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Old 17th Feb 2006, 12:02
  #321 (permalink)  
 
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In 2 years you will all be sitting in the UMINA RSL on a BIG FAT Qantas package..... The same company you whinge and bitch about...... Give me a$2.5mil package and a few first class tickets around the world and I'll show you a JQ Flight Attendant who brings home $900 per fortnight .... And resents every minute of it...... My biggest whinge is will I trade in the 5am start 6 sector day or declare bankruptcy as I earn less than the cleaner who cleans up the vomit in the toilet. Happy flying guys....
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Old 17th Feb 2006, 20:40
  #322 (permalink)  
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The entire point of my post to the faaa was to suggest a series of meetings to discuss points which crews believe that we can negotiate with rather than have the company tell us they want in order to save money.

It was hardly brain surgery to suggest this but the problem we face apart from the company is that our union officials are not open enough to understand that crew might want to talk about their future in one venue at the same time or over a series of meetings.

The company as well as the new IR laws are indeed the enemy but so too are internal politics and power plays between people who should not find the suggestion of a discussion threatening.

The post by jetstar FA is an interesting one that highlights one of the problems we face in society at present. Jetstar fa applied to J* and would have been told of the pay and conditions and still continued with the application. Now however, he/she points out how lousy the pay is compared to someone else.

If the pay and conditions are so bad (and they are compared to other airlines) why did the crew member concerned continue with the application? The same applies to VB and any other job you might find interesting until you find out how little they pay.

If no one applied to these airlines because of the poor remuneration then the airlines concerned would have to increase their pay offer to attract candidates and the problem would be solved. However, there is something about people that makes them go ahead with the application even though they know they will have a hard time making ends meet…and then they complain about it….

We are looking at some tough times ahead and if the unions concerned including the faaa are not proactive then they will go the way of the dinosaurs .I do not count giving into blackmail as we did with the JFK vote as being proactive but to act decisively and start planning now for our next EBA instead of playing politics and protecting ego’s.

I have made this post with little or no reference to other people on pprune and certainly no abuse, let’s see if the faaa can respond in kind with a plan and tell us what they have in mind to tackle the company before they hit us.
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Old 17th Feb 2006, 21:28
  #323 (permalink)  
 
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You will find that the FAAA leadership over the last 20 years have never been opposed to meetings of members.

As someone who has attended nearly every union meeting over the last 20 years when possible, the most disheartening thing for me as a member is the fact that less than 30 ppl turn up to meetings.

Given that on any day when meetings have been held perhaps over 1000 members are in town and the meetings have been widely advertised i believe that the majority of crew arent interested in attending meetings unless there is some immediate threat to them.

MM outlined at the meetings on the NYC shuttle issue that in 2006 he and his team would be engaging in some very serious dialogue with crew at meetings and by other methods. Yes lowerlobe i havent seen it in a newsletter and perhaps you would have liked to see it outlined in a newsletter, but i hazard a guess that it will come.

What will be interesting is when the meetings are held how many of us will actually attend. The executive of the FAAA meets every month, why dont you attend one of the meetings as a guest if you are really interested. Unless they are discussing matters of confidentiality i am sure you would be welcome to attend.

Forget the politics of who did what or said what, or who should have done what ok... At the end of the day the FAAA officials are lilke every other flight attendant. They work, have families and mortgages. None of them from my knowledge have ambitions beyond being a Qantas flight attendant and take their roles as an FAAA official seriously.

Over many years i have seen officials come and go and apart of a handful of self interested assholes the vast majority have tried to do their best for crew. Some with more success than others.

I have to say though that the FAAA and its predessesors is the best union in the country and is without peer. There is no other union in the country that is as accessible as the FAAA, provides more communication and responds with newsletters and emails and updated web sites like our union does.

I say this as i talk to other workers in this company who havent heard a thing from their union for years. Bearing in mind that the majority of FAAA members are women and statistically are not interested in the issues that we discuss in here, its remarkable that we enjoy nearly 100% membership.

I think that more than anything this has become a forum for venting our spleen and its not to different to what goes on at crew drinks in the past. The group that meets in the sutherland shire are no different to the group that meets on the northern beaches where we discuss issues over a beer and tell our tales and support each other through the shi*fight that has become our job recently.

Please bear in mind that when they talk at sutho, or on the northern beaches or in crew rooms over a beer its largely kept in house and the dirty linen is not displayed to the company.

This forum is read by Dixon and almost all cabin crew management from time to time. I have heard that if anything all it does is confirm their view that we are indeed dinosaurs and must be crushed out of existence.

Sad i know but we dont often help ourselves. When they perceive a great divide between the FAAA and the membership they smiile. when they perceive a divide between the long haul and short haul divisions of the FAAA they smiile. When they hear how we hate our management they are convinced that they must be doing a good job.

I think that the solution is encouraging crew to attend FAAA meetings when they are called and turning up there with an open mind and having a fair dinkum talk about the future.

That's not to say that forums like this dont have their uses but lets try not to be totally destructive in the process.....Just a thought
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Old 17th Feb 2006, 21:37
  #324 (permalink)  
 
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SR is near the bottom

yes peg747 Sr is not the senior one. but he doesn't do full rosters, picks and chooses at times whats available from open time, drops trips due to union meetings and so on. LJ and other senior guys influence SR at their meetings at the fishing club. dont tell me otherwise as i know some of the stories.
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Old 17th Feb 2006, 21:59
  #325 (permalink)  
 
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so if a union official manages to fly as much as possible he is criticised. If he or she doesnt fly they are criticised.

Another in here is posting that MM and AS should do at least one trip a roster and others are lambasted for fitting in flying around FAAA duties. I am of the absolute conviction that its about union bashing and nothing more. These poor bastards cant win no matter what they do. And as far as union officials being influenced by members and talking to them i would have thought that was a good thing.

Can you give us an example of the sort of influence you are talking about in some practicle way.. I mean sommething that an official has done to protect "senior" guys?? what is interesting is that from my personal knowledge SR was in favour of the NYC dispensation and the majority of the shire guys voted against it...Some influence lol
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Old 17th Feb 2006, 23:07
  #326 (permalink)  
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Pegasus,
If you are genuine and are looking for ideas here’s one, I believe that we have to take the fight to the company. We have to put the heat on Darth and his apprentices and show their rhetoric to be as false.

Call for a media interview with other Qantas unions and point out that Darth was telling porkies when he said that the company had a reduced profit of 9.6% compared to the previous time last year.

When you take into account the $69.6 million set aside for restructuring and the one off accounting provision of some $52 million, the company actually increased its profit.

This then shoots down Darths call for job losses especially if the company can do this when the fuel price has increased so much...

I would love to see Darth interviewed on TV and watch as he tries to explain his creative accounting exercise.

As I have said we have to be proactive and that does not mean giving into blackmail which was happened with the JFK vote.

What happens if they tell us the same thing with the SFO trips ,that if we don't do something else they will crew the SFO trips with AKL crew..do we give in again or do we make a stand...

let's take the fight to the company and not let them off the hook when they make a mistake and a deliberate one such as this to justify their call for a reduced Australian workforce…

Show everyone that Darth's description of the state of the company is false and that we don't need to take the drastic steps that he is calling for because of his deception to the government,the public and the stock exchange

Last edited by lowerlobe; 18th Feb 2006 at 00:53.
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Old 17th Feb 2006, 23:15
  #327 (permalink)  
 
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Pegasus thanks for your comments.
Unfortunately I do agree with you that holding meetings would be useless as members simply do not turn up, not because they don't want to, but for a myriad of reasons, not enough time off, too far and so on.
However don't misunderstand this for non interest!
I have absolutely no objection to a union official picking out open time trips,I understand that from time to time they need to drop trips for union business.
As long as its not always the "cushy" trips.
MM and AS should do a trip per roster, after all there is nothing better than first hand experience! Its very easy for non flying people to forget "what its like" out there!
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Old 18th Feb 2006, 01:34
  #328 (permalink)  
 
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may i suggest

union official are volunteering to do the Syd-adl-drw-sin (or via mel) return trip. that should remind them of their responsiblity to provide a safe working environment. of course they wont go on it.
peg747 of course most of the shire boys were against it . they used common sense and understand they cant trust the company and have somewhat mixed feelings about the current leadership of the faaa. promises such as the akl fa's and at the same time doom and possible job losses always helps pushing the agenda. lets not forget a large number of females dont vote at all, which is very sad. as i said before the fishing club looks after the interest of senior guys, the JFK shuttle does not affect them.
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Old 18th Feb 2006, 02:39
  #329 (permalink)  
 
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FAAA flying

Pegasus
If its so critical that MM and AS always be on hand to deal with urgent and critical issues that arise how come they close down the whole FAAA office for 10 or more days over the Xmas period, I suppose nothing critical happens then!
What happens when MM and AS go on their 6 weeks holidays, nothing urgent happens then!
Come on don't give the excuse that they need to be there 24/7, that is nonsense.
There is absolutely no valid reason for them not to fly! and see how the SIN/DRW/ADL/MEL or SYD sectors are with that spacious crew rest.

Hmmmmmm.......
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Old 18th Feb 2006, 04:36
  #330 (permalink)  
 
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Unhappy "COMPUTER SAY ......NO !!!"

.............just spoke to a mate on that JFK horror trip. He said "the FAAA hotline was as good as useless"-no answer/no call back for hours (must of been down at Tradies with L J and the crew playing Bingo ).
QF mis-Management were up to their usual tricks of bullying and THEIR interpretation of the EBA !!
Eventually, the crew got off and a Hotel was found on Long Island ??
Quote: "the union "support "(sic !) was woeful !!"
WWW
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Old 18th Feb 2006, 04:49
  #331 (permalink)  
 
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but wed web woop according to Pegasus AS and MM don't fly exactly for that reason, someone has to be there to answer the phones during a crisis and someone has to make decisions...... that is why they simply cannot fly!
ohhh thats right it was a decision in regards to the special JFK dispensation, in that case its run and hide let the crew sort this one out!
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Old 18th Feb 2006, 05:14
  #332 (permalink)  
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WED WEBBING WOOP,

Can you pm me or post the details on the JFK delay..how many hours they were on the aircraft and what management tried to get the crew to do?
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Old 18th Feb 2006, 05:43
  #333 (permalink)  
 
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JFK trip/snowstorm

a mate of mine rang me from mel. he pointed out the JFK snow storm and all the experiences punters had made it in the age. he told me a journey was on board and written the whole disaster up. from sitting on the tarmac in jfk, back to the gate etc. then the a/c went via auckland out of lax (appears stuff up by lax groundstaff) and so on. not the best ad for qf
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Old 18th Feb 2006, 06:33
  #334 (permalink)  
 
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Hell on flight 108: getting home is a 56-hour ordeal

Author: Steve Foley
Publication: The Age (7,Sat 18 Feb 2006)
Edition: First
Section: News
Keywords: Qantas (7)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ODDLY, it was the captain of Qantas flight 108 nearing the end of a 56-hour journey from New York who put it best: "This is not Qantas' finest hour," he said.

Few among his several hundred bedraggled passengers, many destined for Melbourne, would have disagreed.

They would have sympathised with the young American girl phoning home after touchdown on Wednesday night: "Mom, I've just been on the flight from hell."

"Hell" was the extraordinary time it took flight 108 to travel from John F. Kennedy Airport to Melbourne, a journey that normally takes 23 hours. We should have got home at 9.25am Tuesday, not 7.30pm the next day.

Perhaps it was not the kind of "disaster" to be mentioned in aviation annals but from the outpourings of apologies from Qantas area managers, to the unaccustomed frankness of frustrated pilots, it was a public relations fiasco.

When travellers are miscast in the tragi-comedy-drama that unfolded this week, they bond. An esprit de corps developed among groups as diverse as Orthodox Jews coming to Melbourne for a wedding, American students bound for university in Australia, surfers from Canada, seasoned business commuters and even a journalist returning from holiday in the Big Apple.

For most, flight 108 became an endurance test to rival anything the producers of the hit reality TV show The Amazing Race could conceive.

This amazing race to get home included not only the need to navigate around hundreds of cancelled flights (due to the worst snow storm in New York history), repeated delays, little information and no ground staff in attendance.

That much was expected, but not a 12-hour wait on the tarmac at JFK without food or refreshment as Qantas management and flight staff debated whether to queue for 190 minutes for take-off to Los Angeles or line up to find a spare gate back at the terminal.

One businessman fell asleep for seven hours and woke expecting to be over LA. He was stunned to discover he had not left New York.

When a Turkish Airlines jet skidded off the runway earlier in the night and another runway required urgent snow clearing, all departing jets had to compete for the only remaining take-off path.

Flight 108, we were told, faced two obstacles: the lack of sufficient fuel to queue for hours and still reach LA, and safety limits on the crew's hours of work.

As we taxied, engines burning fuel to keep the air circulating, cabin staff were ordered to arm the doors. This meant that for 12 hours we could not be served food or hot drinks and there was no entertainment. The passivity of the passengers was remarkable, as was the pilot's growing anxiety.

"Ladies and gentleman," he said in one broadcast, "I don't want to alarm you . . ." Later, he said: "I don't like being snowed, and there's a lot of snow out there."

Information from airport authorities was not forthcoming as the convergence of delayed flights trying to get out and scheduled services trying to get in became unmanageable.

Returning to gate six 12 hours after we left, was surreal: slumped in the terminal were the same faces from the flights that preceded us.

Flight 108 passengers then began another 12-hour wait while a replacement plane and crew flew from LA. To make matters worse, Qantas announced no hotel rooms could be found.

Past midnight, almost 30 hours after our original departure time, delayed flight 108 was finally headed for LA. But just as it seemed things could not get any worse, they did.

On arrival in LA, Qantas announced an unexpected diversion to New Zealand. The reason? Crew changeover - those safety limits again.

As flight 108 crossed the international dateline, the captain said we only had been given the "partial truth" for the diversion to New Zealand.

It seemed Qantas ground staff in LA had failed to inform the crew that our flight was delayed until 2.30am. They had been bussed to the airport at 9pm, and crew work limits had automatically come into effect.

But that news, for some, was only the penultimate blow.

"Ladies and gentleman, for those customers waiting for dinner, there is no chicken left but there's still plenty of drinks," we were further advised. What a good idea; let's all get smashed.

Steve Foley and his wife travelled to New York as economy-fare paying passengers. They were given an upgrade to business class for the New York to Los Angeles leg of their return flight.

Caption :PHOTO: Snowed-in: New York virtually closed down this week.
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Old 18th Feb 2006, 07:44
  #335 (permalink)  
 
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but the FAAA and QF management reckon everything is hunky dory!
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Old 18th Feb 2006, 07:45
  #336 (permalink)  
 
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Qantas Long Haul Auckland Base Recruiting NOW!

Jetconnect Ltd a wholly owned subsidiary of Qantas in New Zealand is currently recruiting for Long Haul Cabin Crew to be based out of Auckland and operate on Qantas Airways Main Line service Ex Australia and New Zealand.

Must be a Permanent Resident of New Zealand or an Australian Citizen is also acceptable as Australians can work freely in New Zealand.

Although employed by Jetconnect you will be operating on Qantas Aircraft with Qantas crew similar to Qantas Cabin Crew UK.

Register at www.jetconnectrecruit.co.nz

Anyone have questions please PM me...

Good Luck to All and happy flying
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Old 18th Feb 2006, 08:14
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R4P, you have just illustrated the real danger to Australian Based Long Haul crew.

AKL crew with no hours limitations, no overtime, no extra pay for new york shuttles, no taxis to and from work. no 36 hour rest breaks and no union .

and with a base salary of less than 20K aust i am sure there will be lots of interest but what will the quality be like.

Do QF really care?? i wouldnt have thought so...its best and less down the back of the bus these days

How do we compete with that guys???? any suggestions???
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Old 18th Feb 2006, 10:30
  #338 (permalink)  
 
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Hey right4primary,

do you have any idea why 30% of the base [80 odd people] resigned from QF Jettconnect Longhaul last year?

It surprises me given that a job as an international FA is traditionally highly sought after and coveted.

Do you think that it might have something to do with the attrocious pay and conditions that go along with the job???
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Old 18th Feb 2006, 15:54
  #339 (permalink)  
 
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Hey Guys and Girls..

I can appreciate your feedback and understand your concerns..

Firstly we earn a base of say Thirty or so thounsand a year NZ...

u get 36 minimum rest at home base..

Yes we work hard and alot of people leave as they get tired and burnt out with no incentive etc...

It is a great job but treatment is harsh has proven. Turnover is high and they are always recruiting but the Quality of calibre is quiet low as it is not a so much sought after job in NZ like it is in Australia...

As you may be aware there are many of us aussies working over there and we all want to go home but it is not possible as transfers are not permitted but for the love of our job we are sticking it out and pulling the hard yards so to speak..
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Old 18th Feb 2006, 15:57
  #340 (permalink)  
 
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Also FYI...

We are in a UNION called FARSA..

Negotiating our new collective agreement
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