JetStar Cabin Crew EBA
 

So guys and gals, I heard that the long awaited EBA is expected tomorrow. The rumour mill is working hard already. Anyone heard anything about it?

There would want to be a substantial increase in wages and conditions to get my vote

Substantial? What do you define as substantial?

Then again, you could wait a few more weeks and try for an individual contract.

Sometimes, it's better the devil you know.

The Association is pleased to advise that a we have finally reached agreement in principle on the new Enterprise Agreement for Jetstar Flight Attendants.

A full copy of the proposed agreement will be posted out to all Jetstar flight attendants today and copies will be available in crew rooms. However listed below are the changes only with a brief summary in the meantime.

• 3% pay increase each year for the 3 year agreement
• The first 3% will be back paid from 24 July 2005 if the agreement is accepted by Jetstar flight attendants
• New year 2 Cabin Manager increment
• New year 3 Flight Attendant increment
• New year 1 Flight Attendant rate. (this will not affect any current year 1 flight attendant as it only applies to new recruits after certification of agreement)
• Remove trainee rate altogether
• Probationary period extended to 6 months from check to line for new recruits
• Available days now automatically made Live with the option to un-nominate up to 72 hours prior to Live day
• Short notice sick leave now 2 hours prior to sign on
• Daily hours 9:45 (up to 12 with delay or pax leg)
• Duties 9:46 hrs up to 11 hrs, must be capped at 4 legs (5 with pax)
• Cannot be rostered more than 3 duties in excess of 9:45 in any 7 day period
• RASS spans 2 hours either side of original rostered duty
• For duties 9:45 and under that are made RASS replacement duty will be up to but not beyond 9:45
• For duties 9:46 and over that are made RASS replacement duty will be to original rostered duty hours only
• Rules around rescheduling of flight attendants away from home base due to misconnections, duty hour or rest period limitations at a port where flight attendants are not based
• Generally roster to 125 per roster period however no more 130 hours in 4 consecutive roster periods (excluding initial training)
• Can roster 12 hours duties however must only be two legs (3 with a pax)
• Cannot be rostered more than 3 single days off in any roster period
• For rostered duties over 11 hours one row of three seats will be reserved as crew rest pending pax loads
• Any duty operated beyond 12 hours will entitle the flight attendant to request transport home from the airport to the value of $45.00
• Any agreed duty beyond 12 hours will entitle the flight attendant to request transport to and from the airport to the value of $45.00 each way
• Time spent on Available day span will be credited with 1 hour for every 4 hours up to sign on for duty towards monthly total hours (must be called in to achieve this credit)
• Back of the Clock flying – determined as duties that are rostered to terminate between the hours of 0100 – 0700 or duties that encompass three or more duty hours in this period
• Maximum of 4 planned BOC duties in any roster period
• Available spans for BOC duties are limited to 10 hours between 1400 and 0000
• Base swaps between flight attendants up to 3 months in any 12 month period
• Base transfers cannot be facilitated if under performance management or until you have completed 12 months in the base
• CM cannot transfer until they have been in base as a CM for 12 months
• Transfers at flight attendant request will be given 4 days Leave Without Pay or Annual Leave if day off requests have not been achieved (your choice if required)
• Transfers at Company direction will be given 4 days free of duty
• Single day emergency procedures included in monthly total for part time flight attendants
• More detail on the use of Casual flight attendants and the parties may agree to the utilization of casual CM’s throughout the life of the agreement.
• Up to 4 hours of duty travel not counted towards daily duty hour limitations for training purposes only, however still counts for home base rest, monthly duty hour limitations, overtime etc
• No accommodation provided for initial trainees if training away from home base, however will provide accommodation, transport etc for training away from ground school location
• All URTI days will require doctors certificate
• Up to 104 weeks from date of baby’s birth for Maternity Leave
• Up to two weeks for both parents at time of birth
• Minimum of 8 weeks return to work to achieve second 10 week maternity payment
• 8 weeks notice to company for return to work from maternity leave
• Days off re-credited and taken immediately following any period of jury service, further if days off fall on Saturday or Sunday flight attendant will be free of all duty on these days.
• Accommodation will be provided to an agreed standard between the Association and Jetstar
• Overpayment by the Company will require repayment no later than the second pay day following confirmation of overpayment
• Underpayment will be payable to the flight attendant no later than the Friday following confirmation of amount owing
• Cancelled accommodation allowance can be claimed up to 48 hours prior to overnight in writing for rostered overnight and verbally up to 20 minutes after call in for non rostered duty. However Jetstar must be able to cancel accommodation at no cost to the company – crewing to advise at the time of the call
• The Company and Association may agreed to trial new crew meal facility throughout the life of the Agreement.
• Flight Attendants will be asked to indicate their willingness to allocate an annual leave day into the Bank of Days for Association representative use. This will be done at the same time as voting on the proposed agreement. The number of days held in the bank will be available to any flight attendant on request.

The Association and your FAAA Jetstar Representatives are recommending a YES vote

well i really don't see why we waited this long for this EBA. It seems the same to me thou this comment could get peoples back up. My question is with over time and daily hours.

3 type of roster times - upto 9hr 45mins
upto 11hrs
upto 11-12hrs

it states in

30. (b) for all time wokred in excess of 9hrs and upto and including 10hrs the will be time and a half

(C) for all time worled in excess of 10hrs rate will be double time

Does this mean that you automactically get ovetime due to your daily flying hours

So whats the word JQ-ites?

I obviously have not read the full proposal (seeing as I dont work for JQ), just whats put on here - however theres a few things there that I think are erm a bit harsh shall we say!

Whats the general feeling about it online?

Yes, overtime automatically applies when hours worked are in excess of 9.

Sinala - depends on the base. The outports are generally happy. Most people I've talked to seem encouraged by the proposed agreement (ie. they were expecting worse). The cap of sectors on the longer duty days helps a great deal. The idea of doing 6 sector + days had us all worried.

Not that they don't do that currently sometimes - MEL base have performed 6 sector days in the past. At least it's prevented in the new longer hour clauses of this EBA.

Is everything perfect? No - but then again, with WorkChoices literally around the corner, things could be a lot worse if we don't vote this one up.

For what it's worth, at least we're all being treated equally in some regards across the QF Group. Just like us in this proposed EBA, QF Short Haul have to provide medical certificates for every URTI day. Not only that, QF Short Haul have also lost their automated meal break penalty in exchange for a manual meal break penalty system to be signed off by the CSM (which is the same system JQ use).

Flight Times
 

Just noticed some new work patterns for next month on the cabin crew rosters which have been built to include the promised short 25 minute aircraft turnaround times which will be part of normal operations.

The other thing that I've noticed is that some flight times have been clipped by 5 minutes compared to previous months for each sector to accommodate a very "creative" SYD-HTI-SYD-OOL-SYD in 9 and a bit hours duty.

Has there ever been an agreed flight time formula that is endorsed by both company and union or have our A320's been equipped with afterburners?

Terminal 2 - I would imagine its due to the A320 flying faster than the B717? Happy to be corrected by the technologically minded folk out there though...

(this is of course presuming that the sectors that are now that bit shorter have changed from B717 to A320.... if not I will happily retract my post!)

From the JQ Website:

Airbus A320-200
Number in Fleet 23 by May 2006
Maximum Take-off Weight 73,500 kg/ 161,700 lb
Wing Span 34.1m/ 111.8 ft
Overall Length 37.6m/ 123.3 ft
Vertical Fin Height 11.8m / 38.6 ft
Cabin Width 4.0 m/ 12.9 ft
Wing Area 122.4 sq m/ 1,318 sq ft
Average Cruise Speed 863 kph/ 466 nautical mph (kts)
Cruise Altitude 35 ,000 ft
Maximum Fuel Capacity 23,860 litres/ 6,300 US gallons
Range With Full Payload 4,800 km/ 2,600 nautical miles
Freight Capacity 1,800 kg/ 4,000 lb
Volumetric Payload 19,500 kg/ 43,000 lb
Maximum Thrust 108.89 kN/ 24,480 lb
Engines 2 x V2500 International Aero Engines


Boeing 717-200
Number in Fleet 14
Maximum Take-off Weight 51,710 kg/ 114,000 lb
Wing Span 28.4m/ 93.3 ft
Overall Length 37.8m/ 124.0 ft
Vertical Fin Height 8.9m/ 29.1 ft
Cabin Width 3.34 m/ 10.9 ft
Wing Area 93.0 sq m/ 1,001 sq ft
Average Cruise Speed 810 kph/ 437 nautical mph (kts)
Cruise Altitude 31 ,000 ft
Maximum Fuel Capacity 13,904 litres/ 3,673 US gallons
Range With Full Payload 2,400 km/ 1,300 nautical miles
Freight Capacity 1,230 kg/ 2,720 lb
Volumetric Payload 12,466 kg/ 27,480 lb
Maximum Thrust 82.29 kN/ 18,500 lb
Engines 2xBR700-715

:O :ok:

There isn't an agreed flight time formula used anywhere within the Qantas Group - and certainly none agreed with a union. Long Haul, in the past, have had bun fights over 'creative' schedules by pattern planning for not taking into account headwinds, etc. on some routes.

Short Haul are having the same thing happen to them too, under the header 'fuel conservation'. Like I've said before, nice to know we're not alone :ugh:

Funny how it's fuel conservation when it brings the pattern to within 5 minnutes of exceeding a crew's duty. Someone's earning a bonus somewhere!

With the 25 minute turnarounds, and R2 meant to NOW watch over Gate Gourmet as they load each individual box of nachos, can of pepsi, etc. it means one less person to clean...and as as result...no cleaning at all really.

If that's what they want, then that's what they'll get! :hmm:

(PS. I loved the afterburner concept...truth be told, they'd switch the engines off inflight and glide if they could!)

Well, all I can say is that all these stray 5 minute bits recovered by shorter "paper" flight times and quicker turnarounds here and there means that there's enough minutes left over for another nice productive 4 leg day thanks very much at the end of the month.

Warp 5 Mr Sulu!

EBA is C.R.A.P.........
Botswana Airlines has better conditions

so jetstar fa - what exactly were you expecting in this eba? I think its fine. No dramas as far as i can see. Mind you I still want to compare it against our existing eba so see the differences

The more people read it, the more I'm hearing "I was expecting worse". By all accounts, most people are happy with the OVERALL result.

At the end of the day, the following will inevitably occur:
* Because we'll do longer days throughout the month, our hours and overtime will increase.
* The opportunity for people to hit 140 earlier in the month, and achieve more time off, will exist. Especially for part timers!
* With the addition of BOC flying across the network, more crew will be flying around the clock, creating more job opportunities for Cabin Manager, Part Time slots, recruitment and movement in general.

One thing I'm hearing is the "oh, with this new EBA we can do six sector days". WE CAN DO THEM NOW! MEL base have done them before under the current EBA! At least with the extended hours there is a CAP on the number of sectors we can do.

Nothing overly alarming for me.

There is a certain pattern in our mind set developing which concerns me....
We were expecting something punishing and are confusing this small relief with less fear.
This is about payment for productivity.
This EBA is worth much, much more to the Q Group than we could ever believe.
Is it worth the $300 back pay? It most certainly is worth much more than a 3% pay increase without any imagined doubt.
Lets enter into some further discussions during the "roadshow" and ask all concerned why we are only worth 3% and listen to their responses and then I can decide why I should not vote "no" at this time.
I'd like to consider myself a very open individual but I will require a little more evidence to sway my opinion on the matter simply "because I was expecting so much worse". That answer is just not a sensible enough answer at this time.

Terminal 2,

Of course we're worth more - but why T2? We are a no frills domestic airline, flying around the country no different to any other domestic/regional carrier. We're not full service, nor do we operate widebodied aircraft domestically. This new EBA does not include international flying, unlike Short Haul or Virgin Blue's respective EBA's.

3% increases are NOT mandatory by law - and achieving this in the future under the new Fair Pay commission (an oxymoron perhaps?) will be hard work. The fact that we have got a NEW Year 3 FA and Year 2 CM level, OVER AND ABOVE 3% is testament to the work that's been put in.

Just how do you justify more than 3% when you're talking about a job that requires no more qualification than a Senior Level First Aid & RSA Certificate? AND, considering that other QF Group airlines (Eastern as one example) already perform the extended duties that are being proposed for us, how do we argue that we deserve more when we're considered 'well paid' compared to other airlines in the industry?

We are ONLY worth 3% because that's all Qantas will provide across the board. I'm personally thrilled to see we've at least achieved additional payment levels that exceed that!

We have caps where there were no caps before on extended duties.
We have new salary levels over and above the 3% being offered currently at current levels.
The expansion that hinges on this EBA creates more promotion and part time opportunities for those that want them, as well as greater overtime earning potential and ability to max monthly hours sooner.

I'd encourage you - and everyone else - to attend the roadshows to have your questions answered. Better to have an informed opinion before voting on a document that concerns our next 3 years.

All I'm saying is that what is being asked for is worth more than 3%.
This is not about our qualifications or the type of aircraft I work on or the "full service" accountabilities.

Why are we confusing this? I'm not saying that we are worth more but what we are asked for has a significant dollar figure attached to it. We are trading productivity which delivers significant savings to our parent company.

I'm hoping that the appropriate figures are presented to show that this is indeed what is fair and transparent.

I'm all for the success of the airline as the next person. I cannot however think that I should "gift" my conditions because another work group has been unsuccessful at maintaining a balance of work and lifestyle in previous negotiations. Were they happy with what they traded? I feel for them but their conditions were accepted under unique conditions to their situation and not ours.

3%
 

The increase in our pay by 3% is not a pay rise as such, it's keeping our income in line with the cost of living (cpi) which is actually running at about 4.1% at the moment according the Macq bank. A reward for our hard work would most likely come as a bonus and that's along with pigs flying.:{

Too true ricci!

T2 - valid points, all with merit. I am, however, confused by this statement:

What is it then that you are seeking, if not better pay? Better terms and conditions? If so, what would be your hypothetical guesstimate?

I do see things from your perspective T2 - and understand your position wholeheartedly. However, there are a number of things that mitigate the agreement that has been reached, not the very least which is the WorkChoices legislation which is breathing down our necks at this moment.

Is it too late to show some restraint in what we are prepared to trade?The pilots did this and effectively renegotiated many aspects of their new agreement. They are all very happy to tell you this in hindsight without hesitation.

What exactly does 3% actually equate to in relation to our productivity in dollar terms? I dont think we'd get past the first point without collectively shouting "Bingo!".

Apart from this there requires some clarification circulated to the membership to some who sincerely believe that any vote other than a "yes" will lead to our work being parted out overseas or to another more compliant work base. Where this idea has come from I can never guess, but it's something that I hear more of than any acceptance of what the content of the EBA wishlist contains.

A true & accurrate vote cannot be counted in this environment.