anyone know if a QL " pilot trainee" will be paid a wage while doing his/her training to become a first officer on the dash8?

Defenestrator
Not in the A320/A330/A340 and I assume the A380.

good onya HIGGINS. you managed to hook line and sinker most to change the content and direction of this thread.

I saw the EAA fleet manager a few weeks back and he told me that the company was hurting from losing pilots.

The management at EAA know about the problem but are probably hindered from allowing progression by the fact that big Q managment don't want a Group Opportunity List.
AIPA are trying for you guys to have career progression but again the RAT management don't want it.

As aside I have seen R!X and Jet* advertising o/s. maybe Q/L will look abroad for experience. I hope not........

CH I would love to watch you TRY and fly that DHC8 sim. I have flown lots of things including your type of equipment and i can tell you handling the DHC8 with an engine out is a real handful. probably the hardest sim flying i have done.
You may want to re-read the AIP on circling.

A few years ago, I took a pay cut and joined Qflink attracted by the roster. It was pretty decent, shortish days, not too many overnights, plenty of reserve.
The offshoot from that was pilot numbers were very stable. Operations very rarely had a problem finding crew. It was considered by many to be one of the best flying jobs in the country. The money wasn't great, but hey - we had a great life... and the company was doing very well indeed.

Forward a few years and the feeling around the place is very different. Employee morale has fallen sharply, (of course that won't show up in your accounting). While at the same time, correct me if I am wrong, the company is making sh!tloads of cash.

Things got particularly bad when some brainiac set up the $10K entry fee. That may have been the catalyst to get things heading south as the nasty fee actually discouraged the very type of pilot QFlink had traditionally attracted. By attracting the wrong type - i.e. cashed up kids, the writing was well and truly on the wall. (By wrong I simply mean pilots who are in the period of their lives where they are striving for that jet job, even if it means Jet*.)

To top it off, the regional GM seems to think that by "improving efficiency, together" things will get better. "Improving efficiency" generally means only one thing to a pilot - more work, much more work, for the same money. And the reward for all this improved efficiency?

More Q400s. Doing more work.:hmm:


To quote a guy who left recently....."Get out, It's a sinking ship!"

He should know - he has spent a bit of time in boats.

cheers all.

Have you heard they are going to name one of the E jets "Qantaslinks Blue"!
 

Hey Jarse, News and other mates come on over it's all good. This roster has 14 days off/grey, a couple of reserves, a day course and the rest flying. The money is better(for me anyway) and the trips aren't too bad generally 2-3 nights away with good rest.

Hoping to see lots of you guys over here soon, its worth it.

:)

G'day Hoss

Great to hear that you are enjoying your change of cockpit (& airline). Sounds like the grass is truly greener.

For the guys who haven't done the sums, think about the following:-

Qantas has ordered 65 firm B787's + 20 options (which in reality are firm orders) plus 30 "expressions of interest". The additional 30 aircraft will be B787-10's (if Boeing get their act together before management lose their patience and order A350XWB's). Of the 85 "firm" aircraft, 15 will go to Jetstar and, for mainline, there will be 15 B787-8's requiring 83 Captains & 83 F/O's, plus 55 B787-9's requiring 385 Captains, 385 F/O's & approx 700 S/O's. That's over 1600 pilots before we consider the B787-10 (210 captains, 210 F/O's & approx 400 S/O's) (not including training captains/F/O's). That totals almost 2500 pilots, ie more than the current Qantas pilot establishment.

If you look ahead to 2015, in addition to the 115 B787's mentioned above, there will be 20 A380's, 9 B744's, 22 A330's, and 65-70 B737's - another 1900+ pilots. Qantas mainline is screaming for pilots and will take every one who meets the minimum standards (They won't admit it but they have lowered the Phsyometric Aptitude score that is acceptable). With 200 retirements in the same period, that means that 2100 pilots will have to be recuited in that period - ie 300 per annum through to 2015.

I haven't touched on the huge demand that Jetstar have for the large number of A320/1's plus B787's that have been ordered.

What I am trying to say is - Oz pilots are in the strongest industrial position that they have ever been in. We are over due for having a Qantas Group pilot career progression which allows individuals to choose the type of flying that suits their lifestyle. It's great that the Jetstar pilots rejected their EBA and consequentially they will achieve a higher remuneration in the long run.

Van Gough,

there is a shortage.



There, I just told you!:oh:


:mad: I think you could get a job with the current management team!:ugh:

If there was no shortage, do you think we would be discussing the matter?

Look back a few years and the opposite was true!

The problem is that there is a shortage, and the current pilots who are staying on are finding that the lifestyle as a QL pilot is being quickly eroded.

The more that leave, the harder it will get as recruitment cannot keep up.

It is a cylcle that will continue to worsen for some time before it gets better.

This is being recognised and that is why many are so upset!

Many more troops to leave. The Emb sounds better with every day that passes.

I would suggest that it is the management style of the past year or two that has directly contributed to the losses, not the pilot shortage.

You really don't get it Chris. Before I add you to my ignore list, it is you who does not appear to understand the difference between VMC and Visual.

Jepp Terminal AU22/23 para 3.13 is quite explicit in it's description of visual circling, in particular my statement refers to Note 2, descent below MDA. We will occasionally need to use that by day, whenever we can't do an RNAV straight in, (as I had to do in Port recently when we got a RAIM warning part way through an RNAV approach and had to bug out and do an NDB + circle to 03). No problem, no hairy chest, FL510 and 40 deg sweepback needed.:cool:

Circling in 2.4k vis is not VMC. Therefore it must be IMC, is it not?. There is no "in between".

However one can still conduct visual circling in 2.4k vis (non VMC). I never wrote that circling is an instrument procedure. That's your ill-informed interpretation, Chris. We ALWAYS conform to the Jepp requirements.

Nevertheless, I'm quite satisfied with my standards of airmanship and level of compliance with the regs Chris. Thanks for passing judgement :ok:

Freddy Fudpucker: Don't bother with him. You can't put brains in a statue. that's why he's stuck in the states :}

Hoss: You're a funny bastard!:} Sounds like the SY crew room will be a Kendell, Hazo and Eastern reunion. At least somebody appreciates us. I bet I know who's going to be rostered to fly "Qantaslink Blue" :E I just hope the logo is a picture of our (QL's) Dancing With The Stars entrant. A lovely young lady who would do the aircraft proud ;)

See you, Chris!:ok:

To the rest of you, I apologise for the hijack.

Gidday Going Boeing,

The problem we have is that there is a log jam in regard to a career progression agreement. AIPA can come up with an arrangement that covers the Regionals (the example recently emailed out by AIPA about Air NZ was a bit of an embarrassment because it excluded turboprop operations, and really made me laugh) but in the end any agreement has to be ratified by Qantas. Anecdotal evidence is that Dixon stated that a GOL would occur "over his dead body" and that "he would sell off the regionals" if the point were pushed.

So how do QF pilots (as a collective) get around this situation?:confused:

Genuine question.

Wait for Dixon to die, got close a month or so back. Maybe the next one(CEO) will have a bit of common sense.

Fingers crossed for the regionals.:)

Wynsocks' post about the strategic error made by QL management in introducing a $10K price tag on the job hits the nail on the head.

'..as per industry standard we will now require new recriuts to subsidise the cost of the DHC8 rating..blah blah blah' came the shamefull announcement from Easterns/Sunstate flight ops management moles.

Short termism at it's finest and as Wynsock points out it attracts short term employees, who can blame them? $40K to live on in Sydney, paying back the bank the $10K.

Some pilots would be happy to trade conditions and lifestyle but not if there's an admission charge to sit in the front end.

Ya reap what ya sow.

Mat Finish
never a shiny moment..:suspect:

Hugh, I wish that I had an answer to your question. I can't understand why Dixon is so against a Group career progression. GB

Mat,

I came out publicly against pay for training in April of the year it was introduced. It seems like such a long time ago, but I remember like it was yesterday..... I copped a pizzling from management, and as a result and had to pull my head in. Can't say any more, sorry, apart from the whole landscape at Eastern changed with that decision.:{

You're right though Mat Finish......

Hugh,

Your anti-American negativity is quite an debilitating to you, your arguments make you sound like somebody who was raised in a welfare home who never had to work, or juxtaposed had everything given to him and never had to work.

Be careful staring at instruments at 300 feet on your "instrument" flight below minima Mate, you never know what you might hit!

Anyone who has difficulty hanging on to a Dash 8 in the simulator shouldn't be down there unless it's VFR anyway!

I'm very happy to go back to Australia at least once a year, run our dot com, real estate holdings company and fly 14 days a month and bank a fortune, while we ski all winter and race motocross all Summer. As you can see, it's not a question of being stuck anywhere, but finding myself in fortunate circumstances and I happen to be married to a Yank.

I'll let this go now, but every time we have tried to fly on you guys out of Port it has totally ended in a shambles...every single time. This year when I took my three boys to New Zealand to ski, I thought about doing the Dash 8 up to Port to the farm, but finally decided on a rental car out of Mascot.

It's a little like the disclaimer on the mutual fund commercials, "Past performance does not guarantee future returns". People still buy mutual funds when the past performance has been good, because they anticipate a good return based on history.

I've followed Eastern through the 404s, the Bandit, the Jetstream 31s and the Dash 8. I've spoken at high schools in Port Macquarie and invariably I have to field an "Eastern" story. One that is not too different from any I have told here.

East West were never like that! We had courteous transmissions to students, relay of transmissions to Coffs when they were still an FSU and public displays of uniform and language that would be suitable in any home or state function.

Hugh, I'm sure you do a great job. You're obviously passionate about your job
it's just that I've never heard or seen any of the professionalism you claim here.

I'm more convinced than ever that Avis is a better bet.

Chris - I for one am more than pleased you choose Avis, maybe you could let them know how to run a car hire business - you seem to be expert on everything else. If you query Hugh and Normas capabilities, it just proves you know nothing - both of the highest caliber. A hero in your own lunchbox perhaps- doesn't impress me one bit:yuk:

Defenestrator,

To answer your question; no it's certified without auto-throttles. Because of the power to weight ratio, we don't really have the inertia to deal with like on the heavy jets, it really is quite an easy aircraft to fly. Actually, even easier than a turbo prop.


Missing Link,

It was not my goal to impress you and I am again, sadly reassured that nothing has changed on the Sydney to PMQ route with regards to your airline. I look forward to flying Virgin Blue into Port next time I am down. The runway has been lengthened for the Embraer and I'm sure it will be a relief to every one to have reliable service.

Don't you just love back seat drivers! LOL! haha

And furthermore some Yank with this "my equipment is bigger than yours" complex. You come across like a Qantaslink wannabe that never was, mate. :rolleyes:

Hey Chris, I wouldn't risk VB either. Chances are one of those dangerous ex QL drivers is behind the wheel!::ok:

Grrowler,

Props are for boats mate:E At least the equipment might actually show up to do the flying. One of the high school kids in August told me they went through three broken down aircraft getting to Melbourne and back and lost a whole day. It's amazing that people actually think that this not only acceptable, but a "great" airline.:ugh:

Chris,

I agree 100% that QL have problems with maintaining a schedule. F**k, we are/ were the ones that finished late every second day. However, this is due their greed making the schedule so tight that it only works with CAVOK, no ATC delays, no breakdowns, no crewing problems, and might I add no passenger delays. It has nothing to do with the quality of the pilots.

It sounds like you may have had a couple of bad experiences in the 404 days, and I can't comment on that, however I can say that while I was there I thought the standard of training was extremely good, and as has been mentioned, most airlines around the world agree.

HJ, going well, 1st sim check on Sunday night, then finally home. If you're moving up north drop in and say gday.

Are, Mr Higgins!!

I remember the first post of his I read here. It was a there-I-was-back-to-the-wall-nothing-on-the-clock-but-the-makers-name-and-that-was-in-polish account of an Av-Med flight, the intent of which was to let us all know what a hero he was, and therefore why he was qualified to referee the intermidable D Smith V The World show.

Chris, you may have been born in Aus, but you have forgotten so much of the Australian value system and ethos, whilst obviously being completely immersed in the US pschycology, that your contributions are less than useless here.

The economics of an airline are extremely sensitive to external forces such as oil prices and consumer spending. There is a slow down in world markets and Australia will not be immune to the onflow effects and the inevitable slow down to consumer spending.

All booms bust (or at least take a breather). I am sure that there are plenty of pprune readers who recall the lean times of the late '70s early '80s when aviation last took a breather.

An operator in HK is retrenching B738 pilots because of a slow down, and I don't think that this will be the last.

Management need a strategy to maintain sound fundamentals through the good times, as the bad (read "when is airline X recruiting?") is never far away.

Time for clever thinking by Pilots and Board of Directors alike.

Not trying to be a doomsayer, just trying to keep some balance. Now lets get back to some good debate...:)

Wizofoz(?)

Well..Mr Wizard; nothing self deprecating or presumptuous in such a pseudonym.

And with 1,500 posts of nothing but spectacular contributions yourself, you are obviously in a position to make such statements? Wow man, that's a lot of hyphens! Where did you get your high school diploma? Enjoy Europe, oh that's right, Europe is part of Australia now, isn't it? No? Well if it's not in dastardly America, it must be alright then! Have you got any more pathetic left wing commie crap you want to spout off with?

Without sounding too much like some critic off a reality tv show, I'm bored.

Grrowler

America, has come full circle to requiring bachelor's degrees, criminal background checks, random drug and alcohol testing, linking the national driving records to the FAA offices and requiring independent accounting and safety audits to be compliant with new laws that are all aimed at improving safety and accountability.

This all came after two tragic decades of almost non-stop monthly crashes of both scheduled and unscheduled service. USAir, the Pittsburgh airline had five fatal hull losses in five years alone. The litigation is ongoing from 1994. This is a painful past that must be learned from, if it is not to be repeated in other places.

At our beloved Qantas we now have aircraft being maintained abroad with arguably some of the poorest oversight of any industrialized nation's authority, people paying for employment or signing contracts of indentured servitude with no scope protection and a regional affiliate that can't even provide scheduled service to a seaside resort that enjoys more sunshine than anywhere except Townsville.

I don't know how you feel about, it but whether it's Dick Smith, your Prime Minister, your shareholders or the public marching with their feet to the competition, something has to change because it is not nearly good enough.

Yeah, I had some bad experiences on that carrier. My wife can be pretty demanding and it took half way to International before I could calm her down from what we had seen. You guys have to understand that your actions are constantly on display and your display is being viewed by a public that is not nearly as dumb as you all think they are.

Your management must realize that with a well developed highway system on the East Coast, an array of other travel options from Sydney or Brisbane, it wouldn't take much to kill the golden goose altogether. The last thing you need is for a new-hire or cadet with historically low experience being involved anywhere near bent metal. You certainly don't need them tooling around at 300' and below protected circling minima staring at the panel either!

If you want to PM me with a telephone number, or have me give me yours, we can talk about it, but I don't think she'll ever fly on them again.

Chris Higgins,

Sorry for not getting back to you earlier but I, unlike you(obviously by the number of posts you have responded to here) have been doing my bit for my employer and the share holder. And BTW all 10 sectors chocka. So we betta not tell all the travelling public out there how dangerous QL is:ok:

I am not trying to tell you how good I am, (just an average bloke who has to try a little harder than the rest), nor how good my outfit is either. But I WILL NOT JUST SIT AND LISTEN TO THE LIKES OF YOU GROSSLY SLURR THE REPUTATION AND STANDARDS OF A COMPANY FOR WHICH YOU ARE IGNORANT OF. How dare you.

I am happy that your a/c goes to FL510 and M0.92. You must have balls big enough to come in a dump truck to be that good. To even state this on a public forum shows just how insecure you are. You want to try and impress me with your astronaut wings mate, it aint working.

I have better things to do than respond further to your self opinionated propaganda.

I said it before so kindly do as requested previously.

Hopefully that will take care of Mr Higgins.

Amen!

Somehow I very much doubt that someone who has no idea about the concept of a circling approach (but thinks he does), will ever be silenced about all the other topics he thinks he knows something about.

Sorry Mr CH, but from where I stand your arguements lack substance. In fact you remind me of a fellow who used to frequent this forum - "Aircraft".

Opinions of Chris Higgins the "Qualified Check Pilot"
 

Ok - sorry but I will buy into this one.

Chris Higgins has his opinions, allbeit outdated, uninformed and biased for what ever reason, they are exactly that - opinions. I do not see any CASA Check Pilot approval with Chris Higgins name detailed on it, nor do I see any fact or evidence based information. Largely all I see is a person who appears insecure with an opinion or axe to grind venting in a public forum.

I am probably in a better position that most to comment on the standards at QFL and I can assure you the crews can stand proud in their demonstration and application of professionalism. Sure there may be errors made because we are all human, but that is one of the fundamental targets of training and checking (error management)

Jarse and Norm, stand proud in the dedication and professionalism you and the rest of your colleagues have displayed over a long period of time.

Feeding the troll that is Chris Higgins only goes to serve his purpose (whatever it is). But there will come a day where some one on this site is going to step over the line with a personal attack resulting in that infamous D word (defamation) with its obvious results.

Happy Days :ok:

Chris Higgins
You must be a real Gun.

Regards The Dog

I think "TOOL" would be a better word!

I am glad to see you are all very happy with your opinions and quality of your training and employ. The reference to my "dump truck" was made with the statement that it was really not at all a challenge to fly in the kind of conditions we encounter here-quite safely without going below the prescribed circling minima, staring at instruments, and outside of both the visibility and obstacle clearance requirements for the approach. Yes, I did correct somebody that it didn't have auto-throttles.

There was a saying in the State Emergency Services in Australia, "Nobody will ever remember us for anything we do right; only for what we do wrong."

Normasars

I have been an observer, but more importantly a consumer of your product. Others have also been both consumers and observers and have shared with me that they weren't happy with the product. Fans have a right to boo at a game when they have paid for a ticket and they aren't enjoying the game. No different here. We have paid a lot of money to fly on you guys in the past and the "game" was off.

You have reason to both be proud and angry when anybody criticizes you and the professionalism of your company. I'm sure it exists, I just haven't seen it!

The three basic rules for the airline industry are;

1. Run on time, and don't cancel. This means standby crews and aircraft.

2. Don't lose bags.

3. Be clean. The aircraft must be clean so that the perception of other extraneous issues such as maintenance appear to have been taken care of from the view of the public.


I would also ask that one other be added; watch your conduct in public as you represent your employer in the way you dress, the language you use and whether or not you do things like sneak somebody on the jumpseat that shouldn't really be there.

All the best guys! Stay safe; and don't make me answer a call to public service by coming back and working for CASA, because then you'll really have something to write about.

Oh Mr Higgins please come back to Australia and you will be probably be voted straight back out!!

CASA positions are not elected, they are appointed. I can tell you quite assuredly that the many contacts I have had regarding this forum would indicate more support than you can even imagine.

.... and that's the end of Mr Higgins! :ok:

Now... what were we originally talking about...

Similar to Mr Smith in more ways than one.:eek:

In my opinion, CH is correct with his/her example

These 3 problems are evident at QFlink are they not?

1. The constant downward pressure on costs (wages) has been biting for some time - but now, as we discuss on this forum, we are in crisis. Reserve crews are almost non-existent. Thanks to QF regional management for that!
2. We don't necessarily lose bags, bags get delayed. You get that with 100% pax loads in a dash8.
3. The cleaning is done by either tired demoralised cabin crew on the short turnarounds, or tired demoralised contract staff, paid crap wages by their management who bid the lowest price to get the contact. The exterior of the aircraft (paint/soot/oil/grease) is becoming an embarrassment in some cases.

Above all - if pride and professionalism in maintenance goes pear-shaped, we are truly asking for a smoking hole in the ground.




And another note, Mr Higg is the only person who seems to be able to spell the difference between lose, loose, loser. All those loosers (sic) please take note.

#60 32megapixels & #65 grrowler

Thanks for the info chaps, appreciated :ok:

32mega

Had a few chaps on my ATPL theory course that were converting to JAR, yes it did seem rather ridiculous what JAR get you Ozzie chaps to do to convert, glad to hear it's not as difficult the other way around, I did hear we only have to sit an air law exam, would that be correct? sorry for the 20 questions I guess it's better to contact CASA etc.

Also do you know of Europeans joining QL? would they actively recruit us with a Q400 rating in active employment? (an answer you may not know)

Thanks

CC

Coffin Corner,

http://www.casa.gov.au/fcl/download/atpl_guidelines.pdf

Looks like you will need to complete a CIR test also.

Icarus

Chris Higgins
 

Chris, I have been meaning to P.M. you for a long time, after first seeing your name on one of the P.P. threads some time ago - never got around to it though as I always seemed to be either too busy flying or recovering from said activity. I wanted to touch base to find out if you are the same bloke I knew from one of my previous aviation lives. My recollection of the bloke I knew as Chris Higgins is of a tallented pilot, who was compassionate and with a great sense of humour. I always enjoyed his company and could rely upon getting well reasoned and balanced advice from him whenever I needed it. One of the sad things about this industry is when you move on from a job and lose contact with some of the great people who make working in aviation worth while. Chris was a great bloke and I would dearly like to make contact again - you are obviously not him!!!