Nikki, get out your history books. Up until the eighties, it was common for pilots and engineers to basically run the flight side of the company, and that included the decision on aircraft purchased. The bean counters and administers ran the rest. In TAA the manager was Capt. Frank Ball, in Qantas it was Capt. Bert Richie, and both airlines thrived under their control and management. Both men had the respect of their staff, both men had a habit of either turning up on a flight, or into a hanger, to have a discussion with the flight crew or engineers, to see how they were travelling, and what ideas did they have for improvement. You would find them in the galley, having a chat with the CC, and would not be aware they were even on the aircraft, until you took a walk. (Thank God, I left my tie on) unless the CC dobbed them in (more often then not) a different time I know, but if it worked then, why should it not work now? Since the bean counters took over, you could hardly call it a roaring success, and the board would not know a APU from a camels arse. I am with the suggestion of having a pilot and engineer on the board, two senior blokes that have the ability to read what the company needs in aircraft, who have had many years of experience, and have insight to the future needs of the company. Just because you are either a pilot or engineer does not make you brain dead, to outside your realm.

And who does VIRGINS heavy maint???
Good old AIR NEW ZEALAND

Fantastic! Nikki, Rom and SOF: Get out there and buy a few hundred million QF shares because AJ needs you like never before. Fortunately there are a few true visionaries out there who get the 'big picture' and won't be swayed by nonsensical arguments made by people who have never had to put a ppt presentation together!

At least there are some real people out there who know how to run an airline profitably without having to rely on things like staff or aeroplanes!

If these manager types that can setup a stunning but useless ppt really do exist then they are not employed by Qantas. :D

Nikki,

You quite clearly have no idea. Give it a rest.

N

QF domestic started with a clean sheet of paper in 1989, Until a "hero" of '89 conspired to undercut it in 2000 and so began the slippery slope downwards.

Interestingly, QF first employed the A330 under the QF shorthaul conditions. As I understand it, when the domestic/international establishment reached a trigger point a few years later, BOTH the company and AIPA agreed to transfer the A330 to the Longhaul award. The result was a loss of money in the pilots pockets and a huge loss of efficiency and also increased costs to the company. Something about it being just too hard to run an international operation under shorthaul provisions as the company systems could not cope.

Ida, If only QF could get Capt Ball back from the heavens, he would be the ideal man to give it a good and thorough shake-up.

moa999 let's rewind the thread a little shall we,

#997 by noip then away we go again with the, "employee costs" people on here again & again, until noip posts .. hint, hint, nudge nudge, wink wink say no more...

then moa999 says again #1158

Hell, am I out of place by saying "a few Qantas pilots particularity LH ones" may want to post more heads banging against the wall than noip did in his last post?

it goes on...

Yeah, we know, I promise you....

my bold

Urmmm, that's the way it has always been for long haul, and....??

speaking of Thailand.... sounds a lot like what Clifford & Joyce are trying to do, backfired for the Pepsico corporate wallies..... thought they knew SE Asia..

moa999, and the other "employee costs people" on here, in my view Clifford & Joyce are doing a Pepsi Thailand with the Jetstar brand using Qantas money on the backs of the hard work done by the operational staff at Qantas for over 90 years. I call it corporate highjacking.

As this is a pilots network I support them, I want to see all of them prosper, they have worked hard to get where they are today and they are good at what they do....

And another thing, the original Qantas was always International, the core reason why the Jetstar International aspect annoys the crap out of me.... I never had anything against the domestic version created by Joyce, he did the right thing.. but his "Jetstared ego" is threatening the existence of "Qantas pilots jobs!"

What pis_es me off more, the current mini CEO of Q Int, who so far has done nothing for the cause that I can see other than go along with whatever Joyce wants, so what's the point of his existence other than a good example of an unnecessary layer, a "list manager" if you like who was born from a "holy created bean counter division" Frequent Flyers, again off the back of brand Qantas, yes it creates money which should always go directly back into QF! The question is, does it? :ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:

Qantas group is top heavy with bean counter types, way too many of them, who appear to not have a clue about the core business, Qantas. So what do they do? The usual, they blame the operational staff costing too much, been there done that too many times now, no sole... Won't be long until one of these MBA types arranges to install coin operated tugs for push-back, The T&C's will be amended to read "ground staff to kick the tin," the suit gets the bonus.

C'mon Romulus. You should know better than most that an airline that outsources part of it's workforce still wears the cost of that work.

If an airline didn't directly employ any Pilots but contracted them through a Labour Hire company, they aren't running an airline without Pilots.

Virgin Australia technically do not employ any Engineers. They are all employed by Virgin Tech. If the numbers are what they are Romulus, are Virgin running their airline without Engineers?

Steve.. but not when they: a) can get the work done in a lower cost market, and b) that facility has superior expertise and work practices, plus have the man power to turn the job in a shorter time period.

The Virgin E-190s I think go to Portugal for their larger C checks. They would be paying €50 per hour (about $77 AUD) and this is for skilled people who who know the E190 inside out. But it is not just the hourly rate they also have enough skilled man power to turn the aircraft around in half the time they can in Australia.

The equivalent net cost in Australia is about 50% higher. Even after you take-off the fuel & ferry costs they are probably saving 500K plus on the check itself and get the aircraft back in the air quicker, and do not need to carry the staff.

This is not about having a go at our workers, because the cost of living and costs of running a business in Portugal are only a fraction of Australia.

Where Virgin Tech have the advantage is they do not have the legacy structure Qantas has, and has far more flexibility where it can take its heavy maintenance.

The real issue though is not staff costs, but management decisions.

Compare Virgin's decision to buy the E190s compared to Qantas' choice of B717s. The E190 has significantly less maintenance requirements and significantly lower fuel burn per seat/kilometre.

I won't even go near the B777 vs 747.

But take now the B787. Why would you choose to put it into Jetstar (which arguably will never make money) rather than giving yourself a competitive advantage with your mainline product. If QF were to deploy its 787s head to head with VA 330s domestically, head to head with competitors' A3330s internationally it has a game changer... newer better product, with lower cost, and higher yielding markets.

Plus the 787 could open up so many more routes.... what the 787 offers Qantas is a profitable growth vehicle... instead the vision is to take back Jetstar A330s and try and slug it out with VA... just dumb!

Post 1177 - couldn't agree more.

Hiwaytohell if you keep on repeating the lies of management, they won't come true.


The average Qantas LAME wage (level 10) is $48.47AUD per hour not 50euro. The shift penalties in HM where you are doing the comparison are 7.5% on top plus 10% super. The Australian LAME doing the same work is cheaper than your Portugal version.


Quicker elsewhere? Are you kidding? Australia has the fastest HM turn times in the world. The 737 c checks were cut from 45 days to 19. Nobody could do it faster. Before Mel HM was closed 52 aircraft in succession were returned to service on time and clear of all defects with no deferred maintenance.


Every single 737 sent to Asia came back more than a month and up to 2 months. They sat on the ground when they returned as we fixed many of the problems they either stuffed up or weren't assigned to do in the first place. Things like galley benches that were electrified, seats installed in wrong locations and static ports that were painted over.


I will go near the 747. So much cheaper o'seas? The recently completed 747 reconfig was bid between Avalon and Haeko in Hong Kong. Haeko bid was $200M and Avalon $195M. 2.5% different. Take your transport costs, extra time with aircraft out of service and the ground time required to repair the issues after maintenance and Australia is cheaper.


Virgin started with nothing (no hangars or staff) and had no option other than to outsource their E190's. They are slowly, piece by piece, bringing work back home.


Please don't believe management when they say it is cheaper overseas. It's just another attack on their own workforce.

Sorry Tartare if I let a few facts get in the way of a good story.

So let me get this straight... I recall the 787-8 and -9 was ordered under Dixons complimentary strategy of A380s operating high-density hub-and-spoke and 787s operating and opening up thinner long-range point-to-point destinations in the QF network. Then along comes a new CEO and the Boeing aircraft are dropped into an all-Airbus Jetstar fleet with all the flight crew conversion costs associated. Am I wrong?

YET I hear they were ordered with light weight struts to increase pax density, forcing a de-rate of the engines and will now not have the range to do SYD-NRT or SYD-HNL, the specific routes they were were intended to operate for Jetstar. Is this true?

And Jetstar is supposed to be the savior of the QF Group? Is it not already profitable operating A330s?

The passenger response to the inflight experience of the 787 has been phenomenal. It's the kind of experience you can charge a premium for. QF Int is already charging premium prices and delivering tired 25-year-old airframes with tarted up IFE. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. The premium market you are trying to attract and retain - business and frequent flyers - know the difference. The Jetstar bogans are predominantly price-sensitive: they've saved their pennies for that once-in-a-lifetime trip to Phuket etc. Frankly, the 787 is wasted on them. Jetstar already offers the bogans a quantum leap in a flying experience: it's called "flying". The quantum leap offered by the 787 should have been reserved for the long-suffering mainline pax forced to endure 25-year-old boeings, instead of wasted on an incremental improvement from a "next-gen" A330 to the 787.

Can someone please tell me: In who's universe does it make more sense to use 787s to "maximise profit" to replace <10-yr-old airbuses in a price-sensitive but supposedly profitable business segment, instead of "minimising losses" in a supposedly hemorrhaging mainline >20-yr-old fleet - where the aircraft were intended to go when first ordered?

$48.47 AUD??? Really.

My mate is a QF 737 LAME in BNE. Last year he did negligible OT and had about $125K on his group certificate... for the year he probably worked 1,600 hours... that is $78 per hour.

Once we add oncosts for super, leave loading etc you need to add another 30%... so we are at $101 per hour net cost to QF assuming he was productive for every hour he was on duty.

On top of this QF has the overhead of the hangar infrastructure, the airport lease, GSE, tooling, the utilities like power, water... and everything else from toilet paper to uniforms.

I hear your argument re Asia and from what I have seen I would agree there is probably no real advantage... but this comes down to the fact there is a skills advantage in AUS that offsets the higher unit cost.

But in skilled markets like Europe, USA & Canada, heavy maintenance is still significantly cheaper than Australia.

Stick to the facts! This may be partly true initially for the 737 ops in 2000, but then they acquired the hangar in MEL and subsequently built the hangar in BNE.

For the E190s the first heavy check did not come around for 20,000 cycles, by which time Virgin had well established facilities in Australia.

And FWIW I would never believe QF management... they are THE problem!

$125K on his group vert is definitely believable, he must be a Level 14 guy or something. The younger guys will not be pulling this sort of cash. I know, I'm one of them.

N Monster said :"Jetstar already offers the bogans a quantum leap in a flying experience: it's called "flying". "


Gold

Yes Mr P.
Keep hearing the same old stories about painted over static ports etc.
Heard them back in 2005 too.
I wonder when this old favourite will resurface:
snopes.com: Air China Jet Engine

Rowdy, JQ never had the monopoly on bogans. QF specialised in them, with a thing called the "Fun Jet". It went to Fiji or Bali, and took hundreds of kids, already pissed, and high, to these destinations. They were a nightmare to the crews, and as it was in the time of smoking, being allowed on board, the "funny mushrooms" were nbr 1. I remember one of the Flight Engineers telling me, you did not need donks, the thing would "float" home, and the cleaners and engineers wanted nothing to do with it, until it had been aired. Hundreds of kids, smashed, sleeping, puking, fornicating, and smoking. It makes todays flights, look positively regal.