan with a lot of holes in it, of course it will be inefficient. Qantas chose to plan it that way. We answered the plan with a solution made to match. No work to do-no pay.

Agreed. And that is why I am trying to provide a measured and rational response to the posters who reckon the ALAEA proposal is a bad thing.

Originally Posted by Fedsec

Of course now they have a problem. They only pretended they had no work to do so they could send this work offshore but our answer has negated their pretend reason.

On Wed we will be releasing the real workloads showing available work on Qantas aircraft. They say there is 44 weeks whitespace. We have re-adjusted their plan so it has been cut back to 4 weeks. That's right, they should be running Avalon with 4 weeks whitespace and that information will be made public on Wed.

Ian if you are reading this let Alan know that the truth will come out. Better we make a joint good news announcement later this week.

Good luck with that. I look forward to seeing the info. I hope it works out, but I'm not sure the logic is hitting home.

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

Romulus, your insight and guidance is always appreciated by me anyway.

cheers

[Bagus]

Other union has no interest at Avalon and giving all false information about LWOP ,do the maths u will loose some but u gain employment and u get extra year of leave,LSL,extra redundancy payout,3% pay rise and if you pay average ur losses is minimal.

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

Buy the Paper read it they have there names there and yes they do work there long term employees .

Thank you Jethro. We got hold of this paper and yes two employees had written letters to the Editor explaining how there was no future for Avalon and they didn't want our 3 months LWOP plan.

Both of them were Managers.