Virgin Services In Chaos
 

As reported in "The Australian" 4/5/7"
"Virgin Blue says it will be at least June before it can resume a normal schedule after cancelling up to five flights a day because of a "shortage of available pilot hours","
Well from speaking with those at the coalface things are a little worse than reported. 19 Tech crew interviewed by Emirates on a single day,scores of tech crew waiting for the retention bonus before kicking this chicken sh#t outfit into touch!
Who would want to work for this mob?
Management trying to establish second tier wage for EMB first officers where the CS will earn more than the poor old F/O.
Complete disengagement from not only tech crew but also Cabin crew.
The list goes on.
Bring it on Tiger!

Cabin Supervisors will NOT earn more than FOs on the emb fleet. This was proven more than once to be incorrect... If it were true it would have meant a serious payrise for CS's! If I recall correctly the FO wage was approx 65K - which yes I agree is unacceptable - however CS salary is about 51K.

Sinala
O.k so they are not equel nor is the responsibility and initial outlay.How much does the CS pay for the training onto the emb?....is he/she bonded? does he/she pay for the training cost up-front?....No of-course not, so why then expect the F/O who has paid for his/her training their whole career expected/asked to work for only $14000 more than a CS.
I'd rather go and work for Jetstar and have better career progression/wages than V.B.
Let the market decide!

Dont take my response out of context - never did I, nor would I imply that cs pay should be equal to fo pay! Was merely clarifying an incorrectly made point.

Rrrrrrooooooooaaaaaaaarrrrrrrr

Mr Buzzy? Are you out of touch or what mate?


whatever happened to the...


bbbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzbzzzbzbzzzzzzzzzzzzbzzzzzzz

coral's right Buzzy,

The supply and demand cycle is most definitely tilting in the favour of pilots. OK, tell us something we don't know you may say, but we may be seeing a swing back to aircrew that we have not seen in more than a generation.

The time is right to raise the benchmark. Management know this. They have been cosy in the fact that for years pilots have grown on trees and are probably finding it difficult to come to terms with the emerging reality.

Well it works both ways, it just doesn't come around very often. Now that It has, we owe it to ourselves to sieze the oportunity to improve the lot of our familes and our profession.

I recently crunched the numbers on what it would cost to give our pilot group a 40% payrise. Some may say that's outrageous, but I say it is 20 years overdue. What I arrived at was $4.30 a ticket!!!

Don't let them tell you it will send the company broke, the reality is that they will fight tooth and nail to keep T&C's down, so they may once again use it against us in the future.

Perspective...
 

Well I never! Pushing Govt. paper, 9 to 5 Mon-Fri gets me more than a DJ FO...what a sorry state my favourite industry is in.:(

tiger may not be any better
 

If the singaporeans running Tiger are anything like those currently running REX then the conditions at tiger willl be shiszen.

The Rex boys are getting screwed by the same Singaporeans that are on the board of Tiger and Singapore airlines.

The Singaporean Tiger won't change its stripes!!! Beware

The funny thing is, Pilot salaries won’t be the death of any Airline – it will be the Airline’s inability to stay flexible and respond to market forces, therefore remain competitive. They can’t do that with a staff shortage. Oh well.

If there is any truth the article and rumour then things are looking rosy for all of us. And there is hope! The DJ guys proved that when they threw out the sweat shop inspired EBA. That is what we need more of!!

I also think Qantas will be in the poo when they start recruiting again and realise that most of the people on the hold file have taken other jobs and not looked back. Even the borderline applicants who were turned away would think twice now before going through the selection process all over again.

I don’t think Tiger will be our saviour, but it will have to offer a better deal (for the crew) than VB or J* currently do. This can only be a good thing.

ANyone know when Tiger is expected to start recuiting and the req?

So true!
All we need now is to have Erin's good words included in accountant training text books.

Wake up VB. Look at the growth you tackled 4 years ago with an engaged workforce and then look at the downsizing currently necessary (just before proposed expansion) with a disengaged workforce.

Learn the value of your people not the cost of them!

bbbbbbbzzzzzzzzzzbeesarescaredoftigerszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzz

Hasn't anyone at Virgin done Management 101?

A company's greatest asset is it people.

Successful companies value their staff and engage with them in working for the success of company.

Branson makes a big public deal of this, but I guess Virgin Blue is a Virgin in name only these days.

Yasser:suspect:

Yasser, I have never in my entire professional career worked for a company that undervalues it's staff like this one... Even in GA

If Kev from Queensland gets a guernsey were all f**ked

Tin well remembers the empty dusty streets of airports that became museums under Goof and crew.

They have started now.

With all due respect to Heather Jeffery, her statement in today's aviation section of the Australian was very naive. There is no way Virgin Blue will have "pilot hours" back to normal in June if they don't start recruiting. Unless of course "normal" means continuing to cancel flights.

aviation is in the poo. more jobs than ever before and less pay. for an intelligent bunch of pilots we don't look so smart. maybe spending too much time worrying about the next base check than about the pay cheque.
i just want to be paid as much as people think we get!

Quote from krusty
"The supply and demand cycle is most definitely tilting in the favour of pilots. OK, tell us something we don't know you may say, but we may be seeing a swing back to aircrew that we have not seen in more than a generation."

Yeah i wrote something on that about career cycles in the other DG forum and everyone basically laughed at me.

Guess i wasn't wrong after all!!!!

Flying jets has gone from the good old days of ,
"Full time pay for Part time work"
To what we have today,
"Part time pay for Full time work"!:uhoh:
Must be progress.

Jnr380,

Rest assured mate, I never laughed at you.

I must admit though, I sometimes wondered if it would happen.

Get out the popcorn and deckchairs!

Wow 65k for F/O pay?? Is this correct? I thought it was more? I was on 45k in GA 8 years ago, flying light twins. Surely 65k is base pay? If its true damn you guys should deserve more dammit...:(

approx 65k was the initial proposed fo pay on the emb fleet, not including allowances etc - cant recall if it included retention bonus or not... That eba was however voted down, and a new proposal still being waited upon. Fo on the B737 is closer to 90k.

737 F/o
 

DJ 737 F/O (after 500hrs) gets a base of approx 93k plus an annual "professional retention supplement" of around 9 or 10 (not exact numbers,but thats pretty close)..not many add-ons besides monthly allowances.

with resignations, imminent retirements vs an expanding B737 fleet, new(untested in Australia) type fleet around the corner, a few new destinations, more services to schedule, very limited simulator time available for training & a disbelieving management about incorrrect pilot numbers & disengagement,,, the problem of crewing flights to a satisfactory level, I think will not be retified for a good 3 yrs. The company will be constantly running to catch up with the times. Pity.

According to AFAP website, current VB Captain rate 129,900, F/O level 3 65% of this = 84.5K ?? plus retention bonus.

The current VB Captain pay is $141K plus 15K retention. Just a nudge over $156K.

Yes Cunning, in the 2002 EBA it would have been around 130K, plus 15K bonus.

That EBA is now nearly 2 years overdue!

Actually there is an award out there that pays 737 crew a decent pay and even rewards them when they fly more hours. Convergence works both ways lads.

I'm sure you could get plenty of info on Qrewroom and you've got many QF drivers supporting your actions to get a better deal. If you don't stand up for a decent deal now when the numbers are tight imagine what it's going to be like when there is surplus crews in 3-5 years time!

Sorry to say it but you guys are getting exactly what you paid for and there's been no shortage of people pointing this out to you.

Why start whinging now? Support VB so as to take a short-cut back when there are other options, and now feeling a little bum-****ed....

No sympathy here.

Twenty guys (or whatever) going to EK just helps a different bunch of penny-pinchers out of a crewing nightmare and isn't appreciated by their incumbents.