Well if you wanted to be paid 250% of market rates & do sweet f**8 all for it , it would probably be a pretty good gig

The senior SOs on the A380 are earning up to $280K , mid to senior SOs on the B744 routinely break $200K

Think Cathay are paying $90K aren't they ?

Take the jolly good chap of an SO on sectors that your competition routinely use two crew on

Travel the world with the Hooray Henry Brigade of cabin crew , who just refuse to retire & themselves earn up to $180K

Yes QF International is returning to profit , we have turned the corner , and about to get back in the game !!

Yes the large Asian & ME carriers are a bit rattled by the whole QF International turnaround.

You now have an international fleet capacity that is a whooping 30% greater than 1985 (pax numbers to Aust gone up 600% during this period)

Go QF International - the days of glory will return

Interesting points dolittle and ones that have been discussed amongst many at Qantas. The impact on the issues you raise on the quality of applicants for Qantas is worth considering also.

Flyboat north went onto my ignore list long ago so I have no idea if any useful contribution has been made there- I'd be surprised based on past performance before being added to my ignore list :E.

One thing to consider as a difference between Virgin, Jetstar and Qantas. Qantas have 1700 pilots. 50 pilots a year hit retirement age (65 ostensibly*) every year for the next 15 years. What's the demographic at Virgin and Jetstar? They've had exponential growth for a number of years now but if it's back to organic growth of only a couple of percent a year, what does that do for promotional opportunities when so many of their Captains are very young?

*Yes I know it's not a hard and fast number but it's not like there are 40% of crew going beyond 65. It's actually less than 10%.

Flyboat I say this with total sincerity, let it go.
The angst and frustration you hold so tight to will actually do you physical harm over the years, and most likely impact upon your personal relationships.
Two years ago you were looking to do your CMEIR and were seeking info on a Jetstar cadetship and then on Air NZ SO jobs and the TTMRA so you're pretty fresh to the industry to harbour so much ill will and to continually bang on about the the pay rates of people who have been successful.
I'm not being facetious, you should choose not to worry about it for your own sake. The guys and girls who have got those great jobs didn't get there by nurturing a bad attitude.

Sadly it appears this statement was spot on! :ugh: :rolleyes: :E

Framer thank you so much for your concerns very nice of you.

I can assure you that there is no angst or frustration at all, however if I did feel there was I would be consulting someone who had professional qualifications and experience in that field , not an aeroplane pilot.

The point I was making in the post was really a rhetorical one.

That is the questions asks when will QF hire new pilots ?

It's the wrong question really , just look at the scenario QF International has , it is mathematically impossible for them to make a profit.

So what are the options ? Really the only one is to shut it down, which in reality is what Joyce has been doing.

Again the QF International fleet is probably about the same size as it was in 1985 , during that time time international pax to Australia have gone up 600%

Do you think there might be a message in that little statistic , & it is more than just all a management conspiracy ?

Flyboats said :
Right about now, I'd take that bet.

Yeah. Of course they are going to make a profit. AJ's KPI'd share options depend on it!:}

What was the bet again?

QF Long Haul has around 350 less pilots flying its fleet than it had 4 years ago.

Even with that almost every pilot category is operating on min hours. There is a lot of slack to be taken up before recruitment happens. Bring on the new type.

Pure Seniority: There are only 440 captains slots at this time in long haul. There are about 40 permanent FO's so the pure seniority number required to get a LH command right now is about 480. (yes I know there are currently pilots with commands on numbers higher than that.)

I put that out there because even with a new type, some former 767 captains may not re-qualify for a LH command for a long time. The 737 may be their only option till we get a LOT of new type aircraft, remembering that the 747 is likely going to disappear in the short/medium term and the pilots will have to go somewhere.

The same situation applies for FO's, with different number thresholds of course.

Never read so much BS in all my life.
Why don't we wait and see what the profitability is for QF International come the full year results and next FY. No rush to sign up a new deal. Ask yourselves why QF are in a rush before the Full year results.
Sure Alan and the exec teams bonus will be great!
To suggest a few night credits and a bit of overtime cut are suddenly going to propel QF international to massive profitability are a joke.
Do you really think they are going to look at that and say, "wow, how good Are the pilots sawing off their own legs, let's flush them with 787s, like the good boys and girls they are".
Anyone considered what happens to terms and conditions once the 787 replaces all the 747s and the a330s?

I think you mean J* and others are paying less than market rate, not the other way 'round.

here's an interesting idea.


We seem to be giving heaps of money to Kiwis of late (eg. millions to dump their average wine in OZ)


when Kiwi airlines flying domestically in Australia, either RPT or charter, can the pilots/cabin crew be employed on Kiwi salaries & conditions ?


(that's with kiwi registered aircraft & a kiwi AOC)

Not compared to getting 3000%++ market rates (fools and idiots are available for around $18ph) and being in senior management or being CEO. Lets not forget that in another era the stature of our CEO could have seen him have the opportunity to go straight to the top as a Chimney Sweep. I just wish Qantas had chosen a better Sweep. Even if they had to double the penny a day salary to tuppence and you threw in all the perks they get, Shares, First Class travel, free food, cars, housing etc etc etc I don't think you could have failed to get a better applicant. Personally I wouldn't have even insisted on the ability to write in crayon to cast the net as wide as possible.

ALL the 'staff' at QF work bloody hard for the money but more importantly put up with absolute rubbish from complete fools whose airline qualifications are probably that they once made a paper aeroplane or maybe even sat next to someone at school whose brother made one. I am very confident the complaints (which get back to money) would barely be mentioned if the daily dose of complete garbage and lunatic 'strategies' did not have to be swallowed.

Not talking about J* rates

The fact is that Qantas Second Officers are earning more than US Widebody Capts & that is why your international business doesn't make money

Plus probably the fact that you take the bum boy along for sectors than nobody else does

440 LH Capts , for what ???

Only 12 Airbus 380s , 26 A330s , not a lot of 747s - a dozen perhaps, what an excessively high crewing ratio you guys have

Especially when you consider at least 16 of the 330s are domestic usage only ; standard crew ratio of 5:1 - well that's how the rest
of the world does it anyway

You have them crewed at ULR ratios , for an airline that primarily does regional international flying

Truly Bizarre

10 crew per aircraft for long haul ops. Same as the middle east company I work for uses.

Dom you need to look at the data a bit more closely , see you don't have 44 long haul aircraft - maybe you have 24 LH aircraft , 10 MH aircraft , and 18 SH aircraft in your WB fleet.

Emirates have a crewing ration of 9 crews per aircraft for ULR , lesser crewing ratios for LH , and lesser again for MH

You guys are exceeding the most extravagant crewing ratios out there.

This sounds truly like Hollywood - hey I want to come to this party , where's my invitation ?

well, jq has/had pilots in nz on oz conditions so presumably it can go both ways.

Qf staff have fretted about this for 10+ years. And the logic follows that genius decision to shut the business down. Work out the staff numbers from then? 25,000 ish staff and not a single aircraft being operated. Why didn't they sack everyone?

Qantas is at the stage where it isnt beyond the realms of not having enough aircraft to operate. And that is most certainly NOT the fault of staff, who of course will bear the brunt of the blame yet have been warning of this train wreck for years and years and years. The last few comments here could almost have come from board members writing in Qf Pravda!

'Times are tough in aviation and with the oil price having risen from $140 a barrel to well over $30 we are going to have to exercise our latest and grandest Glorious Five Year Plan and cancel our 787 order, defer the remaining 380's and use a number of 330's to park at SIT so our Chairmans Club Guests about to fly EK to Europe can have some Qantas aircraft to look at. An announcement regarding the expanded Management Posititons required in the new Operational, Logistical and Marketing Divisions required to make this adjustment will be made shortly. A Presentation Ceremony will be held at the Qantas Campus to welcome the lucky candidates to their new positions and we urge all staff to make the effort to come along on 1st July to help celebrate this special event'

Spare aircraft....
 

Looks like JQ doesn't have that problem:}

Check out their mid week "Fleet Optimisation Plan" in YMML

http://i61.tinypic.com/t5lkdz.jpg

Sounds reasonably considering we have 20 or 30 managers per pilot. :}

Fly boat,

You really have it wrong.
Alan has downsized QF international over a long period of time.
Why?
1.Massive growth/investment in Jetstar at the expense of QF. Unless you count a lounge as a fleet investment
2.Ancient fleet of QF international aircraft that required high maintenance and high fuel consumption at previous record high fuel prices above $150 barrel
3.The dollar was $1.15 US
4.Foreign competitors were dumping capacity with the high Aussie dollar
5.QF pulled out of European and UK rights to partner with Emirates.

Your suggesting flight crew cost was a major factor, which shows how baseless and poorly considered your argument is.

Thankfully the fuel price has more than halved and Is forecast to remain low,
The dollar has dropped 35% and is forecast to drop further
Foreign competitors are cutting back capacity, improving our yields.
Our cost base just dropped with the fall in the AUD.

Let's just see the full year result and the forecast for next year.

I understand Flyboat is just trolling, however staff ratios are management induced, not employee.
Point the finger at management.
You write about crews per airframe.
When QF gifted A330's to JQ, they duplicated the pilot roles. Why didn't they have QF pilots fly the aircraft, rather than train additional crews? A few short years later those aircraft are returning to mainline and the additional crews that were hired are now being trained to fly Boeings.
Previously Tasman flying was crewed by QF pilots. Those roles have been duplicated by Jetconnect. Short haul pilots have been low on hours for close to a decade. Aircraft utilisation is abysmal as a result of creating new branches of the airline to operate existing routes.

Fleet utilisation is anecdotally extremely high - amongst the 21J-41Y categories at least:)

Brainless or braindead? :)

In February, over 2600 members of the Transport Workers Union working at Qantas agreed to the wage freeze in return for commitments that they would continue to work under the existing terms if Qantas creates a new corporate entity for its international business, improved consultation and training provisions and access to long service leave.

Any chance we can get some negotiators from the TWU?

There were 4 jets flying domestically in NZ. When Qantas shut down it's NZ domestic operation they transferred those aircraft and crew onto the Tasman and then expanded the operation. The mainline crew who previously operated those routes were transferred to Australian domestic ops with a commensurate drop in hours flown by mainline crew.

I'm pretty sure that's not accurate either. Jetconnect was launched in NZ because Ansett NZ had fallen over and QF knew they could get a bunch of crew on lower terms and conditions than mainline pilots then enjoyed.

Keg you've been around long enough to know that's not quite correct.

In 2009 when Jetstar took over the NZ ops from Qantas, Jetconnect had 8 aircraft. 4 X 737-400's JTP, JTQ, JTR, JTS and
4 X 737-300's JNN, JND, JNC, JNB

At the time it was a mix of domestic and Tasman flights.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm sure it was Mainline crewed 737's flying domestically after Ansett went bust until Jetconnect was formed as a wholly owned subsidiary of Qantas. Then kiwi crew started to be hired. Many of the initial crew in JC were Australian, ex Ansett. During the 13 years of JC operations there have been many mainline pilots fly for JC. Currently there are 2 mainline second officers on LWOP and many Aussies ex Qlink.

Jetconnect is an older wholly owned subsidiary of Qantas than Jetstar by one year.

Jetconnect was crewed by ex-Ansett pilots under a contract with AWAS. Qantas eventually took over the operation.

Jetconnect is an unnecessary complexity to Qantas 737 operations in my opinion. Nothing against the crew themselves. The idea that this setup saves money, with the AUD and NZD near parity is hard to swallow considering extra background staff required. So much for "One Airline, One customer"

From a TVNZ article May 1 2001:

"Qantas says for the first couple of months it will be using international flight crew, but by August it will have hired local staff for its domestic flights - but it will not say how many people it will be employing in New Zealand."

I'm pretty sure Qantas management would have sold the Jetconnect subsidiary to mainline pilots just like they sold the Jetstar subsidiary, full of lies and promises unfortunately.

I think once Qantas has reduced debt they will once again expand and hire new pilots. Running Jetconnect is a way to reduce costs during a time of debt conciliation.

Fruit, thanks for the correction on the numbers. A long time ago now and the memory is a bit fuzzy.

This was my original point in response to Elzilcho though. The issue wasn't that mainline pilots didn't want the flying when Jetconnect was created, it was that Qantas set it up to deliberately exclude mainline pilots from it.

How many aircraft in Jetconnect/ Kiwi rego now? Still 8 or is it more than that. Either way, when they closed down Qantas domestic NZ, those airframes and crew were shifted. To the Tasman to the detriment of mainline pilot flying hours.

8 soon to be 7 with one going back to mainline. Jetstar picking up more Tasman flying.

Disregarding the crewing of Jetconnect, my original point was that fact that Qantas utilisation of 737's is reduced by not flying Tasman services that were previously covered from Australia. Those aircraft now sit idle overnight.
I clearly remember the early starts ex NZ to do 1st flight of the day back to Oz. At the other end of the 'Aus Day' we used to fly Perth/DRW to DPS, CGK, SIN as well as plenty of redeyes domestically. These flights are now operated by additional airframes by different 'entities'.
The additional airframes then need to fly during the day creating overcapacity.
If you think overnighting mainline crews in hotels in NZ is expensive, consider the expense of under utilised airframes & over capacity.

I completely hear what you're saying -438, most of your flying has gone to Jetstar. It's frustrating watching it from the other side of the Tasman. Yes Jetconnect took over the remaining Tasman from mainline but that was a result of Jetstar. Jetstar now flies more Tasman destinations than Jetconnect. Its very frustrating watching more and more Qantas lines of flying being given to Jetstar. Look at the Hawaii, Queenstown, Tasmania, Darwin, Gold Coast, Japan and a lot of Tasman routes to name a few, all very profitable routes given to Jetstar. Jetconnect is the least of Qantas mainlines problems, it's definately been a thorn in her side but not the core problem.

JC are not employees of Qantas. They are contractors. If there was a merger as you suggest, the contractors would not be absorbed into Qantas.

Jet connect is a "wholly owned subsidiary of QANTAS" and as such are employees of the group. Just like Jetstar, SAA, EAA and Network. The only contractors are Cobham and occasionally Alliance.

And should the jetconnect flying be absorbed back into QANTAS mainline, all jetconnect crew would be welcomed with open arms in mainline. At the bottom of the seniority list like everyone else.

In the transcript of AIPA vs QAL.
"In the court’s view, Jet Connect had not abandoned its corporate/commercial existence to the extent that it would warrant a finding that Qantas was the employer of Jet Connect pilots."
It may depend on NZ employment law and the contents of your contract but it's not clear cut. Is JC covered by Fair Work Australia law?

And would that same courtesy be extended to the guys at EAA/SSA and Network?

The precedent has been set by the opposition, it's now time for the QF Group to emerge from the dark ages.

Fuel-Off :ok:

I would doubt it.

Unfortunately, keeping separate pilot group silos is an industrial tool they seem to enjoy keeping at the ready.

PG