It's hard to compare apples with apples, but in an attempt to do so can you someone give an estimate of how many stick hours a QF 380 pilot would fly in a roster period.

How many LAX returns or LHR returns would a F/O or Capt operate in a 56 day roster?

... sigh ...

spellcheck .. wrong. Can't be bothered covering it all AGAIN FFS!!

AND

for the 4 millionth and third time .. the current problems at QF have ZERO to do with employee costs.


:ugh: :ugh: :ugh: :ugh: :ugh: :ugh: :ugh:

1. Provide a more superior service than the others
2. Charge a premium price for that superior service

There's a hell of lot less competition....up there, than there is....down there!

There are two ways to profitability. Reduce costs or increase revenue. AJ and his management team have, in my opinion, taken the 'easy' option and chosen to reduce costs in an attempt to return the airline to profitability. By bleating and moaning about the regulatory environment that they are operating in is a pretty weak argument. I hate to bring it up, but look at Air NZ, they operate in a very similar regulatory and labour environment and are also an end of line carrier. Yet they can turn a reasonable profit. There are absolutely no excuses that AJ can give that justify the level of losses forecast. The reason QF is in this situation is purely a result of bad management. Why can they just not admit that they have taken their eye off their core business (QF) and invested too much time and money into off shore JQ operations.

I get the impression Larry Pickering is not a Chairmans Club Member:

THE GOOSE FINALLY RUNS OUT OF GOLDEN EGGS - The Pickering Post

I will keep repeating it ad nauseum, from the board down, the strategy for a long time has been to operate franchise LCC operations in Asia - at the expense of the QF international. There is only so much capital to go around. It was decided at least a decade ago to direct that capital to Asia.

How do I know? Because Bruce Buchanan explicitly told us the management strategy in 2011, giving the game away.

Jetstar to invest $470m in Singapore hub Date: July 18 2011

Every move since then has been to continue this strategy, not reverse it.

The bottom line is they have long since decided to let the international side of the operation wither & abandoned any real effort to fix it. They need to find an excuse to make it someone else's fault. The AUD / Wages / Unions / Legislation / Governments inaction / Government intervention - take your pick from the menu. Anything else except managements deliberate and calculating strategy to move the capital to Asia.

Lets face it, one can always find a reason to justify a course of action you were always going to undertake. This is a conditioning process for the Australian public, condition them for the [engineered] inevitable failure. But it must become someone else's fault - that is crucial to avoid or proper public scrutiny

FYSTI

Excellent post that hits the nail right on the head. Pure and simple management are f..ng it up.

As for the MBA types, well they are a dime a dozen in todays world.

Plenty of drivers in the world but few skilled racing car types.

I mean what kind of highly qualified MBA spends copious amounts of time and energy posting on annonymous forums.

The bull**** on some of these threads is absolutely astounding.

A few people have brought up the "efficiency" of Pilots in regards to the number of hours they fly compared to other companies Pilots. My question is whose responsibility is this?

Is this the Responsibility of Management to roster them to do more hours making them more efficient? Or if it is a regulatory concern then is it not the Responsibility of Management to seek a better FRMS that gives them the ability to roster better? Or are the Pilot group causing the inefficiency themselves by not accepting requests to fly more hours?

As far as I've been made aware by others working for Qantas the majority of them don't reach their Flight n Duty limitations therefore they have more hours to be used they simply aren't being used, so therefore shouldn't this be an issue where Management are not making sure the hours are being used as efficiently as possible?

Now I'm not great with Financial stuff (The fact that I used the word "stuff" should be enough evidence of this!) But I just had a quick look through the Qantas Annual Report 2013, what I noticed under "Expenditures" was Man Power and Staff Related which amounted to about $3.825 Billion, or about 24% of their Total Expenditures in that section,
(Qantas Annual Report 2013)
After continuing to read through a bit (ie, Skim it cause it's a lot of voodoo to me!) we get to the KMP (Key Management Personnel) portion which lists their Short-Term and Long-Term Benefits, Other Long-Term Benefits, Termination Benefits and Share-Based Benefits which totaled to $16.899 Billion...
(Qantas Annual Report 2013)
Is this correct? Is this report really telling us that this group of 17 KMP are worth (Whether through shares or direct salary) 4.4x the worth of all the other staff combined?! Or am I just misreading/over-simplifying it?

Pickering has a rant, but the REALLY interesting part is at the top of the comments below, the long comment from trooper 5 "why holden went down the gurgular" (sic) Extract from an article detailing work practices and union control at Holden. If even half of that is true, they all deserve to go. It has the ring of truth for me, for it mirrors what has gone on in the past in unionised mining, and still persists today on some sites in NSW and Qld. Utter rorting, union-protected. NOT, repeat NOT saying this is the case with any Q employees, but as increasing parallels are drawn between the definite demise of Holden, and the possible demise (unlikely) of Qantas, be wary of being sucked into that vortex. Keep your distance, preserve the brand.
And be wary of wonderful new agreements on offer, the back-slapping may turn into howls of anguish a few years down the track when the company shuts up shop, citing unsustainable costs .They may be playing a longer game than the average member can comprehend. Bluescope Steel, anyone...?

Ixixly
Nope the total for the KMP is $16,899,000. Millions not Billions.

I thought the figures were written in Millions, therefore 16,899 Millions?

I nearly fell of my chair laughing when I saw that QF employees want to by a major share and turn it around. Capt Woods might be a good pilot of aircraft but I'm not sure that qualifies one to run an airline!

The sole responsibility for labour management lays on the shoulders of the QF management.

QF pilots can become more efficient via negotiation. However consider the cost of the labour mismanagement.

1. Assigned leave = less flying per annum.

2. Failure to utilise the JQ MOU = surplus QF pilots.

3. Gifting of routes to JQ = surplus QF pilots.

4. Direct entry recruitment for QF Freight = surplus QF pilots.

5. Direct entry Captains JQ = surplus QF pilots

6. Jetconnect = surplus QF pilots

7. Atlas Freight = surplus QF pilots

8. Operating QF Captains as FO's or SO's = increased operating costs.

9. Stagnation of career progression in QF = Every mainline Longhaul FO's on 12 year (highest) pay rates.

The use of pilots under the Qantas mainline awards may be marginally more expensive. However having pilots sit idle & unproductive must be costing a fortune.

MC

And that is what 'they' will use against crew ALL the time, and you can't argue with it. It is definitely 'their' fault, but it serves the purpose to trumpet it.

We have 1,000 pilots that flew 100 aircraft. We now only have 50 aircraft (discounting the ones we pay to have parked:) ) so we clearly have too many pilots....

Ranmar - thanks for pointing that bit out, indeed interesting. Sadly Qantas staff will be lumped in the same basket, despite the fact almost any 'technical' Qf staff member would be earning very similar (if not more) in any of their competitor airlines. And would definitely get better staff travel benefits!

Nikki, I suspect you are a journo, but in relation to QF, the problem it appears to be, that QF is a high cost carrier, and its domestic earnings are not enough to offset the low yields in gets on the International market. And the fact that any money it made, was bled off to the poor choices by the board, and management, Jetstar Asia. They totally overestimated the loads and work they were going to generate. The world is moving towards mega carriers who control dence flows of traffic between hubs, and away from Flag Carriers, who 20,30,40, years ago were the way to go, and those carriers had a strong say with their respective Govts. who was allowed in and who was not, they don't so much now. So you see QF is really pushing it uphill in just about every way, and the cost of living, wages, and unionism, only adds to its problems. A Mega Carrier can afford to pay its pilots and engineers top dollar, it can afford to offer fares QF can never compete with, and no union will dominate it, especially from the middle east, where unionists are as rare on the ground, as Dodo's, and it will be the middle east that leads the charge. It would appear, that to actually save the company is to give up on longhaul, perhaps keep LAX, and go back to a thriving Domestic market for the time being, get rid of JQ Asia, but whilst this sounds feasible, the amount of job losses would be considerable, and no Govt. wants to preside over that. So Joyce is caught between a rock and a hard place, (and so is the Govt) but for Joyce, most of it, is of his own making, but really the company was basically doomed, from the day Dixon became the CEO, and Joyce walked into a firestorm, when he took it over. It would be a totally different kettle of fish, had Borgetti got the guernsey. A man with vision and insight, QF would have had a chance, and certainly more negotiating skills with these Mega Carriers than it will have now. If QF goes almost totally domestic, its save face for the Govt. (see, QF, is still the National Icon) the public will be appeased, they still have their Airline, but for the staff a unmitigated disaster, job wise. So the best outcome we can hope for that QF merges into one of the Mega Carriers, flies under its own name, keeps the staff, it has at the present time, but the unions will find their Middle Eastern Masters totally intolerant to outrageous claims and pay rises, and there will be a steep learning curve of a new way of doing things there, but if they don't accept that, then QF could well go the way of GMH, caste aside as too expensive to run. A interesting year coming up, and a worrying one for many, we can only hope common sense prevails, and save this great airline and its staff.

dont you mean great memory ....

It only just occurs to me, but if moving capital to Asia has been their plan all along, then maybe thats why Borghetti didn't get the top job was because he might have been against it? Just a thought (with probably zero truth).

I would say you are pretty close to the money

this has been the case for over 5 years.
when I look to travel overseas I check the available flights on web jet.com or flight centre.com and of course the costs.
left side of the table of flights that comes up is the cheapest. right side is the most expensive.
always!!! on the left are Thai Airlines, Malaysian Airlines, Singapore Airlines.
absolutely always in the far right hand column is Qantas with an equivalent fare twice to three times the fares in the left side column.

I fly Thai Airlines and I fly Malaysian Airlines, partly for the cultural experience.

Gentlemen I would suggest that I and millions like me are the cause of the Qantas problem. A total incompetence in responding to the challenge posed by being always in the right side column with a fare twice the competition is the actual cause of the problem. With a little irish poofter playing his games at the helm you have no chance.
ymmv.

I don't think pilot (or engineer) wages are a concern for QF, I suspect cabin crew and ground crew are where QF are not competitive with their International counterparts!