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300 Qantas pilots to get the chop ???

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300 Qantas pilots to get the chop ???

Old 28th May 2014, 08:45
  #381 (permalink)  
 
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Ollie,
QF is not a US Fortune 500 company!

Compare him to other major Airline CEOs and he is very overpaid.
That is before you factor in that The Qantas group is losing money.
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Old 28th May 2014, 08:59
  #382 (permalink)  
Keg

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Lightbulb

So it's not necessarily Barry making those comments re pay. Barry WAS making the point that we're middle of the road. Someone's comprehension skills need work or there is some significant context missing.
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Old 28th May 2014, 09:10
  #383 (permalink)  
 
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Keg,

Correct, I remember at the time the AIPA documents were leaked in response to AJ's claims about him getting paid less per hour than a pilot. Barry Jackson was then interviewed on radio to confirm if these figures were true and he confirmed they were and are middle of the road.

Quite right about the CEO figures quoted above, it does refer to fortune 500 companies, the point I was trying to make is that time and time again people on this thread are complaining about how dare others comment on Qantas pilots pay whilst at the same time complaining about Joyce's pay. I am just saying that in the CEO stakes he is not the highest paid, and not the lowest...... you could say he is middle of the road

US Airways CEO $5,000,000 usd per year
United CEO $13,000,000 usd per year
IAG (BA) CEO 5,500,000 gpb per year.
Air NZ CEO $3,000,000 nzd per year
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Old 28th May 2014, 09:13
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I have noted parallels with Enron over the last 10 years at QF. I thought I might share these from Forbes:

3/22/2002 @ 8:00AM
There are those who believe– Jeffrey Skilling Jeffrey Skilling is one–that Enron was a successful company brought down by a crisis of confidence in the market. Then there are those who think Enron appeared successful but actually hid its failures through dubious, even criminal, accounting tricks. In fact, Enron by most measures wasn’t particularly profitable–a fact obscured by its share price until late. But there was one area in which it succeeded like few others: executive compensation.

Between 1996 and 2000, the average chief executive salary and bonus increased by 24% to $1.72 million, according to a Forbes study of proxy reports. Total CEO compensation, including stock options and restricted stock grants, grew 166% to an average of $7.43 million. In the same period, corporate profits grew by 16%, and per capita income grew by 18%.

Enron was at the cutting edge of this trend. The stated goal of its board of directors was to pay executives in the 75th percentile of its peer group. In fact, it paid them vastly more and on a scale completely out of whack with the company’s financial results–even if its reported financial results are accepted as accurate.
And

Enron’s share price was climbing steadily prior to 2001. But Enron was systematically annihilating shareholder value, destroying more each year, says Solange Charas, who conducted the study. Enron’s profit picture was worsening, its debt growing and its margins were dwindling. Nevertheless, Enron executives were actually meeting many of the performance goals set by its board of directors. The problem was that the established goals ignored important measures of profitability, Charas says.

In its proxy statements, Enron’s board said, “The basic philosophy behind executive compensation is to reward executive performance that creates long-term shareholder value.” Most boards say much the same thing. In hindsight, the Enron executives didn’t create value in terms of the company share price. But what about along the way?

The Enron board said its “key performance criteria” included “funds flow, return on equity, debt reduction, earnings per share improvements and other relevant factors.” It claimed to have devised its pay package in consultation with Towers Perrin, a compensation consulting firm. A Towers-Perrin spokesman wouldn’t say what, if anything, it did for Enron, aside from providing it with an executive pay study.

By some of its self-styled benchmarks, Enron did well. Between 1996 and 2000, revenue increased to $100.8 billion from $13.3 billion. (For an analysis questioning Enron’s reported revenue, see “Enron The Incredible.”) Enron’s earnings per share grew to $1.22 from $1.12. The company never reduced debt. The bottom line did improve: Reported earnings climbed to $979 million from $584 million. (These numbers are prior to its restatement–information available to the board and shareholders at the time.)

As a percentage of invested capital, Enron’s earnings grew worse every year. In 1996, Enron earned a profit equaling 4.3% of its total assets–already sub-par. By 2000, it was earning 3%. In short, Enron was hoarding more and more assets, which it could do because its share price was rising and its credit was good. But it was doing less and less with the assets it had and furthermore using those assets to 'invest' in much lesser grade assets - in reality performing well below market averages.

“Enron executives were meeting their goals, but they were the wrong goals,” Charas says. If the idea was to create shareholder value, the board ignored important aspects of that value. The company excelled in revenue growth and share price growth, but there was no reality check provided by the balance sheet. It’s like paying a salesman a commission based on the volume of sales and letting him set the price of goods sold, using the company balance sheet to guarantee the price setting.
My bold..

Interesting articles are they not?
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Old 28th May 2014, 11:43
  #385 (permalink)  
 
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Blueskymine.

I'd call one QF guy moving on and another 3 staying to date as a pretty low take up rate of over 2000 Qantas pilots.

The current uncertainty (manufactured) of course may lead to more staying and they would hold relatively junior seniority at mainline.
Every position advertised under the MOU except 1 was filled. There was a huge amount of interest especially considering the last 25 were base frozen in Darwin!

There were also Qantas guys who actually failed the interview process. Generally it was the sim that let them down. Go figure.

Of the 120+ Qantas pilots at Jetstar, only 3 have reached their 3 year LWOP expiry. 2 resigned from Qantas and stayed. 1 resigned from Jetstar and went to China Southern.

100% have not returned to Qantas. 66% have stayed and 33% have left Jetstar.

I personally think we will see similar percentiles across the board as we approach the end of the year with the remainder.

Funnily enough Jetstar must be pretty confident most will stay. They just canned every training captain and only have check captains now. The checkies are pretty busy. Too busy to train up another 100 captains and run the cyclic.
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Old 28th May 2014, 12:19
  #386 (permalink)  
 
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What The

That is not true. Some impulsive pilots knew better than everyone else and did a deal behind everyone's backs. Some of those involved moved into management. The results are there for all to see.
I agree, the results are indeed there for all to see – Qantas pilots falling over themselves for a chance to sign up to Jetstar conditions for a quick command. Every time commands have been advertised to Qantas there is an oversubscription of your colleagues for those positions.

There was only one FSO where there was an unfilled vacancy not taken up by a Qantas pilot. That was when the Jetstar PC stood up and put the brakes on with the Darwin base freeze, although your union (my ex union) had a major meltdown and cracked the s#%ts.

I note with irony that your location is Darwin. You’re not a Qantas group pilot who is / was recently Darwin based are you?


And the biggest load of crap ever

AIPA actually got them more money via a retention bonus.
Which retention bonus would that be? This sounds like typical AIPA propaganda. Claiming credit for something it has ZERO to do with.
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Old 28th May 2014, 12:31
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Blueskymine, there are 4. One has returned to Qantas as a Second Officer.

Leakyboats, the 25 base-frozen slots were oversubscribed although not all MOU applicants were eligible/suitable. I note with irony that a year ago you asked how far off 'J' numbers were from a QF A330 Command. To answer your question: a 2004 QF 'J' seniority number is senior enough to retain a A380 Second Officer position, for the time being.

The real issue is why one group should be positioned such that they feel the need to contractually 'fiddle' to gain advantage over another in the first place.
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Old 28th May 2014, 12:39
  #388 (permalink)  
 
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The thing I find most disturbing about this thread is a whole bunch of pilots are about to become unemployed.

And some here seem to think that is no big deal, and a golden opportunity to sink the boot in!

Most of those losing their jobs will find flying work elsewhere. But some will not be so fortunate. It will be career ending.

We all work to support our families, and have some fun doing it.

So maybe some of you arseoles out there should have a good look at yourselves!
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Old 28th May 2014, 12:41
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All caused by a pilot union trying to gain some relevance......Both Virgin and Jetstar T&Cs are evidence of that!
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Old 28th May 2014, 12:49
  #390 (permalink)  
 
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Post What about Wendy?

100% have not returned to Qantas.
Every Mainline Qrewroom reader knows this statement is 100% wrong
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Old 28th May 2014, 17:09
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“An identified causal factor in the accident was the crew's commuting induced fatigue.”

All pilots in the US commute, highly paid ones and . . . . lowly paid ones. The most common commuters are the highly paid UPS and FDX pilots who have fatigue issues as a result. Pilots commute mainly because airlines these days re assign bases so frequently that pilots get tired of moving.

The Colgan crash did not occur as a result of income levels.

“Tell us what you really think!”

I think my posts pretty much take care of that. But as I sit here in the lounge at JFK admiring the leggy blond on the chair opposite I have time to kill, so here is what I think:

Qantas is a reasonable airline, with moderate service levels and a good safety record. It is a legacy carrier, which means it is trying to respond to new market problems using old answers. The business model is no longer in tune with the modern airline market and it is saddled with highly unionized high cost labor. It is not an agile business.

The first thing Qantas employees and in particular pilots, must ask themselves is: why am I being paid a premium, a premium, which I think has been clearly established in the last several pages of this forum. It appears from reading this thread that the vocal Qantas pilots belief is that a premium salary should be paid simply because they think the business can afford it. This is not how a business should be run and probably not how Qantas will be run in the future. It’s not how you buy a car or sell a house.

For most of its history Qantas has been sheltered from the true market and like most legacy carriers has operated with a lot less focus on labor cost than non legacy competitors. Indeed cockpit labor was not considered expensive when the company’s main focus was developing a worldwide jet service in an industry still finding its feet, especially considering that an alternative source of technical labor had not yet developed. There was nothing to benchmark the cost of technical staff against. But these things have changed, the technical skills to fly an airliner can be sourced more easily and Qantas is no longer operating within the bubble that Government ownership once provided.

Qantas is not alone. South African, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Iberia, Olympic, Alitalia, Swissair, Sabena, Aerolineas, Aer Lingus . . . . The list goes on of national carriers that have struggled to adapt to a privatized, competitive world. Every Legacy carrier in the US has gone bankrupt. All of the above named carriers have either been renationalized or faced serious threats to their very existence and only survived following radical restructure and financial aid that mock the very market principles by which you are expecting to be paid.

Qantas has ridden a wave of luck for several decades. The first shot in the arm was the merging of Qantas with Australian Airlines and the debt restructure that resulted; the second was the collapse of Ansett. Both events permitted Qantas to delay any labor reforms that were becoming more important as each year passed.

Qantas has not been blessed with effective management for some time. The lack of focus on labor costs and the poor strategy behind setting up Jetstar HK are just two examples but important ones nonetheless.

Qantas, like most large businesses is a complex system. It is impossible to manage a complex system without significant waste of resources. It is very difficult to manage a complex system with a completely effective reporting structure. Companies such as Apple and Microsoft and Delta appear to be well-oiled machines when viewed from afar but inside are held together on a daily basis with spit and gum.

This inefficiency does not provide a justification for premium salaries, as some here have suggested. In fact quite the opposite.

Management salaries are another often bleated about subject amongst most employee groups, particularly yours. Ironically, market forces directly drive the CEO’s compensation: there is no CEO union to muddy the waters or inflate his conditions through job building. His salary is what the market supports and is not unreasonable considering the size of the business and the task at hand particularly in comparison with others in similar roles.

My comments here are not in any way intended to offend pilots or wider Qantas employees. Some posters here don’t like the argument I present and that is fair enough. Those rational folk will respond with rational answers, the others will use terms like “troll” or “management stooge” in failing to form a reasoned argument and this is a shame as the future of Qantas depends a lot more on you than on me.

Good luck to all Qantas staff.
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Old 28th May 2014, 19:19
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Wow. Talk about enlightenment.
Add a few posters to my ignore list and this thread becomes logical.
Goodbye to Flyboat North, and The Professor.
Professional pilots only please.
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Old 28th May 2014, 19:44
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you chose to type all that instead of talk to the blonde? gee, priorities!
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Old 28th May 2014, 21:46
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Funnily enough Jetstar must be pretty confident most will stay.
Why they aren't offering VR to LWOP.
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Old 28th May 2014, 21:53
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Leakyboats,
You obviously weren't around at the time.
Ask Lester. He knows.
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Old 28th May 2014, 23:38
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"The Colgan crash did not occur as a result of income levels."

Straw man. It was never suggested income levels were the sole cause of the accident. What was stated was that commuting induced fatigue was a contributory factor. The high percentage of commuters at the Newark base, the base of the accident pilots, was a result of the high cost of living in that area, combined with the low wages company pilots received. As stated in the NTSB report.

Further reading: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/ny...ilot.html?_r=0

Last edited by Fool Sufferer; 1st Jun 2014 at 08:29.
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Old 29th May 2014, 00:10
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re: colgan
it had a heap to do with pay - not taking needed sick leave since they couldn't afford to & "sleeping" on a couch in the crew room since they couldn't afford a hotel!
pay attention professor
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Old 29th May 2014, 01:29
  #398 (permalink)  
 
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Snoop

I sit here in the lounge at JFK admiring the leggy blond on the chair opposite
So, did you get his number Prof?
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Old 29th May 2014, 02:02
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For crying out loud what is wrong with the lot of us? Stupid selfish people.

Yes granted, Qantas pilots have been arrogant and yes it's just by luck they haven't been embroiled in the malaise that's enveloping the whole aviation industry but why oh why must fellow aviators like this Flyboat fellow insist on dragging everything to the lowest common denominator?

There is so much nonsense spread about this industry regarding salaries. I know for a fact that salary packages in Asia as Airbus and Boeing Captains top A$500,000 and the carriers that paid that money remain extremely profitable. It can be done.

In Australia we had the Ansett collapse and the people who started Jetstar wisely pitted some ex-Ansett pilots and others (for whom jets were perhaps hitherto a missed opportunity), against industry norms for salaries. Quite simply, they were prepared to fly these aircraft for low salaries and relished the chance to undermine their QF peers in the process. Qantas pilots collectively were sufficiently myopic and arrogant that they isolated the Trojan Horse that was JQ as some sort of inferior scum (let's not talk to them on the crew bus) and this appalling approach is inevitably biting them on the bum now.

So we are ourselves largely responsible for the predicament we are in now. Pilots undercut others for whatever reasons and those arrogantly perched at the 'top' (although not really the top by international standards) think they are sufficiently gifted or special that they are immune from reality. Those nearing 65 seem to think who cares - get what I can now (get compulsorily transferred to the QF 737 fleet and then go sick) and forget the consequences for the younger guys.

The net result is that we are deftly manipulated by those who seek to undercut our terms and conditions, principally to fatten their own wallets. We do their work for them. With peers (?) like Flyboat, who needs enemies? We are white-anted by our own for whatever self-serving logic seems all important at the time.

An unrealistic expectation of course, but we should all be fighting to sustain the QF terms and conditions at the very least, not undermining them at every opportunity. Whilst I'm not entirely convinced the vaunted pilot shortage will materialise to the degree forecast, now is the time to collectively encourage boosting industry conditions not undermining them.
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Old 29th May 2014, 02:37
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Qantas pilots collectively were sufficiently myopic and arrogant that they isolated the Trojan Horse that was JQ as some sort of inferior scum (let's not talk to them on the crew bus) and this appalling approach is inevitably biting them on the bum now.
I, and many of my colleagues, have consistently made an effort to extract a "hello" out of JQ crew in terminals for years. That they look the other way in ~80% of cases has become a bit of a game now, so I hardly think that this is QF arrogance coming through. More like 'chip on the shoulder sheepishness' from the other side. For some reason, MEL seems to be the worst for this.

Still, I'll continue to say hi, exchanging courtesy to those who brave eye contact, and have a chuckle at those who choose to look the other way.

For some reason, the "QF/JQ/DJ/TT pilot" that people bitc# about on here seems to be a totally different person from the mate that they have known for years who works there. We really are not all that different.
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