Jetstar Casual Cabin Crew
 

Apparently, Jetstar has an influx of new casual cabin crew with minimal training & experience.

Combine this with cadets, it looks like the captains at Jetstar will be running the show single handed.

Are we going to see casual pilots at Jetstar too? :}

and they don,t work for jetstar it through a labour hire company :ugh:

Altara - Aviation Consulting - Flight Training - Aviation Auditing

Magicbox you have done it now given JQ the new idea - casual pilots - pay for your own endorsement - then they give you a guarantee of 10 hours a week say - hourly rate. Everyone can sit out at the airport in case anyone goes sick !

Don't laugh they do it in other industrys - get casuals in and give them minimal work and they are all super keen to work - easy to find people falling over themselves looking to work when the 'unreliable full time' staff all go sick when they are actually unwell.

Heard some stories about some of the MAM QF casuals flying when grossly unwell simply because they couldn't afford not to do the flight to put food on their table - sure they except it but a lot of people out there want to be FAs as bad as some people want to be pilots - hence why the FAs are getting poked in the posterior with a blunt stick as well !

Jeezzzzzzz Puff, Magic might have put out an idea but your telling everyone how to go about it! := Hopefully the cost of competency checks and currency, amongst other things, should/could keep this lunacy at bay! :}
But!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :hmm:
Lets be careful out there!
Wide1.

I'm sure there are greater minds out there wideglider working out ways to screw people over than I :) They're called consultants !

Alas Puff, I'm sure you are right! :sad:
And don't get me started on Consultant's :mad:

Folks,
Nothing new under the sun!!

Many moons ago, I worked for a UK mob, who had about 30:40:30 permanent staff:contractors (me): casuals ----- this included Captains, F/Os and E/O, the fleet was a mixture of B707, both JT-4 straight pipe, and various JT3B variants.

Only two out of eight had a common cockpit, which made it a trifle interesting at times, at least at OneStar it is going to be one type.

Maybe you could even get the FOIs and "sick" pilots from other airlines moonlighting, as we used to in UK.

Tootle pip!!

Do any of you reckon that some may WANT casual work? Including pilots.

JR,

You are indeed on the money there. Quite a lot of people are in a position where casual/part time employment is exactly what suits them.

I believe this is nothing new in the Australian aviation industry and has been a standard part of employment in same for decades.

GB

The rot has indeed set in. For some time now Qantas has had some pilots only doing a few sectors a month. Must be very disheartening. It's no way to treat professionals is it?

Apparently at least two casual flight attendants have been stood down in the last week or two by the catins on a330 flights for a demonstrated lack of knowledge of basic emergency proceedures. one a330 skipper I was talking to in the crew room recently,said he is now telling his CM that he will be questioning the casual crew, and will have no problem standing any down that don't know or are unable to explain to him their duties in variou EMG situations.

To get a balanced outcome, I wonder has this particular A330 Captain questioned any other cabin crew to see if they are at the required standard or has he only questioned casual staff?

It could be entirely possible that this is a problem across the complete cabin crew workforce if it is now being demonstrated that some staff are not up to speed.

I would imagine that whether you are full time, part time, or casual, the training standards would all be the same.

GB

Altara provides casuals to both Jetstar and Tiger Airways with recruits having no say who they're contracted to. My understanding.

Perhaps the training is the same, but the mentality of an 18 year old (eg) who knows they're going to move jobs before to see his/her first EP renewal makes them a little slack to worry about safety or bother to keep it fresh in their minds?

And yes, if a company is desparate to get numbers they will pass trainees with an extra needed mark here and there. Seen it first hand happen in my initials (not in my current airline though).

I would be really interested to hear from any casual cabin crew regarding their take on this.

Are all casual cabin crew really 18 years old just filling in time between courses/jobs?

If that is the case I am a little worried....

GB

This A330 Captain who has allegedly taken it on himself to start questioning fellow crew-members about their knowledge perhaps needs to exercise a degree of discretion and diplomacy.

The last thing we need to do is start bickering amongst ourselves. That simply plays further into the hands of divisive managers who like nothing better than to foster disharmony amongst the ranks.

ALR...This is warranted. There is plenty going on behind the scenes. The grenade has been thrown.

Grab some popcorn folks...mark my word.

Casual crew are not trained nor endorsed on the 330 - perhaps the rumour refers to the Singapore or Bangkok based full-time contracted crew?

And it's not only the guys at the Business end who are getting hot under the collar due to a few (and I do mean a very select few, as opposed to the majority) of the new crew. While the level of training is obviously acceptable for CASA (surprise surprise...), it most certainly will not be acceptable for any passengers, crew - technical or otherwise, or any of the family or friends of any of those groups of people who find themselves on a burning rig hurtling towards terra firma. It is unfortunately only then that our concerns will be taken with any degree of seriousness.

I personally do not see a crew member who does not understand basic EP's or SOP's, especially in regards to Secondary Notifications, use of BCF's and other equiptment, or emergency door operation as a valuable member of any flying team. Anyone who might suggest that they would arm their door and then open it upon hearing the "Alert Phase" PA might well benefit from a little more work at the very least...

Cabin crew need all the support and clout of our pilot friends on this one. On $36k a year, and with a line up out the door and around the corner of eager kids ready to replace us, we truly can't afford balls....

Would never work for pilots....

If a airline went down the road of casual pilots 1 of 2 things would happen....

1. Company would have a heap of extra 6monthly sim checks to cover as all pilots would need a current OCA check for that particular operation, as well as Avsec, DG and other required flightcrew training. I doubt any company would do that....

or 2. Casuals required to pay for their own 6 monthly sim checks, Avsec and DG currency, and that would not be economically viable to anyone, so a lack of casual crew supply would negate the need.

AirNZ maintains a pool of casual staff, mainly from experienced ex-full-timers wanting a reduced work lifestyle. Any newbies are usually full-time temps on 12month contracts with option to apply for fulltime. Very occasionally there isn't fulltime jobs for the temps at the end of 12months but mostly they'll get picked up or finish of their own accord.

S2K

jetstar casual cabin crew
 

hii guys.. just wondering if anyone can help me, i have been offered a casual cabin crew position with jetstar via altara resources... and i am wondering if anyone can give me an idea of how many hours a week this involves... i am currently in a full time position 38 hours a week, and am a bit confused on making my descions.... any help would be appreciated... thank you

That's where limited casualization can work well for a company.
And that's where it doesn't. It produces bad enough results when you're only looking at customer service such as in a shop or hotel environment, but to trust airline safety procedures to a revolving cast of 18 year olds on 36K (if that's an accurate figure) is irresponsible and asking for trouble. It's a job with important safety related tasks that need to be done correctly.

Wouldn't working in a decent restaurant or shop get you more than $36K pa? Why work for Jetstar?

$36K pa you will never be given enough hours to make that.:sad: but make sure you are ready at call 24/7.

NOTE
You must be available to work 15 days per calendar month including 4 weekend days

..................well there is the vacancy for their "Head of Safety".....
.. PD summary interestingly lists:

quote: [Managing the company’s outsourced safety management programme]

So from this it is not unreasonable to say that;
- JQ is outsourcing the outsource's safety management to another outsource........chain of command has become the chain of diminished accountability!

AT
:E

Yes indeed.

Witness what is happening on the A380 at the moment.

Amongst many other operational cluster fukcs here is the most recent.

A380 hit by lightening on decent.

The two brand new kiddies at doors 1 panic at the sound and commence shouting brace commands despite the fact that the aircraft was at 6000 feet with the gear still up.

The rest of the crew who have an obligation under standard SOPs to follow up the brace commands instead ignore them and the aircraft continues it's decent and lands safely.

It all comes down to the fact they do not want to employ or pay anyone.

Magicbox, minimal training? are you kidding?:= they have condensed the same normally 6 weeks of training into 3 and it is gruelling with 80 - 100 pass mark and an exam practically every day and if you don't get alot higher than 80 you are given a lecture implying you aren't studying hard enough!!! Even Virgin do it in 5, Qantas etc in 6 and bearing in mind the aircraft fit outs are not uniform as they are for Qantas crew, I think they deserve a medal just to get through without it doing their head in. Age ranges from 18 to late 40's with same entry requirements as full time crew just none of the benefits :ugh: I know cabin crew who were employed by Qantas at 18 who wouldn't have stood up to this amount of pressure :bored: so in my opinion, i think they would be an asset to JetStar and any future employers.

avigirl
That doesn't sound like good (ie. effective) training to me!! := (there's a finger wag for you... :))
So everyone else is doing it differently (and the way J* used to?) - maybe there's a reason for that?

In addition to all this, I recall reading about some VERY long duty periods for some CC. Assuming those accounts were correct, well that's gotta help too!!

Re-read some of what's been posted here (by people far more experienced than me BTW), then check out the scrum in any J* hull when it pulls up to the bay - god help 'em all if they REALLY had to get in a hurry... :eek:

CR.

WOW avigirl!

Those people are nothing short of heroic. Completly deluded Lemings, but heroic none the less! :rolleyes:

Gee, do all that in three weeks, remember none of it and (worst case scenario) end up in what the yank cop shows call A Situation with no effective skills, and all for $36K pa :ugh::ugh:

Or, jump onto Seek and find a bunch of retail jobs paying $35-55K pa where you can be home every night and won't end up in front of the ATSB justifying your actions when it all goes pear shaped.

[sarcasm mode off] Avigirl, I don't think anyone is having a personal go at the individual staff members (I'm not, anyway) but at Jetstar itself for the questionable training, pay and conditions they provide for cabin crew. Probably the bulk of Jetstar staff are doing the best they can under the circumstances, but the training regime you describe is substandard and it's no wonder staff can't remember procedures or go to pieces in an unusual situation.

Conducting a safety based course in three weeks that takes every other provider 5 smells fishy, even if they do have an all star cast of applicants. It's not something Jetstar should be proud of, whatever spin they choose to put on it.

I'll go a step further Worrals'.

avigirl is either incredibly naive, or a Managent Apologist/Stooge, trying to defend the indefensible.

I think it's important however that more than one side of the story is gven, but it'll be interesting to see if her contribution to Pprune extends beyond just one "Hit and Run" post?

Good point Krusty, I'd forgotten to be wary of suspiciously new posters:suspect:.
If s/he/it is a management stooge, the post does Jetstar no favours at all as it just lets the rest of us know about their wham-bam approach to training.

She is a HR Type for sure they all speak the same crap.

One would assume that the course has been apporved by CASA.

Which means what ?
The tail wags the dog.....

Avigirl,

get your facts right before you make yourself look like a buffoon.

For a start, QF a/c are NOT all standard fitouts as you say. Nothing could be further from the truth. Short Haul C/C have to know 2 variants of each type ala 6 different types ie 767 GE or Roller, 734 or 8 and finally A332 or 3.

So before you make yourself look anymore naive, please don't dig yourself a deeper hole.

Throw in 4 x 744 configs for L/H crew (with another on the way), plus the A332 and A333... that's a trifle more than 1 x A320, 1 x A321, 1 x A332. :confused:

Many years since I left QF but....do they really employ 18 year olds as cabin crew?

Surely not International Crew - the drinking age in some ports is 21 :ok:

Seriously though, on a recent trip back from HNL I asked the Jet * attendant how many days off they got there, where they stayed these days, etc - just small talk as she was a nice girl and pretty attentive. Anyway, she said they had 2 days off and the night after they arrived back in SYD, she was off to DPS.

Now, I had a good nights sleep, went to work the next day and crased about 10:30 the following night - this girl would have been 5 hours into her SYD-DPS sector BUT she then has to turn around and come back to SYD, surely that is not healthy and more importantly that should raise some concerns?

Until CASA implements flight and duty limits for flight attendants (which I believe is a requirement under ICAO legislation as pointed out to CASA by ICAO under an audit a couple of years ago), we will see the continued exploitation of people by big business who do not care about the welfare of their employees and are too blind to see the safety implications of having fatigued flight attendants. Remember that a flight attendant's primary role is one of safety. You CANNOT have fatigued personel operating in a safety role.

Are there no current limits at all?

I can shed some light on how it is in the Qantas group with regard to cabin crew hours limitations.

An A380 very recently took off from Heathrow and returned for some technical issue after dumping fuel.

A number of the cabin crew decided that they could not work beyond 20 hours and elected to get off.

There were no replacement cabin crew available for the flight and the aircraft left some 12 hours or so later with a fresh crew.

Lots of very inconvenienced passengers including one, Alan Joyce.

Now, I have it on very good authority that severe criticisms were made of the crew by senior management [including the small Irishman] because an element of them felt that in this case they couldn't go beyond 20 hours.

I genuinely don't think that management consider that cabin crew fatigue or flight duty limitations have any bearing on safety.

When in the past I've had the temerity to questions ops over these types of issues [as they are occurring] I'm invariably fed their standard, "industrial agreement" line that goes like this-

" It's legal".

So is prostitution, but you don't necessarily factor it into a business plan.
The problem is, 99.9% of the time it doesn't, and that's all the beancounters and management flunkies care about. The 0.01% of the time where it does, the ensuing mayhem proves that it did have a bearing, and the media / distraught rellies have a field day.
Titanic Syndrome in action. Most liferafts never get used... doesn't mean you sail without 'em.
Oh well, more operational voices in the wilderness :ugh::ugh: