Australian Airline Pilot: Respected Profession or 'Noose around your Neck'
United CEO yesterday: "We promised our world-class pilots the industry-leading contract they deserve, and we’re pleased to have reached an agreement with ALPA on it. The four-year agreement, once ratified, will deliver a meaningful pay raise and quality of life improvements for our pilots while putting the airline on track to achieve the incredible potential of our United Next strategy."
Imagine seeing an Australian airline CEO say that....They'd rather sh^t in their hands and clap!
Imagine seeing an Australian airline CEO say that....They'd rather sh^t in their hands and clap!
Here's the cliff notes if anyone is interested. Word is the contract is valued around $10B.
PPRuNe Handmaiden
And watch those same CEOs furlough the pilots and slash the T&Cs to ribbons when the economy dips again, as it always does.
You mean like how Tiger & Virgin got dismantled? Not for nothing though, Alpa at several carriers negotiated furlough mitigation agreements to run alongside the government bailouts.
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Over the years, US unions also negotiated scope clauses to prevent airlines outsourcing their flying to subsidiaries. Imagine the Australian aviation industry today if AIPA and AFAP considered that over the past few decades of negotiating.
Hindsight is 20/20 I guess…
Fuel-Off
Hindsight is 20/20 I guess…
Fuel-Off
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I do appreciate the patriotic nature of your comment, I to actually still get a shiver when I see one of the best ever ads in my opinion play - I still call Australia home.
Fact is though that Aussie airlines are light years behind the USA way of thinking and what is actually happening now. Not that I agree with the 1500 hour rule for the RHS, but the USA does and the unions have adamantly defended how many motions to have it changed?
What the crash that brought all this about was one of the catalysts to the change in pay for regionals.
It filters down from the TOP, United/ Delta / American the top, then come the regionals (hmm owned by the majors), then the independent regionals. What’s happened at all? Bonuses, increased rates and quality of life.
Now let’s talk about corporate aviation and GA in America, nah that’s for another topics.
Maybe this just sums up Aussie pilots, "aww man, why bother".
One group did and the CEO 'grounded' the airline.
Or you could say "why bother?" and sit back and wait for the next recession/pandemic/war to freeze your pay and set you back another 10 years.
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I reckon it will take something like a war in the Pacific to take down US pilot demand for the next few years.
There won’t be any flood of foreign pilots to Australia given our crap T&Cs, high tax rate and impossibly expensive real estate.
If it was so great here, why did hundreds of pilots chuck it in to go work for Atlas?
Any attempts to get foreign pilots approved is an attempt to drive conditions down. The airlines don’t believe they’ll get their crew shortages solved using foreign crew, but they are going to use it to fear-monger and bully pilots.
Like the “strategic imperatives or we’ll give it to someone else” that the NJS pilots lapped up with a spoon. It’s all about creating fear and anxiety.
Maybe this just sums up Aussie pilots, "aww man, why bother".
Any good CEO (or CEO-incumbent) would see the anger and that it’s going to be an absolute bloodbath this time around. Better off to limit the damage and scrape something over the line than risk a damaging industrial action campaign when public sentiment is so low.
Word on the street is VA having real trouble getting any of their laid-off pilots to come back, because they all have other plans in the pipeline. Staff that were happily tossed aside during COVID don’t feel any loyalty - fancy that!
Thread Starter
The CEO can only ground the airline for so long, if the pilots voted for further PIA where they effectively grounded the airline themselves on rolling stoppages the tables would turn.
Seems your hindsight ain’t quite 20/20.
For the record, AIPA took PIA to achieve the closest thing to ‘scope’ and were shut down by the Federal Government. It’s not like we didn’t think of it and haven’t tried.
Without an industry wide mandate you will never have sway on issues outside of the company represented by the union. ALPA gets things done because it represents over 70,000 pilots across 20 odd major airlines, so they can truly claim they speak for pilots in general. AIPA does not because it represents a small corner of the pilot body for one section of one company. AIPA also shot itself in the foot with several poorly thought out gambits, which QF management leaked to the public and instantly made the pilots look like whinging rich folk, once you lose public support, fair work will act against you 'in the public interest'. Management will treat negotiations like a game, if the employee does the same they will get dragged into a PR trap, keep it simple and clear what you want and stick to your guns.
As for not being "special", well I seem to remember doing quite a lot of work and hard study to get my ATPL licence and my numerous type ratings, but yeah, sure, we're not special; we're just pack horses who can be loaded up and abused, because we won't complain........
PPRuNe Handmaiden
I've watched the T&Cs in the US boom post the Buffalo crash, I've also got quite a few friends in the US who can still remember their furloughs. The US tends to really do boom and bust cycles really well. Right now, it's boom. Our parent company pilots are fighting very hard for better T&Cs (and they are one of the best in the fractional world) as they now cannot attract talented experienced pilots. Which is great for every one. Hopefully it'll continue for a while. Over here in Europe, it's been booming (albeit not as loudly as the US) for a year or so. We've hired well over 200 pilots in the past 2 years. What has been highlighted by Covid is the work-life balance. I'm finally going part time in September. There's probably only a few older easyJet captains in the UK who are still 100%.
The next time I set foot in Australia baring family crisis will be for (probable) retirement.
I do sincerely wish you all well in the fight for better T&Cs, goodness knows you all deserve better.
The next time I set foot in Australia baring family crisis will be for (probable) retirement.
I do sincerely wish you all well in the fight for better T&Cs, goodness knows you all deserve better.
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Virgin gives engineers 13.5pc pay rise, backs out of test case
David Marin-GuzmanWorkplace correspondentJul 21, 2023 – 10.41amSave
ShareVirgin has agreed to a 13.5 per cent pay rise for engineers at its fly-in, fly-out service in an 11th hour deal that has forced it to retract a bid to arbitrate the dispute using Labor’s new “intractable bargaining” laws.
The airline’s West Australian-based Virgin Australia Regional Airline (VARA) had been the first employer to test the Albanese government’s unilateral arbitration laws that came into effect last month and was set to argue its case before a full bench of the Fair Work Commission on Friday, against strong union opposition.
The union says the deal should “set the tone” for engineer pay negotiations at Virgin’s main arm. ALBERT PEREZ However, on Thursday afternoon, VARA advised the commission it was discontinuing the case because it had opted to put a revised deal to a staff and there was “little to be gained” from pursuing the application at this time.About 50 VARA engineers have been taking industrial action for the past six months to support catch-up pay after they were dealt wage freezes during the pandemic despite the FIFO service being Virgin’s only profitable business during that time.
Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association secretary Steve Purvinas said on Wednesday night the parties had reached a deal for an “immediate” 6 per cent pay rise backdated to July 1, a 6 per cent all-purpose allowance and another 1.5 per cent allowance for two years.“The allowances totalling 7.5 per cent compensate workers for the loss of backpay and a two-year wage freeze,” Mr Purvinas said.
“They [VARA] had to convince themselves the union hadn’t been successful and in order to do that they called the wage increase something else.”
Virgin has been contacted for comment.
VARA had initially proposed a 14.75 per cent pay rise over four years but the union said that failed to account for the two years of wage freezes.
Mr Purvinas said the three-year deal ending June 2025 should “set the tone” for Virgin’s 350 licensed engineers currently taking industrial action in support of a 7.8 per cent pay rise at the airline’s main arm.
VARA’s lawyers initially told the FWC that its two-years of failed bargaining with ALAEA meant the dispute was “intractable” and opposed further conciliation with FWC as futile.
The ACTU and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry also intervened in the case, which was expected to set the threshold for what cases could go to arbitration.
However, VARA and ALAEA were still locked in negotiations after the airline made its arbitration application at the end of last month.
The subsequent wage outcome, which will go to a vote of the engineers over the coming weeks, meant Virgin lost grounds to argue the dispute was “intractable”.
On Wednesday, VARA’s lawyers sought to adjourn the arbitration case for at least a month to allow time for the ballot to proceed “in interests of a final attempt to determine whether employees are prepared to approve an enterprise agreement”.
However, ALAEA opposed any adjournment “on the basis that the fact of a revised position indicates that the entire application is misconceived and should be discontinued or dismissed”.
While VARA then agreed to discontinue its application, it indicated it would make a further application ion similar grounds if the vote was unsuccessful.
Mr Purvinas said that “we think our members will be satisfied with [the deal] which itself made the intractable issue vanish”
ENGINEERS DOING OK. WELL DONE.
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I seem to remember doing quite a lot of work and hard study to get my ATPL licence and my numerous type ratings, but yeah, sure, we're not special
By what turn of financial wizardry are you able to represent "Estimated Underlying Profit before Tax of between $2,425 million - $2,475 million" as "new/confirmed/actual Net Income of 2.48bn AUD"? That guidance range is neither confirmed nor actual; it is, as it says on the tin, estimated. More to the point though, Underlying Profit before Tax is not the same as Net Income.
You don't do the unaudited numbers for Rex by any chance, do you?
You don't do the unaudited numbers for Rex by any chance, do you?
Thread Starter
By what turn of financial wizardry are you able to represent "Estimated Underlying Profit before Tax of between $2,425 million - $2,475 million" as "new/confirmed/actual Net Income of 2.48bn AUD"? That guidance range is neither confirmed nor actual; it is, as it says on the tin, estimated. More to the point though, Underlying Profit before Tax is not the same as Net Income
The point being that there is more to 'go around', if they were willing to share some of the proceeds with employees who've been left at the financial furnace, this while they rake it in from Joe Soap. Especially when they are able to reduce overall debt from 7.23bn AUD to an estimated 2.9bn AUD. A handsome 59.9% reduction in debt over 12 months makes for interesting reading when comparing their Asset/Debt ratio with their peers who are actually paying market related wages and increasing them as we speak.
Excluding the market update, there is a forecasted 55.7% outperformance by one airline over the other - this before the improved pilot contract has been accounted for...