Mmmm A380 Food For Thought........
 

Did anyone catch this in todays Australian........

Superjumbo pay deal for SingAir's A380 pilots

• [*]

THE world's first pilots to fly the superjumbo Airbus A380 will be paid more than those flying conventional jumbo jets, an arbitration court in Singapore ruled yesterday.

The Industrial Arbitration Court judgment settled a pay dispute between Singapore Airlines, the launch customer for the double-decker A380, and its pilots.
A three-member panel ruled that the minimum salary for captains on the A380 - the world's biggest passenger plane - will be $S700 ($551) a month more than that for captains on the conventional Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet.
The panel consisted of representatives from the airline and the pilots, and a judge.
The basic pay for a 747-400 captain is $S10,000 a month, SIA told the hearing.
In its ruling, the court said the maximum salary for A380 captains will remain at $S16,500, the B-744 maximum.
The court also said the minimum for first officers on the superjumbo will be $S450 more than on the 747-400.
Both sides welcomed the decision.
The Air Line Pilots Association Singapore president, Captain P. James, told reporters the salary award was "fine" even though it was below the $S1000 the union had sought.
"It's at least more than half-way of what we wanted," Mr James said.
SIA spokesman Stephen Forshaw said the court's decision brings an end to the dispute.
"The judgment now gives us some certainty to move forward," he said.
During the hearing, Mr James argued that asking for higher salaries to fly the A380 was in accordance with long-established practice.
"Different fleets command different pay. This is market practice and has also been the company's practice," he argued.
SIA wanted to peg the A380 pilots' pay to that of the wage scale for the Boeing 777, where a captain earns a starting salary of $S9300 a month.

What a disgrace. SIA wanting to pay Gigabus pilots the same as a light twin. The market's turning at last!

Can someone please enlighten me,

$10K sing a month for B747 Captain!

I know that's basic, but $120K per year? Doesn't sound right.

Does it?

Don't forget there is ++ on top of that as well.

Also the SQ bonus for last year was six months pay! :eek: It's regularly in the range of three months although it has been zip back when 9/11 hit.

Quote Krusty..........$10K sing a month for B747 Captain!

I know that's basic, but $120K per year? Doesn't sound right.

Krusty...I think youll find that those #,s reflect 1st year pay for SIA 747 Capts(Is stand to be corrected) and there are many whose earn less flying the same euipment

Industry Standards are a crock because pay scales vary so much within Airlines flying the same equipment....you get what you negotiate

Industry Standard for the A-380 is now presumably what SIA pays as these are the blokes who fly it .I think you,ll find that most "Industry payscales" reflect that of "10 yr Capt Pay"...there are many other variables but that seems to be the benchmark.

Ill be the first to admit...$16,500/month is not bad coin for "office work"

Thread running here guys.. http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=277468

By the way, this article quotes Singapore $.
Singapore 1$ = $0.80 Aus

SIA Pilots paid more than the company's Vice Presidents
 

The salary packages of SQ pilots and Singaporeans in general are made up of a fixed and variable component. As such, it is quite common for employees to get 13 months of pay a year + a variable performance-based component (individual and company-wide). Many firms in Singapore paid 16-19 months of salary last year due to the booming economy. SQ is one of them.

As such, I am quite puzzled as to why SQ and the pilots went to court over a few hundred dollars, when a huge proportion of the yearly salary package comes from the annual profit share.

Here is an article from April about SIA pilot pay. Also bear in mind that Singapore's personal income tax rates are among the lowest in the world.

Boeing 777 captains get higher pay than SIA vice-presidents
Karamjit Kaur, Aviation Correspondent
665 words
24 April 2007
Straits Times
English
(c) 2007 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
Details of airline's salary structure revealed on first day of hearing to settle pay dispute with pilots' union


A SINGAPORE Airlines Boeing 777 captain at the mid-point of his salary bracket makes more than $270,000 a year.


This makes him a bigger earner than a vice-president of the company, who makes $233,270.


SIA has 935 B777 captains and just 36 vice-presidents.


Details of the airline's pay structure for pilots and other staff came to light yesterday, Day 1 of the Industrial Arbitration Court (IAC) hearing to settle a dispute with its pilots' union over salary and benefits.


The pilots have been pushing for higher wages to be paid to those who will be in the cockpit of the Airbus 380 superjumbo, which enters into service later this year.


The High Court hearing follows more than a year of wrangling, during which the two sides met 16 times.


For over two hours yesterday, SIA divisional vice-president for industrial relations Loh Oun Hean, and Captain Robert Ting, vice-president of the Flight Operations Division and chief pilot for the A380, told the court why pilots should not be paid more to fly the A380.


The airline is proposing that A380 and B777 pilots get the same pay; it intends eventually to pay all pilots a common basic salary, regardless of the aircraft type they fly.


The Air Line Pilots Association-Singapore (Alpa-S) argues that A380 pilots should be paid more than those who fly the Boeing 747 jumbo because the new plane is bigger.


Each of SIA's A380s will seat around 480 passengers, about 100 more than the Boeing 747 jumbo now in service.


The airline, in presenting its case to the three-member IAC panel led by IAC president, Justice Tan Lee Meng, said that between 55 and 60 per cent of a pilot's basic pay now depends on the type of aircraft he handles.


For all other payments, including bonuses and productivity allowances, the distinction is between captains and first officers - not type of plane flown.
For instance, a captain makes $55 an hour for the first 70 hours, and a first officer, $36.


Turning to the technical specifications of the A380 and comparing it with other planes in SIA's present and future fleet, Capt Ting told the courtroom packed with more than 60 staff and union members that the truth was that the A380 was really not that difficult to fly.


A pilot for 36 years who test-flew the A380 when it visited Singapore last year, he said the side stick controllers were light and easy to operate.
'I just flew it with my finger tips,' he said.


Although the A380 is heavier, has a taller tail and longer wingspan compared to other jets, technology and automation erased the impact of this added bulk on piloting.


Capt Ting said the plane's operational scope was 'no more complex than the current and future fleets of SIA'.


Because modern aircraft have similar instrument layouts - especially those built by the same manufacturer - an Airbus 345 pilot, for example, would feel 'instantly at home' in an A380 cockpit.


Capt Ting declared that, with the exception of the B747 jet designed more than 30 years ago, there was really no big difference between flying the A380 and any other modern jet.


He noted that the A380, with its four engines, should also be less stressful to fly than, say, a twin-engined B777, which would lose up to half its thrust during take-off if one engine failed.


He also stressed that a pilot's responsibility did not change with the aircraft type he flew: A captain flying a small single-aisle plane still had to go through the same pre-flight and systems checks.


The hearing continues with Alpa-S presenting its case today.


[email protected]


Document STIMES0020070424e34o0000n

S$270000.... is that correct? Just in the previous article it says that a 744 captain makes S$10000 a month? Curious as they are 2 very contradicting figures.

Arr, the politics of envy. The bean counters HATE the fact that most pilots actually like their jobs.

As I said in my previous post, there is a fixed and variable component to the pay structure. The fixed pay is S$10 000 a month. That's why I can't understand why SQ bothered going to court over this, since a huge proportion of the salary comes from the variable profit-share component, rather than the fixed base pay itself. On a S$270 000 salary, you pay about S$31 000 in tax. However, I would guess that a lot of the S$270 000 would be structured in the form of non-taxable allowances, so the tax would be even less.

Heh... I initially read it as:

A three-member panel ruled that the minimum salary for captains on the A380 - the world's biggest passenger plane - will be $S700 ($551) a month for captains on the conventional Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet.

thats what you get for skim reading a story :}

That would be one lot of happy pilots.... :}:{

Thanks for the clarification drpepz!

Capn Bloggs: Arr, the politics of envy. The bean counters HATE the fact that most pilots actually like their jobs.

Hey Capn blogs, why do you say Bean counters HATE the fact that most pilots actually like their jobs thats contradicintin in ways.

I am a bean counter by trade and like the fact that pilots like what they do for a living and without that basic forumla plane + pilot = revenue then most airlines around the world will be in Chapter 11

I wouldnt mind for a fact that i'd rather be a pilot than a bean counter though there is several reasons for that.

I dont understand your post do you wish to enlighten me further?

Dr Pepz

"SIA has 935 B777 captains and just 36 vice-presidents."

How many 777s do SQ have....around 55? That's 17 B777 Captains per aircraft.

Doesn't seem quite right to me but maybe I am wrong?????

Keep in mind that SQ doesn't have S/Os either so they double up with extra Captains. 930 Captains for 55 777s still strikes me as being far too many!

I think SQ double-up with more FO's than they do Captains on the B777. :{

They actually have about 66 now, with more 300-ERs to arrive. So with provision for the coming aircraft it's not so ridiculous a figure.