Australian to Hire Pilots External to QF

[Tool Time Two]

Old Wal (Mitty) has hit one nail on the head, when he or she stated the rot began with the defection of QF from the AFAP in the very early '80's.
The fact they didn't fly domestic passengers in '89 was mere tokenism.
That action alone (splitting from the AFAP), was predictably the beginning of the end of pilot unity, that unity a goal commenced by the AFAP with the integration of GA in the late '60's.
Now, exacerbated by the greedy and unprincipled, aka scabs, pilots in Australia are a disunited and disgruntled bunch of individuals, with the QF pilots mind numbingly led in its so called union by a thoughtless bunch of leaders since its inception.
When you Aussie guys and gals start to think with your brains, instead of your thrust levers, you might start to get somewhere with improving conditions for ALL Australian pilots, including those who are at the beginning of, or about to start, their careers.

[druckmefunk]

Fartsock
I doubt very much if AA would be able to employ anyone who did not qualify for australian residency. AA may not be bound by QF agreements, but they will certainly be bound by the rules that control work visas into Australia. That is not to say they would have to be Australians, but it certainly cuts down the pool available.

[fartsock]

DMF,

Good point. Option B is to base guys o/s - a la the Thai cabin crew, although I agree this scenario is stretching things a bit

Nothing would surprise me however.

I agree that an all encompassing pilots union would be desirable but the situation is that even within QF longhaul thier is a 'stuff the other fleets' mentality which says "hey this change does not effect me so I don't care"

Pilot unity in this country is dead unfortunately. What saddens me is the inability of AIPA to draw a line in the sand when its needed.

Meanwhile the CP and DCP pocket millions in bonuses each year at our expence and are laughing themselves silly all the way to the bank.



FS

[bonvol]

QF could get non Australian qualified pilots into the country easily according to my neighbour(he's an immigration lawyer ).

They qualify for 60 points on skill and provided they speak good english and are young enough he reckons he could get them in within a few months, especially if they have a guaranteed job to go to.

And if that doesn't work QF could just call Bob Hawke. He knows how to get foreign pilots in real easy.

[WalterMitty]

I think the "foreign devil" argument is a bit thin because there are heaps of ozzies 76 qual. and current(awops etc). In any regard I am of the belief that the loopholes which allowed foreign pilots entry in 89 still exist.
The whole point is still the one made by fartsock. It is a separate company and the workplace relations act prohibits action by qf pilots( bargaining period or not). I personally think its a miracle AIPA has got has far it has given what AA could do. I think they took this path to ensure a smooth start up. The Letter of Agreement b/w AIPA and AA does mention permanent transfer issues should they arise. Perhaps it should state "when" they arise.
I stiil love the attitude of some."AN pilots would be welcome at QF and subsids". How generous, but as long as they are at the bottom and cant touch me.

[piniped]

Recruitment Ban

This is NOT a wind up...

I am intersted as to what grounds there would be for implementing a DE recruitment ban?

Because, as my thinking goes, if there is reciprocity, Australian pilots can forget about joining airlines o/s.

Think Global Economy...

[fartsock]

I dont believe a recruitment ban is feasable - nor could be justified.

The AA pilots would be on individual contracts, therfore not members of AIPA / AFAP therfore not associated with IFALPA.

As I said before, I am not happy about this, but it would appear (as pointed out in other posts ) the the plan was/is to use QF mainline drivers to impliment the beginning of the airline and to go for contractors after that

Notwithstanding the fact that during the second last Air France pilots strike QF pilots scabbed on AF by operating SYD-PPT despite IFALPA support for the AF pilots action. As the HKAOA guys (unfortunately) are finding out IFALPA is also a waste of time and money


FS

[sidewalk]

The arrogance of some of the posters on this site is astounding……their assumption being that only they have the god-given right to employment in the Australian aviation scene.
Re employment here for “outsiders” one dope with a forgettable name said “under no circumstances” bleat bleat
Reality check: There are hundreds…not a misprint, hundreds of heavy jet qualified pilots with a dream about to be realised of working in Australia.
Immigration problems? Get a grip…….a large number of these are Australian born.
Ability?……may surprise a few of you but standards are international not a QF patent.
Types?……..anything Boeing or Airbus make.
Adaptability/ Flexibility?…….These people are can-do types . No cowboys, performers…because no performance , no job.
Operational conditioning?… some attention getting weather around Europe and really scary stuff in southwestern US.
I know you heroes flew over Mt Buller once or twice but you need three times at least to qualify.
Management worlwide are very interested in contracting cockpit crew and these types have all the qualities to attract attention PLUS they want the job PLUS they will come without union baggage.
Course in protest at this effrontery you could all throw your toys out of the cot a la CX style.
That worked a treat, eh?

[Lodown]

Sidewalk, with that sort of talk you'll attract all sorts of written abuse. How dare you talk about globalisation and a global employment pool? Good thing you didn't say anything about that sacred seniorority system.
I couldn't work out why AA was established in direct competition with QF. (For those who don't think it is, or will be, in competition, just wait.) Things are starting to be a little clearer now. Seems to make a lot of sense to employ already trained pilots rather than getting cadets and GA recruits and spending a fortune and years getting them into the left seat.
Maybe Airservices should try something similar.

[ironbutt57]

At least the interested AWOPS fellows should get an opportunity at this....

[fartsock]

Sidewalk,

All the points you raise about the availability of drivers are correct. I have worked in europe and there are lots of aussies keen to come home.

However what you fail to realise is that if you 'come home' you will now be on VB money or less - not what you are used to being paid contracting overseas.

Frankly if I had my time over again I would have stayed o/s. Although you only ever hear the horror stories, a lot of '89ers that left got good well paying jobs offshore

I believe it is natural for exisiting QF guys to want to protect thier current situation - you probably would if you were in our boat also.

The point about 'the standard' was made for Kegs benefit who doesn't realise some of the above.

[Lodown]

If AA employment practices go the way you suggest, the people who should be really concerned are the GA industry and up and coming would-be's who will not be able to get a look in while the airline employment intakes are dominated with experienced contract pilots. To get the experience these people will have to look at going overseas. To go overseas, why bother with the Australian ATPL? A UK or USA ATPL will be the far better licence to hold.

[betedete]

When you say "VB money or less" do you mean Impulse money or less? Don't forget who started this here in Oz. What happened to them again, that's right, they were bought by QF. Now QF have two low paying airlines under it's belt. Times are interesting.

[spinout]

I think that qantas will transfer more and more flying to AA because they are cheaper to the extent that the Mainline wont operate the 767. it is there plan to have a company operate a type, like Eastern being the Dash operator, Airconex the 717, and when the type is no longer wanted they fold the company up, see what happened to Southern 146 pilots. there will be no jobs for the 767 pilots in AA to go back to..... unless they want to bump 2nd officers off the bottom...

[Waste Gate]

AA taking mainline flying

While I agree that AA will take an increasing amount of mainline flying, it'll be restricted to the leisure routes like CNS - NRT, ADL - DRW - SIN etc etc.

Mainline needs to keep its AA puppy on a short leash because, if mishandled, it will erode the mainline market. Most of the talk on PPrune about AA refers to the cheaper labour costs of AA; if labour costs are all that matters to mainline, then you'd expect to see AA operating Cityflier services. I don't think so!!

There is still a "premium" market in Australia, and that is partly what drove QF's expansion post Ansett. The company knows that to turn it's back on that to serve trunk routes with tightly configured orange 767s leaves a market to be exploited by a new full service operator like SQ - and that then has serious ramifications for QF international because it would feed directly into the pockets of the airline's fiercest rival.

And on some of the other international 767 trips such as SYD - SIN, QF competes against full service airlines like SQ. Why would you remove your premium product from that route? You'd be handing market share to your rivals.

As for AA aircrew wages being less, anyone knows that's a load of cr@p. A high proportion of AA pilots have taken a pay rise to go there. Pilot wages comprise a wee small portion of operating costs (as they do in mainline), and most of the labour savings are being made in cabin crew.

To suggest that AA will take over more and more mainline flying simply to reduce pilot labour costs is just plain dumb. There is a whole lot more to strategic planning than simply going for the lowest labour costs. I'd suggest that they're a long way down the list of priorities.

WG.

[sidewalk]

…To suggest that AA will take over more and more mainline flying simply to reduce pilot labour costs is just plain dumb. There is a whole lot more to strategic planning than simply going for the lowest labour costs. I'd suggest that they're a long way down the list of priorities….Wastegate

Spot on.
Chocks in.

Flight Crew costs historically have never been above 2% operating costs.
Take a bit of effort to recover that information to prove it to the doubters but it is in the public domain.Years ago IFALPA used to put out a very detailed yearly study on all matters under its watch which included the above, but there are other sources.

There is absolutely no reason why a low cost and a full-service operation cannot co-exist as they cater for entirely different areas of the market….a fact well proven in Europe over the last decade. Essentially the low cost operation is another airline altogether. This however needs to presented in Special English to the braindead unionist.

In a former life prior to my flying career my boss was heard to say………..
”When you own 50% of my business, you get 50% of the say in running it.
Until then shut the **** up and get back to work.”

[Lodown]

Agree to some extent on the labour costs, but how much does it cost to get a pilot from initial employment to right and left hand seats? Agree also on the short leash, particularly in terms of the effect on the Qantas brand. No competition on the premium market, but the competition for the economy market will be still there. The big benefit will be the flexibility that contract crews will bring to the organisation that doesn't exist to the same extent with QF.

[sidewalk]

How much does it cost?.........Close to a big fat zero not counting the additional salary.
Infrastructure is required to be in place for normal ops and amortised.
So ten people or twenty people in Sim building means more bang for your buck but little to no effect on the infrastructure cost, apart from the salary component, although it puts a strain on the logistics side. Rarely have airlines expanded training facilities to cover increased requirements from the training department, typically fitting the training roster into vacancies allowed by mainline operations, which accounts for the substantial delays experienced.
Aircraft requires two bums on seats and cannot differentiate the rank or status of the button-pusher, consequently to allow a slow learner an additional 20 sectors for e.g. costs zip.

[rescue 1]

This style of out sourcing is certainly gaining momentum - don't forget Jetconnect's operation in NZ, the other "low cost" operator in the QF stable.

Where next for them?

[*Lancer*]

AA is targeting a completely different market to Qantas internationally. Should AA begin domestic operations it would compete directly with Virgin, and take capacity from mainline. It might even be possible that AA takes up almost all the Qantas domestic market, and sees Qantas return primarily to international services - as it was prior to the merger!

After all history is a circle

Having said that, I don't think any of these sinister propositions will come true - AA is targeting its own market for now, and there are strong, fair ties between the mainline and AA pilot bodies. Its alright for the boss to admit he would like to employ direct entry pilots because they're cheaper in the short term - he's got a job to do... but everyone knows the problems involved, and in the long term, the gains probably don't outweigh the effort involved. The QF 767 crews are already pretty darn good value on the world scene!

Lancer