Question about the Qantas layoffs....
 

Hello all... just wondering of the 1,400 or so jobs that Qantas is shedding, does anyone know how many of them, if any, are pilots. I wouldn't mind a breakdown.... thanks a lot!

No one has been told jack s..t yet

Flight Ops at present are going over the figures. In the early 90s there was a similar downturn in aviation, the only thing that happened was:
1. About 30 or so pilots went to other airlines on temp. contracts for a couple of years.
2. Some pilots changed fleets. (747 to 767)
3. Very little promotion.
4. Most outstanding leave taken.
5. No recruitment for three years.
6. No pilots jobs shed.
Qantas is in a far....far better position than it was in those days. If things continue to be difficult in the airline world then something similar may happen, but I doubt it.

Taking into account all factors, including the imminent delivery of new aircraft, the natural movement of crew through retirement, promotion, moving over to AO etc, are retrenchments really likely?

Certainly the need to plateau recruitment for the time being is there, however (the above factors considered, not to mention the inevitable fading of the SARS problem) would there be enough flight crew in 6 months time, assuming the current recruitment freeze were to last for that long?

That's what they are hoping for apparently. They will also reduce rostered flying hours down to the minimum as well if need be. Reading into it, I think they are hoping to reduce the possibility of redundancies by suspending recruitment for the forseeable future.

etoms
 

240 to be retrenched from engineering

I'd bet money that QF will be short of tech crew (read pattern line holders getting called for standbys etc on a regular basis) within 6-12 months. I base that on no info other than that provided by my intesetines.

NB: I have been known to be wrong once. ;) :D

Have to agree with the Keg on this one.

Just flew with a senior check Captain in QF that was concerned about the large number of Captains to retire over the next five years or so and the strain it will put on the Qantas Training Dept.

After he quoted numbers and the logistics involved in re-training not only Capts but also F/O's/S/O's etc etc it will be a demanding task.

And therein is the 'interesting' bit. Figures from bidbook show about 150ish blokes to go within the next five years (working on 60 here!). If all these blokes are on the 744 it could well create residual slots for 5-700+ training programs- including the 150 crew to replace them.

Any 'expansion' (extra aeroplanes) the airline does on top of what we have now (and that includes AO) adds another 14 direct entry pilots to the scene and will create 7 new commands and 14 new F/O training slots. Interesting times ahead.

MMMM, yes well, no doubt with regards to the 150 ish, most of them will want to slide their way into the domestic market to try and pay for their three or four ex- wives and abysmal financial planning and bring a grinding axe to the young blokes attempting to make a leap forward. Most of them dont know when to give the game away and they'll be there till their 70 dramatically slowing promotions and recruiting.

Does laying off staff really save money for Qantas? I have heard the figure $70 million worth of reduncancy payouts in this round of lay-offs. Additionally I know for a fact that currently in the Engineering department at the Sydney International Terminal there is an average of 12 engineers brought in on O/T to cover the work load each dayshift. Then these guys were told that they were to lose 18 work mates from this area in the reduncancy process. Seems to me the bean counters are once again going for the short term look good gain, when in reality there will be no savings and more probably an increase in costs. I can see a time in the future when there will be an employment process undertaken by Qantas to answer its short fall in engineers, and the "savings" made will be a drop in the ocean compared to the real costs of this ridiculous process.

Can anyone who can understand the gains in laying people off, answer a reasonably simple question....What REAL gains are made by sacking staff in times like this?

loungelizard I doubt too many will go past 60. Most will have had enough by then and the chances of passing the medicals with stress ECGs will be slimmer.

Bus Tie Breaker

None, it is either a zero or negative sum game.

Looks good on the financials, as the loss of human capital, corporate memory and skills and can't be shown on the balance sheet.
Worse the "savings" the company makes are actually just a ransfer od cost from the private and public purse and in any event the cost of recruitment and retraining and resizing when it all comes good wipes out any "apparent" saving.

Having said that, the strict corporate governance now required and the voracity and short term view of the stock market = minutes:rolleyes: and the institutions who control the lhuge loan capital airlines require, forces companies like QF to service their needs not the staff.

I am certain that Geoff understands that very well but is stuck between that rock and a hard place.

And he is not being cute when he says that its the future longevity of the organisation that is the overiding concern.

Life is not a perfect place.

Can anyone shed any light on how manning is calculated for the QF acft (eg. I heard that approx 6 "tech crew teams" are required per 744)? I presume different ratios of tech crew to acft would apply for long/short haul (not to mention the 743s)

Keg - you mentioned 14 DE pilots, due to possible fleet expansion but will the fleet size actually decrease if 762 or 743 acft are retired?

bdcer I think that Keg means that those figures relate to each new aircraft in an expansion. There would seem to be around 7.5 crews per aircraft.
743s will not go within 5yrs due to the money being spent on them.
Yes the 7 762s may be gone by the end of next year but there are another 9 A330s comming. There may yet be further expansion.
So the amount of recruitment will depend not only on retirements but also expansion.

RaTa.
Hate to disappoint you but you don't fail stress ECG's just because you turn 60. The ticker is OK or its not OK.
There are some pretty unfit looking over 60's passing stress ECGs and continuing to fly on class 1 medical certificates and class 2.

Last time I looked discrimination because of age was unlawful in the land of OZ. Choose your words carefully in the work place.

MoFo.
I was not having a dig at older pilots, further to this I do not and never have advocated that pilots of 60 plus should not be flying. I don't believe what I've written is dicriminatory.
I was merely trying to put my point of view accross that passing medicals as one gets older becomes harder, not impossible. With that in mind, a stress ECG is more likely to throw up any heart problems before any ECG taken at rest.

Cheers RaTa, but is the 7.5 crew figure inclusive of domestic acft?

If I was a junior QF pilot right now, I would be hoping for a limited amount of retrenchments....

Sounds silly I know but (and this is the real reason why large retrenchments are unlikely) QF must offer VR first before any compulsory retrenchments.

A Pilot with say, 35 years in QF would be entitled to 135 weeks pay at highly favourable taxation rates. Anyone with 3-4 years to go to 60, and who was planning to go anyway, would be out like a shot, leaving the 744 Captain ranks rather threadbare.

Massive promotions would actually be needed, which coupled with the huge VR payments to the company's top pilot earners, would render the exercise a waste of money and counter-productive.

Stop worrying guys, it will take more than this overhyped SARS thing before there is a problem.

You all talk about lay offs, I think you will find there will be more to come in the near future if these problems overseas dont go away. Friends flying these Asian route routes on CX, SQ, QF etc are all reporting very low loads ( ie 85pax on a CX A330 ) out of MEL to HK. How long can all these airlines sustain these losses before huge retrenchments start to occur if not a total collaspe. Its a sad time for aviation and no ones jobs are for life anymore. The AN collaspe taught me that, never stop looking for work boys, you never know when you might have to jump ship. In regards to the QF expansion and more A330's etc, I think old Geoff would be a fool to expand his fleet and he knows it, overseas travel into AUS is down by 50%, AUS Airlines now only flys once a week to HK ( the rest of there loads are S---t, so my friends who work there say ), lucky QF has money in the bank to ride out the storm, yet this can only last for so long, CX reckons they have enough cash to last 15 months, the old school airlines have to change the way they do things other wise they are heading the same way as AN, PAN AM, UN, AA the list goes on. Wake up and smell the coffee boys, check your senority number and hope that your not in the bottom third. These are interesting times, never bag other airlines because one day you might be trying to get a job there, the industry is too small and people remember.