Qantas Overseas Pilots jobs move Attacked
 

Thurs "AAP"

Qantas overseas jobs move attacked
From: AAP By Samantha Baden
May 04, 2006

PILOTS have criticised a move by Qantas to begin advertising Jetstar positions internationally, warning it is another attempt to send the company's core functions offshore.

Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) vice president Jeff Lunt today said advertisements had appeared on the international industry website Flight Global.

The ads invite expressions of interest for pilots to work for Qantas subsidiary Jetstar on long-haul international routes and domestic short-haul routes within Australia, he said.

Qantas announced it was scrapping its Australian Airlines brand in favour of its low cost subsidiary Jetstar in April.

Jetstar will become an international airline in November, subject to regulatory approval, and it is seeking approval to fly to Japan as well as the traditional outbound destinations of Hawaii, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Mr Lunt said Qantas was turning its back on Australian pilots, who gave the company its reputation as the world's safest airline.

“It's a very strange situation when Qantas ... tries to recruit abroad for direct entry captains while there are numerous, highly skilled and well-trained second officers, first officers and captains currently employed within the Qantas Group available to fill the Jetstar positions,” Capt Lunt said.
Qantas pilots, until today, have worked under a system in which they join the airline in a junior position and work their way up the ranks to a command position, he said.

“By recruiting overseas, Qantas is denying highly trained and experienced Australians the opportunity to take up the available Jetstar positions,” he said.

“Given the availability of local pilots, only one conclusion can be drawn – this is another attempt to drive down wages and conditions by off-shoring work.”

Capt Lunt called on Jetstar to reverse its decision and urgently meet AIPA to discuss the staffing issue.

Qantas human resources executive general manager Kevin Brown said it was Qantas Group policy to hire Australians.

“Over 500 Australians have applied to the advertised positions,” Mr Brown said.

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But don't you need a work vias to apply for Jet star. With that taking up to 15months plus was is the point of advertising globally apart from tyring to claw back all those with the magic tick in the box currently working abroad?

hhhmmmmmmmm:rolleyes:

like all the other airlines at the moment Jet will be looking anywhere they can to crew planes. I am sure there are plenty of good keen guys in Aussie ready to go......however a lot of experienced Aussie guys are working out at the moment.

My guess is they are going to test the market. If they cannot recruit guys with good experience from within those golden sandy shores........they will be forced to take who ever they can get from outside.

Qantas human resources executive general manager Kevin Brown said it was Qantas Group policy to hire Australians.

“Over 500 Australians have applied to the advertised positions,” Mr Brown said.

Airline management are now coming under a lot of pressure as the pilot market dries up:E

Isnt this a good thing?....sit tight

TR:ok:

Its not that the qualified people are drying up. It is because they want A330 qualified pilots to come straight into the left seat. Thats the only way they will get the J* international ops up and running withouy any significant delay.

Correct a mondo Mate. and we will get rid of seniority at the same time.

Thank you JPC :} :} :} :} :} :} :} :}

Eagleman, and whilst your getting rid of seniority, you will get rid of a decent pay, any conditions and all respect.

Its really win win, isnt it?

From the latest AIPA update :

"Recently, Jetstar advertised positions for wide-bodied command and f/o slots and narrow-bodied command and f/o slots. Many AIPA members have expressed an interest in taking up these positions."

So does this mean that all those mainline boys & girls that were slagging off the Jetstar pilots about their EBA now want to sign up for those very conditions they were apparently so vehemently opposed to? :confused:

AIPA blokes just don't get it. A lot of other people can rightfully say that pilots are just one group of people who must share Qantas's safety record. When will, and can, they realise that pilots are just one group of many who contribute to the record?

Tell me, Mr Lunt. Who was responsible for putting OJH into the golf course at Bangkok and inflicted considerable damage, not only to the aircraft, but to Qantas's reputation?

I agree...uncalled for

Woomera

B A Lert, no one will will argue with you that the pilots are solely responsible for the safety record. Not sure that Captain Lunt is suggesting that either. He is right in saying that it wouldn't have happened without them though. Other factors include fate, luck, Boeing manufacturing integrity, probability, and every one else in the QF team. (Except accountants and HR and slash and burn managers and board members). (Whinge whinge!) :}

Don't want to teach you to suck eggs, but do you know of any incident that has one solitary cause? Chuck "James Reason" in google for a refresher. If you have a spare week, have a read of the QF1 NTSB report. Every department, just about, got a touch up on that one. Not just techies. "There but for the grace of god go I". :)

Great post there Lert... making fun of a guys name for the sort of cheap shot most of us left behind in second grade.

Jeff won't lose any sleep over it of course. He is one of the smartest operators you would ever meet. The sort of guy who keeps his mind sharp by completing a part-time law degree in four years during his slip time.

He'd eat guys like you for breakfast.

B A Lert,

You said but then confused the hell out of me by saying I think it's pretty rich that you bleat on about how there are many other groups of people in Qantas who contribute to the safety record (I agree with you completely on that point) but then go on to try to hang the Bangkok thing on one person (or group of people - AIPA pilots). As with any incident/accident, there were many contributing factors in that event, and if it was that crews' fault alone why are they still working the line?

VI

PS : I'd suggest that slagging off at a bloke's name isn't the way to "win friends and influence people"... Grow up!!
PPS : Topic creep acknowledged...

Come on fellas,you all knew it was going to go this way.
Using the" world's safest airline" bit just doesn't cut it.Using the "highly qualified ..blah,blah,blah" bit is the same.
From what I have seen of the QF "machine" ,I think that it leaves a lot to be desired. Someone even told me that the whole QF CRM policy was just a paragraph in a manual that required crews to bring everything to the captains attention. It took an ex Ansett pilot( now second officer no less) to convince them that the rest of the world was a long way ahead of "the safest airline in the world".
Good god !What could that second rate airline possibly do better than us? What can we learn from them?
Answer is nothing to those who will not see.
Proper CRM may have saved them from the accident ( sorry... I.N.C.I.D.E.N.T.!) on the 19th at Bangkok.
Trying to cover up accident just shows that they learned little from the experience.

QF union types are just upset because the Geoff Plan is working and the light at the end of the tunnel is not the reflextion of a bright new dollar coin, it's the head light of the express train that will hit the QF pilot body head on.
All over Rover.
Plenty of better qualified,more able and maybe safer pilots
overseas. Funny,they happen to hold Australian citizenship and used to work for a now defunct Australian Airline called.....you quessed it!
From J*In's point of view,even if they only come for a couple of years until the 787s come, .....that's enough.
Me thinks that QF pilots better start taking more interest in the classified section of Flight Global.
I can pass on a few names of agents if anyone is interested ,and there are places in the world that are just as nice as Cronulla or the Northside.

P.S,

Nothing is stopping you QF types from slipping in an application,just to see how highly qualified and trained you really are!

International trader.
what a nasty and bitter post
the QF pilots are simply trying to protect their conditions.
What is wrong with that!
Do you really think they deserve that vitriol?

cartexchange
 

Protect their conditions. LOL

Fact is Q pilots have looked down there noses at everyone else, particularly those that have failed the almighty Q psychometric test. Now they are getting uppity because these same guys are looking to take jobs off them.

The writing has been on the wall for years and the Q pilot body have had their head firmly wedged in the sand, or perhaps somewhere else.

The horse has bolted my friend. There is no doubt that Q pilots are adequately trained, probably no better or worse than most airlines. But the same type of guys that are over seas in the left hand seat of triple sevens and three thirties, are still serving self agrandising Qantas captain tea and carrying their bags in your outfit. This whole crap about Q pilots and the safety record is just that.

If you wanted to stop this juggernaut, you should have been doing something about it 5 years ago. I nearly fell off my chair laughing when a mate of mind related to me how the senior Q guys voted to send the F/O's to Singapore in return for a payrise. With that sort of unity, GD has got you well and truly covered.

Im not a pilot! is the above fact or fiction! I have never heard them discuss that one!:sad:

here is an updated one, I wont post the whole article.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...-23349,00.html

Jetstar recalls Ansett's air force
 

Fri "The Australian"

Jetstar recalls Ansett's air force
Steve Creedy, Aviation writer
May 05, 2006

THE fall of Ansett saw Australian pilots spread throughout the world but an overseas advertising campaign by Jetstar International has underscored the extent of the diaspora.

Advertisements lodged by the start-up in an international aviation magazine - as well as in newspapers in Australia, Dubai, Bahrain and Singapore - had produced 730 responses by Monday, 81 per cent of them from Australian citizens or residents.

"I think that after Ansett, there are a lot of Australians working around the world," Jetstar chief executive Alan Joyce. "And there are lot of very well-experienced and qualified pilots that work for Emirates, Singapore Airlines and other carriers in the region who would like to come back to Australia."

The new airline's move to advertise overseas alarmed the Australian and International Pilots Association, which wrote to transport Minister Warren Truss expressing its concern and calling on him to intervene.

The union said the Qantas offshoot had been advertising overseas so it could directly recruit foreign pilots.

"It's a very strange situation when Qantas, one of the safest and most profitable airlines in the world, tries to recruit abroad for direct entry captains while there are numerous, highly skilled and well-trained second officers, first officers and captains currently employed within the Qantas group available to fill the Jetstar positions," AIPA vice-president Jeff Lunt said. "Qantas pilots, until today, have worked under a system that saw them join the airline in a junior position and work their way up the ranks to a command."

Mr Joyce said: "The company's policy has always been allied to the group policy and that is we will only hire permanent residents and citizens of Australia. We have never examined the possibility of hiring foreign nationals as pilots."

Jetstar International has been identified as a growth vehicle for Qantas and will eventually account for 22 per cent of the group's foreign flying.

Four A330 aircraft will transfer from Qantas to form the bulk of Jetstar International's start-up fleet and two more will be delivered new from Airbus.

They will be replaced from 2008 by Boeing 787-8s, which will give way to 787-9s capable of flying to Europe and the US.

AIPA has launched federal court action against Qantas, saying members are disadvantaged by the airline launch.

It also appealed against a decision by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to ratify an enterprise bargaining agreement overwhelmingly endorsed by Jetstar pilots but which AIPA officials say lowers industry wages and standards.

However, Qantas pilots are split on how far the union should go in pursuing the issue.

The more conservative elements are worried it could provoke a backlash from Qantas management.

Mr Joyce said the airline was set to gain from the strong response from Australian pilots working overseas with A330 and A320 experience.

"The advantage that we have is that a lot of them have pretty good hours and experience on the aircraft type that we're operating and the aircraft types that we intend to operate," he said.

"And they'll be flying into a lot of airports that we intend to fly into on a regular basis, so the experience base will be extremely strong." Jetstar was also advertising internally for Qantas pilots to join the airline on three-year contracts.

At the end of three years, they would be required to decide whether they want to return to Qantas or stay permanently.

"We have a number of pilots we've taken under that arrangement and we have a number of pilots we're interviewing and selecting," Mr Joyce said.

Jetstar is upgrading its air operator's certificate to allow it to fly the A330s and to get extended twin-engine operations approval.

The A330s are expected to move over to Qantas in October so they can be repainted.

The interior seating configuration will remain the same but with leather seats and new fittings in Jetstar colours.

The airline remains confident it will start flying by November.

==================================================

Let me tell you something as a simple member of the public.

Way back in the 1970's, Australians were proud of Qantas. It was our national airline. It meant something to us, stuck here at the arse end of the world so to speak. The crews seemed to have some feeling that they had something to prove as well and the service was great

There were a number of components to this pride.

The aircraft were maintained right here in Australia by Australian Engineers - the best in the world. We even did it better than the Yanks - at least so I thought when working for Ansett, we looked down at their "buy it and fly it mentality" which means doing the minimum maintenance that Boeing called for.

I've already mentioned the cabin crews - they were great. We used to say things like " Its good having a few blokes and Aussie shielas on Board, why those tiny little Asian girls on Malaysian/ Singapore/Thai would be useless in an emergency blah blah."

Then came the pilots. You were regarded as superior beings. We assumed that you had either just transferred from the RAAF where you had been flying Mirages or FIII's for thousands of hours, or you had flown thousands of hours as an outback bush pilot. In any case we assumed you were the best pilots in the world and could land a 747 on an outback claypan if called upon.

As my dad used to say, "When travelling in Asia, I always sigh with relief when I here an Australain Accent coming from the cockpit".

That was then.

The first incomprehensibility was discovering in about 1980 that the International maintenance market was "rigged" to ensure every 747 transitting Australia (with the exception of close nieghbours aircraft like Air NZ) had to pass through Sydney, leaving Melbourne three hours further from the world of investment than Sydney.

The second incomprehensibility came with the refusal of Qantas to support the domestic pilots strike. This appeared to me to be strange, because it would have forced the Government and airlines to negotiate in my opinion.

The third was the dirty, unethical and probably illegal tricks Qantas used to destroy Compass airlines and its successors.

The fourth was the Qantas reaction to Virgin Blue, including starting up Jetstar - a marketing tactic that is called "pissing in the soup".

The fifth was the discovery that a Qantas Board member was under investigation for alleged illegal behaviour, and his subsequent replacement with a person who appears, on the basis of past performance, to have the businesss acumen of a newt.

The sixth was the discovery via Pprune and a golf course in Bangkok, that QF Pilots are far from a monolithic tribe, and that my early comforting beliefs about their experience and background was totaly unfounded.

Then we discover that despite Qantas being the worlds most profitable airline, it still doesn't want any competition to give the long suffering Australian traveller some relief.

Despite having a virtual monopoly on capacity, Qantas is still threatening to send its maintenance offshore and has disbanded the team that gave it a large chunk of its safety record (and please note, the newer aircraft you are going to receive are not "fail safe" like older designs, but merely "damage tolerant" which translates to much more demanding maintenance standards then at present)

And now Qantas is going to "outsource' its jetstar pilots. How lovely! I can't wait for a J* pilot to mistake YMEN for YMML. I look forward to hearing broken English from the cockpit.

But then again why should I worry? I've got the lowest ticket price. The Qantas shareholders and management are happy.

Well I do worry.

I worry about flying in aircraft maintained in third world countries where there is a culture of "Face" that requires mistakes not to be openly acknowledged. I worry that since they are a third party operators, they have absolutely no responsibility to the Australian travelling public. I worry that Australian regulators haven't a hope in hell of policing what these overseas guys do.

I worry that the Board and Management of Qantas have time horizons limited by their paypacket and bonus, as the Qantas annual report spells out in detail. I'm worried that their short term thinking is one day going to be responsible for long term results - deaths. If you want a sample of their business acumen, look at J* Asia!

I worry about flying with pilots who are not born here or trained here. It's bad enough in the circuit at YMMB on some days trying to hear what someone is trying to say, and knowing, that if he cannot work out what to say he is going to say nothing at all because that is the culture he grew up in.

I worry that one of these days some pressurised pilot, driven by the "low cost model" is going to make a mistake. It almost happened in Canberra.

In short, since the company is run by a marketer, Qantas is just a brand name now, and a pretty crappy one at that.

I won't willingly fly Qantas or J*. I tell my friends not to either because ultimately you are going to cut one too many corners, and there won't be a convenient golf course around when it happens.

Vorsicht said:
The writing has been on the wall for years and the Q pilot body have had their head firmly wedged in the sand, or perhaps somewhere else.

Isay: Definitely not the sand!

Sunfish:
Can't disagree with the general idea of your post.
Funny thing I find about QF is the cabin service.You fly QF just to see and hear a familiar face,generally spend the time either having your shoulder pounded by a fat thigh or having a fat ar-e thrust in your face as the FA goes past, or hoping to at least get a meal if you can get back to your seat before the trolley passes. You leave wondering just who was the one working.I have actually been on a 7 hour flight and yes got a meal but no coffee, too busy,should have asked before.Well I did,several times and in fact waited 30 mins for them to answer the FA call button.

Try to get that level of service on an Asian airline, pretty had for them to,in their opinion- stoop that low.
Let's face it the danger period is the take off and landing.The rest of the flight( the other 90%) is about?
Same for the pilots. The "Creme de la Creme" of pilots as a QF management type put it to me has long ago reached it's "use by date".
You have to be well ahead (mentally) in a jet aeroplane ( or any aeroplane really) .The QF pilot group have found themselves sleeping in the bunk when they should have been on the deck years ago. Time has passed to avoid hitting the mountain. My advice is to try to pick the best spot to land and hope that it is a soft one.