Virgin Australia recruitment

[surfer rosa]

Originally Posted by Gligg

My group was mostly regional crew. Others may have to wait until the (regional) hallways have been hoovered before getting a call. Apparently 150 needed this year so anything's possible!

150 this year seems like a hell of a lot! Their training dept will be flat out. I wonder if they have many pilots in the holding pool like our friends at qantaslink like to do?

[Goat Whisperer]

I would certainly expect VA to take another 100 pilots. I could believe 150.

Plenty of greybeard retirements coming up, a few SOs and younger FOs see a brighter future at QF, and many of us middle aged captains are looking abroad. Not to mention the growing debt of pilot annual leave and long service leave, and the training pipeline will be open for some months yet.

I have to speak against the assertion that ATR pilots will be there for 5-10 years. That's utter nonsense. Sure people are recruited off the street onto jets before them, but the ATR crew will always hold a higher seniority number. What's the alternative? every recruit gets 3 months on the ATR then moves on?

[206greaser]

Well Goat what good is “seniority” if it doesn’t get you positions you’ve bid for in line with the GDOJ? Explain to the ATR pilots how they have seniority but new joins will make a lot more money. I’d take money over a pseudo-seniority system. I imagine it’s easy when you’re sitting in the jet to just tell the ATR crew to wait, but wait how long?? Hiring booms don't last forever and once those domestic 73 slots are taken they could be taken for many years.

5-10 years is completely accurate if you consider the cap the company is enforcing. If you have 70 pilots and you only let 7 per year go to the jet fleet you are potentially looking at 10 years. 5 years is taking into consideration anomalies. how many have they recruited onto the ATR in the last 12 months?

[Oakape]

The ATR fleet operation needs to be protected & it can't be flooded with new recruits due to experience levels. Low experience on type & low experience in the Virgin SOP's can cause an increase in risk. There have already been incidents on the type that indicate an increased safety risk.

In days gone by this problem was addressed with bypass pay. Obviously that is an expense that the company would prefer to avoid. Perhaps the respective union should be addressing this issue.

["Littlebird"]

ATR Pilots

Holding people back in their careers due to lack of planning and execution in order to minimise risks is a very shortsighted approach.
It appears seniority plus ten percent cap equates to a noose around the neck and a hinderence to ones career progression, personal development and livelihood.
This then leads to a very agitated, disconnected, demotivated workforce and this is how the threat arises.

[shoddy88]

Originally Posted by Goat Whisperer

I have to speak against the assertion that ATR pilots will be there for 5-10 years. That's utter nonsense.

This is my first post on PPRune in years, but the stupidity of this comment truly made my blood boil.

I'm just about to graduate to 7th year ATR captain and guess what.. STILL STUCK HERE!!!! Likely won't get to leave till 2019. I've jumped all the hoops, did all the right things, passed all the retarded interviews and sim checks years ago and all we've received as a reward are lies and underhanded delay tactics from a management team who are nothing more than tricksters.

The ATR fleet is a prison and it truly sucks being a second class citizen at Virgin Australia.

5 years on the ATR is a very "uptimistic" estimate. The whole fleet is under a 10% cap. That means 10 years!!! That's the reality. The company loves to crap on and lie to your face and say they'll let more than 10% go, but its all just lies to stop people from resigning. It has never happened and there's no reason to believe it ever will.

Now they've decided to put external hires and cadets ahead of even those ATR crew who have been offered positions on the 737 6 months ago, but were never given a start date and are still stuck on the leper fleet.

The company has hired a total of 2 new pilots for the ATR in the last 6 months, but I don't know of a single captain who has less than 1000 hours of leave accrued because the company has not approved leave in 4 F@ck!ng years!!!!

A few facts about the ATR.

• A new FO WILL BE STUCK on the ATR for at least 5-10 years earning less than the national average wage until a command opportunity comes up.
• A command might become available in under 5 years if they're lucky, but I've never heard of anyone getting it in less than 4 to date. If the industry slows down, commands will be non existent.
• If you do want to escape the ATR you have to do a full interview process the same as any external applicant. That now includes going to the Fokker 100 even tho the company has promised that would never happen. More lies.
• Being an ATR pilot means you cannot apply for jobs at Tiger (you are considered an internal applicant and the answer is NO).
• The rosters are absolute rubbish. Most duty's are around 10 hours long, but you're lucky to do 3 to 4 hours flying during the duty. All you do is sit at the airport fighting sleep. To give you an idea my roster recently had a 4 day block, which totals 41 duty hours. It's not a one off!!
• We are not protected by CAO48 because of the exemption. This means we are regularly rostered duties of 11:30.
• We are not protected by Virgins FRMS rules because we are under the Skywest EBA.
• I could go on all day because this is just the tip of the iceberg. I haven't even touched on the cluster f@c$ that is the Brisbane base closure and the way crew were repeatedly lied to and mislead there.

[Knzuk]

Originally Posted by Aussie-kiwi

donkey767: One day is the SIM. The other is a panel interview and group exercise. PM me if you want a rundown.

Hey, any information you have on the interview and sim assessment that you have would be much appreciated. Cheers.

[206greaser]

Well there’s an honest appraisal of life on the ATR.

As I said earlier hold out for a jet position or start looking at real estate in Canberra!

[Titan Slave]

Just wondering, silly question, why are you ATR guys still there? There is an absolute sh*t tonne of jobs going pretty much everywhere I look. Here and abroad.

[SHVC]

REX hiring DEC Krusty? Like Shoddy I'm tired of the same old stories from VA management.

[shoddy88]

Originally Posted by KRUSTY 34

Hi shoddy88.

Sounds grim. Word around the campfire is that the ATR experiment has only around 2 years of life left?

We all know about assumption, but what do you think?

Hi Krusty 34,

There are indeed a lot of rumours, but the truth is nobody knows. The only thing Virgin does well is to be completely non transparent. It's a bit like a mushroom farm, you get kept in the dark and fed sh!t.

I think there may be a lot of wishful thinking here. Pretty much everyone (over 95% of crew) would love to see the ATR operation just die. The hope is that we could move over to other fleets under the Virgin umbrella. It's a nice dream that helps people stay sane. It's entirely plausible, but I can't help thinking it sounds too good to be true. I suppose it depends how "uptimistic" you are.

The strongest rumour is that they're waiting to see what the ATSB has to say regarding FVR. It seems that the higher powers are looking to prove that the ATR is unsafe.

Another rumour is that they're going to outsource the flying to Alliance, but we're just waiting for them to get their ducks in a row. Anything is possible.

Originally Posted by Titan Slave

Just wondering, silly question, why are you ATR guys still there? There is an absolute sh*t tonne of jobs going pretty much everywhere I look. Here and abroad.

It's not a silly question at all. Thing is most ATR crew have left, but remember the company just cut the fleet back from 14 to 6. That's less than half the fleet so even though lots of people left, there's still just enough pilots to scrape by. Even so there are ATR's parked against the fence due lack of crew.

Here is a list of a few reasons why there are still people here.

• Have a read of what I wrote above to Krusty. There is a chance that this whole nightmare will come to an end and that gives people pause before leaving.
• Some people like living in Canberra so this job is their only viable choice.
• A lot of people have failed to get into Q or J* and going anywhere else is a pay-cut (especially for Captains). Unless you go overseas, but then family becomes an issue for some (most).
• Most of our FO's are Cadets now and they have no escape option because they have no command time.
• A lot of us believed the lies they told and thought there would be progression. I'm one of the fools who falls into this category.

The list goes on....

["Littlebird"]

Shoddy88
It saddens me to hear your story of your experience on the ATR. I do know that you're legit in what you're saying as I have many friends at VAA not on the ATR and have echoed the same story to me. I also know as a fact that a few of your guys/girls currently upgrading to command are pursuing other opportunities and that is a sad state for any company to be in.I was in a similar situation as you over 20 years ago and walked and have never looked back. The industry is just starting to warm up with a goliath of opportunities coming your way.

[KRUSTY 34]

Originally Posted by SHVC

REX hiring DEC Krusty? Like Shoddy I'm tired of the same old stories from VA management.

Always possible SHVC, they’ve done it before, and incredibly they then drove most of them away! As for jumping ship, sounds a little like frying pan/Fire.

Life’s a gamble sometimes.

[Narnia Bound]

So if one were to take up an F100 positions under the VARA, would there be the same issues as the ATR guys and girls when trying to move across to 737? What about from 777 SO to 737? Is the limiting factor moving between entities within the group or moving between types regardless of entity?

[SHVC]

Moving from VARA to Virgin Narnia.

[206greaser]

Narnia yes. If an ATR pilot wishes to now move back from VA to VARA to take up an F100 position they would have to interview and sim as they are not employed by VARA if they are on the ATR. The sticking point is that the ATR crew are under the VARA EBA still and that EBA has a clause in it stating that the company has to release a minimum of 10% to the VA jet fleet per rolling 12 months. There is also a clause about bypass pay which no one seems interested in pursuing.
As to your question regarding SO to 73 FO they have in the past held people for various reasons but essentially it is the normal route and there is no such cap applied.

SHVC not sure if I’m reading you right so apologies in advance, but you do realise the ATR is and has been for 2 years a VA operation right?

[havick]

Originally Posted by 206greaser

Narnia yes. If an ATR pilot wishes to now move back from VA to VARA to take up an F100 position they would have to interview and sim as they are not employed by VARA if they are on the ATR. The sticking point is that the ATR crew are under the VARA EBA still and that EBA has a clause in it stating that the company has to release a minimum of 10% to the VA jet fleet per rolling 12 months. There is also a clause about bypass pay which no one seems interested in pursuing.
As to your question regarding SO to 73 FO they have in the past held people for various reasons but essentially it is the normal route and there is no such cap applied.

SHVC not sure if I’m reading you right so apologies in advance, but you do realise the ATR is and has been for 2 years a VA operation right?

When I mentioned the thought of bypass pay for the ATR guys 6-7 months ago on here I was hounded down. Makes sense to me if the company has pidgeon holed those pilots on the ATR because they would rather only have one training event instead of two.

[27/09]

shoddy88: The strongest rumour is that they're waiting to see what the ATSB has to say regarding FVR. It seems that the higher powers are looking to prove that the ATR is unsafe.

How rediculous will that look, the ATR safe everywhere else in the world except Australia.

[27/09]

Originally Posted by havick

When I mentioned the thought of bypass pay for the ATR guys 6-7 months ago on here I was hounded down. Makes sense to me if the company has pidgeon holed those pilots on the ATR because they would rather only have one training event instead of two.

This has worked quite well in other airline groups in this part of the world. It just needs the respective parties to be willing.

In ths case it seems with one party the words; cake, eating, and having, come to mind.

[Titan Slave]

Sorry to hear Shoddy. Group control is a pain in the arse. My very good friends are at another large turboprop operator in the country, they are Training Capains and alike, ‘failed’ apparently to get into the mainline, only to be trumped by single engine instructors from Flight schools.
Makes complete sense... they are now at EK being paid as they should operating a triple from the RHS.
I know it’ll come good for you, hang in there.