They will need crew rest beyond 2015...everyone will. That's the law. What are they thinking...Besides full load 5 hours endurance...that will work. I guess Ansett wasn't a fluke after all!

SOPS

Load Alleviation Function

Can you elaborate on this?

SOPS.

From the 787 FCOM, Flight Controls:

Gust Suppression.
Vertical gust suppression enhances ride quality in the presence of vertical gusts and turbulence. It utilizes symmetric deflection of the flaperons and elevators to alleviate gust acceleration. This function is active only with the autopilot engaged in Altitude Hold or VNAV level flight modes.
Lateral gust suppression improves ride quality and can reduce pilot work load on approach by automatic application of discrete yaw commands in response to lateral gusts and turbulence.
Operation of vertical and lateral gust suppression does not result in control wheel, control column, or rudder pedal movement.

Roger that, thanks.

Airbus has had load alleviation for donkeys years. Boeing finally catching up.:E

Boeing had GUST RESPONSE SUPPRESSION systems fitted to 747-200 aircraft I flew in Kuwait.

The system was fitted to aircraft around 1975.

Do not remember any Airbus aircraft around then.

And gust suppresion was fitted to clunkers in the QF fleet.

So as the jetstar 330s go to qantas and the 767s retired, are the 767 pilots doing a straight swap over to the 330s? (Apologies if this has been covered previously)

Ah, no. Some captains managed to get across to the 330 and some ended up demoted to the 737. 1 F/O out of 20 got an A330 F/O position while the other F/Os are being demoted to A380 S/O.

Problem being the 747 F/Os will run out of leave to assign in twelve months and the company plans to reduce them to the A330 as F/Os then. If they trained the 767 F/Os onto the 330 then they would only be displaced by the 747 F/Os in twelve months.

So while QF mainline shrinks due to abject neglect from management, and all resources are pumped into the amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing orange cancer, the demotions will continue. Just a matter of time until the junior A380/330 S/Os start being made redundant and find themselves on the dole queue.

Short answer - no.

Pammy.

Its actually the Qantas A330's on loan to JQ that are returning to Qantas.

Due to the Qantas purchased B787's being deployed at Jetstar replacing the loaned Qantas A330's.

As the Qantas A330's return to Qantas, it allows the retirement of the Qantas 767.

This enables the Qantas guys and girls with 20 plus years widebody Boeing time to be redeployed & retrained to Airbus some electing to so voluntarily some forced.

Meanwhile the Airbus experienced guys and girls at Jetstar will be retrained to fly the Boeing 787.

But all will work out ok. Cause if Qantas order the B787 to be delivered to mainline in 2016. The guys redeployed to the Airbus A380 as Second Officers will be able to return to the B787 as FO's.

That's assuming that QF crew operate the B787's for QF.

Lots can change in 3 years... :E:hmm:

Amaaaaaaaazing

Yes, nice to see Jeremy in the news .. was my instructor at YMMB back in the late 80's.

Why is the 787 painted a different colour silver?

The way mainline is going they will announce they are closing the doors any day soon, and that ammmmmmaaaaazing business is taking over all the flying. It's really very very sad, and I sit and wonder every day, how it's been allowed to happen and why no one is asking any questions.

Derfield said :
This is a special JQ low cost paint shop feature. You'll notice that each and every A330 and A320 comes painted in a new and unique shade of silver. I imagine it will cost a lot to get Boeing to come up with a different silver each time one of these pops off the end of the construction line. :E

Tech crew rest
 

So if tech crew rest isn't fitted then european flights can be ruled out? Surely you wouldn't allow a curtained off premium economy seat for 'rest' on a 10+hr sector?

the 330s have a curtained off business seat.

whether thats sufficient for wsss to europe i dont know

A bunch of years back I remember one of our crew (and a top bloke as well) summed it up thus:

:E :ok:

In a normal config, I believe max payload range is 5500nm.

Wouldn't the Jetstar config of 335 be payload restricted to Europe?

I wouldn't be surprised if history repeats itself (like the A330) & JQ redeploy the 787 to fly out of Asia.

A config of 335 and shorter hops around Asia might be the grand plan.

It will be interesting after 12 months to see all the different shades of silver after all the mix and matching of parts and repairs undertaken after the Rampies have dented a few cargo doors and panels! Yep I can sure see that you beaut composite material copping a workout. I just hope somebody told Joyce that although these aircraft don't need maintenance and can even fly themselves, they will still need panel beating :=

well keg, of all the cars i've ever owned, its the metallic jobbies that've held their lustre better. its the solid colours that need a cut from time to time.

cant speak for airplane paint tho

I can't really see jetstar ever being a long haul low cost airline with 10+hr sectors. I don't think I have even heard of a low cost carrier making a profit on long haul.

Then again, we'd never heard of a legacy carrier successfully launching a profitable low cost carrier of their own, without caniballising the carrier's business, had we?!

If you've got a seemingly impossible/improbable problem, come and ask the QF B team... They'll 'leverage their experience' for you :ok:

Qantas to go firm on the -9?
 

From Australian Business Traveller a couple of days ago.... .???

Qantas sets its sights on Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner - Flights | hotels | frequent flyer | business class - Australian Business Traveller

All part of the narrative. I reckon they'll announce the 787 for mainline about mid next year..... when they announce that their magical transformation is on track to break even and return to profit and the 787 is the vehicle which will bring about that improved profitability.

Mainline crew might crew the B787, but you will have no choice but to do it on Jetstar T&Cs.

Ask yourself the all important question!

Q. If you were running the business(ie if it was YOUR business), why would you pay one lot of employees more than the other to do exactly the same job?
A. You wouldn't!


You blokes are dreaming if you think you will crew it under your present conditions.

It aint eva going to happen!

A senior manager recently said. The mainline fleet age is commercial in confidence. Hence they report the "groups" fleet age.

Whilst one part of the group has a relatively young average fleet age, another part of the group has a distinctly older fleet age.

What the investment community has failed to realise due reporting a "group" fleet age is over investment in one part of the business & under investment in another.

MC.

They are now so why wouldn't they in the future? Further, there are transmission of business issues to cross here as well.

QF are after efficiencies when it comes to the 787. Despite the general belief to the contrary, we've been prepared to look at efficiencies for quite some time now. EG: currently 767 crew are cheaper per ASK than mainline 737 crew. I reckon that would put us very, very close to the cost per ASK for a J* A320 or J* A330. We don't need to be too much more efficient to be 'on the mark' to get to fly the 787. It may be a set of conditions slightly different to the current ones but will certainly be acceptable.

Further, many crew look at the current conditions- designed for 707s and extrapolated to the 744 when aeroplanes flew for max 14 hours- and realise that it's not a situation that can continue into perpetuity. Again, it's an issue that crew have been open to for some time.

I think part of the issue with many people on PPRUNE is that they see what AJ tells the media about pilots (normally the max earners on the A380) and then project that across all fleets. Many PPRUNE contributors don't actually realise the reality. That doesn't bother me overly much but it does amuse me when I read comments that talk about how over priced I am despite the fact that I'm in part of the group that has contributed to massive profits over the past bunch of years- more than J* anyway! :ok: It also amuses me when people tell me I'm dreaming if I think I'll get the 787 on current terms and conditions when they're not entirely authorities on current terms and conditions as it is let alone the negotiations that have taken place to reach a mutually acceptable outcome. At the end of the day, agreeing to a deal for the 787 is a ****e load cheaper than 400+ redundancies. :ugh: :rolleyes:

Keg,

The big efficiencies are achieved in the aircraft that Mainline operate.

It was reported last week that as the 767 retires & are replaced by A330's domestically.

Rationalising the domestic operation to two fleets types, the operating cost would reduce by around 10% and would be within (If my memory serves me correctly) about 5% of Virgins.

These efficiency gains were achieved without ANY changes to the Long or Short Haul EBA.

Considering crew costs are only about 3% of the airlines operating costs, it pales into insignificance compared to operating fuel efficient jets.

Mstr Caution, I'm not going to go into detail here but until we actually DO sort our some of the inefficiencies that actually do exist in our award then we continue to give the company the opportunity to go to other entities.

Amen.:D:D:D

i think we'd have to play the game smarter if we want to argue the transfer of business issue. jetstar has been around a while now. precedent set. and aipa got spanked in the jetconnect court case for equivalent terms

i doubt mgmnt will have any trouble at all putting those 787s on any au aoc they want

I agree with you Keg, but you also have to recall the previous form of the organisation your dealing with.

I recall LH pilots accepting a pay freeze with the promise they would be looked after later.

The company still went elsewhere to crew aircraft.

The problem the company has is they have played the industrial hard ball for too long & the pilots no longer trust anything they are told by management.

So management have responded with group love in's in an attempt to engage the pilots that they actually disengaged.

Dont forget, not only the massive cost of making long haul pilots redundant but also the down training costs in reverse seniority.

afaik thats yet to be tested/enforced.

regardless of any agreement, if the company pleads hardship in court, it'll be a battle to get

What do you base this on specifically?

And if you blokes hadn't signed up for such crap conditions none of us would have to be on these conditions .

The senior manager should check out the interweb where fleet ages of any fleet are readily available.

This examples puts the QF mainline fleet at 10.3 years.

Fleet age Qantas | Airfleets aviation

Funnily enough, Alan's recent claims about the group fleet age and the fleet age graph published on p4 of the ASX statement don't quite stack up unless you take out the 'amaaazing' business.