PPRuNe Forums - AOA's position

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Why hasn't the AOA put anything out yet. I keep checking my email. This should be priority #1. What is there stance on this "Special Leave Scheme" bullsiht.

Letter to Chairman

Check AOA's website interesting letter to Chairman dated 14th April.

They don't have a position, because they are "in talks".

EMAIL JUST IN

Ladies and Gentlemen

CX ANNOUNCEMENTS ON COST REDUCTION MEASURES

By now you will probably have seen, or at least heard about, the
announcements on intraCX about the Company's proposals on cost reduction
measures, including SLS.

The General Committee's negotiating team has been involved in talks with
management over the past 48 hours.

We are currently putting together a paper explaining the details of what is
being proposed and our recommendations on what we believe the Membership
should do. This will be sent to you over the weekend.

Please read the Company's documents carefully and, of course, the paper we
will send to you.

In the meantime, do not rush into signing any option offered until you fully
understand what is being offered.

Good enough for me so far.

I don't like this email. It sounds like the Aoa has already accepted the notion of SLS and is just trying to sweeten the deal...

Hope I'm wrong.

yes it could go either way here and I wont be surprised.

Does AOA ask for stock option just like in 1999 ?:confused:
It is better than paycut only !

Like the document says, it is voluntary.

Make up your own mind, your decision will not only affect you but your peers as it has been spelt out!

Is it time to play hardball in all of this?

Look forward to seeing AOA position.

A few thoughts at this stage:

1. With extenders, why the hell should I have a pay cut?
2. Will the company fold if I don't take unpaid leave? Yes: Take the Leave - a job is better than no job. No: Then I am giving up pay to help the share holders out, nothing more
3. Will the company pay me back when they are making money again? Yes: Take the leave. No: Get stuffed
4. Will the company give me the leave in one block? Yes, maybe take the leave if you have the money and want the time off (I know I could do with a break - have been working damn hard and feel shagged). No: Then expect to have the roster stacked, be giving away money to change G and O days into SL days (Employment Contract states how many G Days one should get per year - anyone check if they actually get them all????)
5. Does the company pay 4 times more for a HKG Transit to Haeco than other airlines (transfer pricing - Haeco does not do profit share, so transfer the $ there and make CX look worse)? Yes: Stick the leave. No: Still stick the leave, I don't trust CX Magr.

Overall, I suspect the SLS is bull****. If they want to save a few $ chop the extendees and chop the blokes who hedged the fuel and conspired to fix cargo prices.

This is from the FAQ section:

33. Will we be reimbursed with the pay reductions if business recovers?

Staff support and commitment to the company during this difficult period will be greatly appreciated. We don’t know when the market will turn around or when the company’s situation will improve, but when it does, all staff will benefit from a stronger company.

Reminds me of the TV show "Yes Prime Minister".

I think the people will feel LESS disgruntle if the guy who screw up the fuel hedging is fired or at least management come out for a public apology....afterall, they often compare themselves to HSBC in some ways, then why can't our execs do what theirs did and apologize publicly that they loss 1.1Billion USD of shareholders money

3. Overview of the Scheme

This is a voluntary scheme which will enable all employees in the Company to demonstrate their commitment and........

Reading between the lines here, choosing to not volunteer will be interpreted as a lack of commitment. A lack of commitment will mean......

This is a veiled threat

HKAOA - mostly a pack of weak dicks who gave up on the 49ers and likewise will give up your contract. :=

canuckster....why don't you shut your mouth and let us think your an idiot instead of continuing with your comments and removing all doubt ? The present AOA commitee is entirely different than in '01. They are also all volunteers.....so if your not happy.....get your arse in gear and help out. At the very least wait until the AOA has issued it's opinion.

A half dozen threads all on the same topic. I hate to be anal but
perhaps they should all be combined into this one. After all the
whole situation is about the AOA's position.
Also , the idiot managers would find it easier to follow
the incredibly bad moral problem they are creating AGAIN.
Every response being read by potential future applicants
will turn more people off from joining CX.
To Nick Rhodes-you will have to put the retirement age
up to 70 to give the bulk of your pilots any sort of old age.
They will revolt on you eventually.

AOA insider, thank you for the calm and rational response. I, for one, appreciate it and agree that this decision needs to be well thought out.

How can the AOA have a single view when they represent a membership with conflicting interests. How can they recommend a course of action that satisfies both the 53 year old A-scaler and the 32 year old FO on byass pay, not to mention the 25 year old SO whose base has been taken by a DEFO.

canuckster, I guess you would know!:rolleyes::}

Quote:

You said it beautifully big mach. They ask for our blind faith but they can't possibly serve us all. :sad: Whichever way it goes the pilot body will end up bitter over this and it could mean the end of the union as we know it.

The union ended when we voted to dump the 49ers. These guys were sacked to break the union and we capitulated. Now we reap the rewards.

Sunday evening and still nothing from the AOA. The 30th approaches!!

Yes, maybe it's the AoA whom should be replying by the deadline of the 30th. not us as individuals... With the result of our VOTE which should be put to us very soon i hope.

It will be out tomorrow - Patience!

If enough FO and SO's don't sign COS 08 then eventually it will force them to come up with something better .....their age discrimination and bypass pay problems will still be there and the pressure will still be on them to come up with something.

A lot can happen in the next ten or twenty years untill the average Fo/So reaches 55.....

Quote:

Dead wrong! Why are pilots so #$^&ing dumb.. They are counting on the FO/SOs not to sign... What part of divide and conquer don't you understand?? There is one simple reason why we will never win but most of us are too @#$%ing stupid to figure it out... Lost $#%&ing cause if you ask me.... @#$^!!!

So for the common good you are saying all SO's should sign to CoS 08 and take a million dollar total pay loss just so we can be buddies on the one payscale?

:yuk:

The Rules of Engagment

My dear chaps and chapesses,

I thought I would be pompous enough to air my views on all this as some of the people here seem to be convinced they are involved in a battle they can win. Some of the young blood on this forum are obviously in need of a reality check in the form of a TIA explanation. (This Is Aviation!)

Before I start, remember I have the best of intentions and that shooting the messenger will get you nowhere apart from releasing some of that testosterone that you young men should sell on eBay. You would make a fortune, take 20 years unpaid leave give the fingers to CX and live a long and meaningful life at last.

I am merely going to pass on advice that was given to me in the 80's by a senior manager of a well known French/Dutch Major airline (who by the way also think they are the best airline/aircrew in the world despite the fact that they break an aeroplane every 3 years... so you see Cx' arrogance has got a long way to go yet...).

Now he was not a visionary or some financial guru, he just had some common sense and had been in aviation long enough to know how the big game of chess was played.

The rules are these,

- You will be an employee (understand "shaftee")
- Never turn down a command or you will regret it (sounds familiar)
- The market has a 7-10 year cycle so if nothing has happened to you for 7 years and something comes on the table grab it with both hands
- Prepare for a career in the RHS with short spells in the LHS so never spend more than FO pay, EVER!
- Never work for a subsidiary company because when consolidation comes around these guys are always shafted (he knew, he was a shafter:E)
- Never complain about commuting because we managers hate it when a guy signs on the dotted line to be based somewhere and then cries that the commute is costing him his life, cash and health.
- Never move house for a flying job. The job has to come to you, if not it is not good enough and you will find another one.
- Do your job well because One strike and you're out and your family name will be remembered forever.
- Have a good life outside work otherwise you'll go bonkers.

This my fellow shaftees is the oath that you took when you decided to be a commercial pilot.

Furthermore, as far as CX is concerned, it is no different than other airlines. It is a rogue airline with rogue accounting practices partly because it is the way they are, and partly because it is the way they have to be to survive. (look at the name of the well "respected" carriers involved in the price fixing fiasco which is by the way much more unexcusable than the fuel hedging issue). Hell, I used to fly for an airline who was sending late rush bags via limo to passenger homes charging a fortune and funny enough the director of the chauffeur company was also sitting on the board of directors of the airline. Not to mention the brown enveloppes full of £$ etc that we were flying to the channel islands. I'll stop as the list goes on forever. CX do it with HAECO and whatever else but "Hello", wakey, wakey, wellcome to the real world.

When you join CX you know that you are in no mans land (HK) and that you are in for a rough ride.:sad:

But make no mistake. Life is just as unfair in other pastures, only in a different kind of way.

All I will say is this:

- You always complain that CoS/pay never go up but as soon as one group of pilots gets a "payrise" you bitch and moan about it because it was not YOU this time (€ vs £, when clearly for the poor European guys when the £ went down the tube, they took a beating. So they were only going back to what they were owed. Having said that, when they agreed to be paid in £, it is risk they agreed to without being forced by anyone but themselves. Anyway, battle won and instead of being happy for them, you called your mum because that was unfair bla bla bla...)
Same goes for the Freighter dogs who have been sh@t on for so long rumouringly going on B Scale (whether it materialises or not, perso I be amazed if that's the case). Rather than be happy for them you just b!tch like there is no tomorrow. Any improvement is just that, an improvement.

I am not being funny, but some of you guys are worrying about your commands for the wrong reasons: you are going to have to grow up first. CX is one airline where you need to be able to walk the walk not just talk the talk to get a command. They do not like angry young men who think God owes them a command.

- When you decide to go to HK, yeap, you take all the good expat stuff, along with complimentary housing allowance (aka golden chain), but you'd better get it right, just in case you can't make it back on the base. Some guys have turned down Pax commands and done their bit on the freighter instead, to protect their base. I don't think any of them regret it. "Happy wife, Happy life", "it's not all about $$$" and that sort of crap...

- A Scalers...Well Well Well. Actually, I would say 99% of them are lovely guys who had the gutts to move to HK when the place was really anything but this buzzing cosmopolitan city that we know today, and you could not get back to Londonistan in 13 hours flat 4 times a day. They have made money and good for them. They tought they would retire at 55 but know they can work to 65. Again an improvement as most of them want to stay beyond 55. Just stop insulting your seniors! The fact that you were born 20 years too late really has nothing to do with them! Just don't fall in the trap of stereotypes.

- Freighter commands out of seniority... Really? So when these notices to crew came up and said do you want to fly the 400 in the LHS, did it say in reverse seniority order? If it was not going to be cheap, you would have had another ASL fiasco. It has to work for managment, not for you. But some of you are to good to accept to fly rubberdog sh!t I suppose...

...I am sure a lot of you hate me and quite frankly I don't care. I will only like you back because you have the gutts to say so (albeit without stating your name). We are all aviators fulfilling our passion in a hostile environment, so be it. They will never take away from us breafast over the Alps or Sunrise in ANC in the Summer. That's why they hate us.

Don't fall in the trap. Don't turn on each other, you give them amunition to say that we are overpaid premadonnas etc...

In a nutshell, turn their pirate ways to your advantage, because quite frankly they don't give a stuff about 20 or even 2000 unhappy pilots ("we fired more than 50 guys, CNs and FOs and the airline didn't stop" quote unquote).

Be brave in the flight deck, not on Pprune and people will respect you for it. A friend of mine was diagnosed with leucemia at age 23, believe me he would have accepted a 2 billion percent paycut to get rid of that crap. Put things into perspective for goodness sake. (I am sure one of our late young fellow pilots and his family would love to be faced with the dilemma of age 55 right now)

I am not saying don't fight but be responsible for your actions, be happy for the guys who get a good deal and try to be one of them, and only then will you get respect from your peers.

This was probably my first and last post, (I can hear the sigh of relief from a lot of you), I am now standing by with my helmet on. Good luck guys, fly safe, take care of your family first. Hell to them, love to us.

Cheers
AB

AB-

Your rules of engagement seem to contradict themselves. Don't cry about commuting, yet never move house for a flying job.

AB

Great stuff :ok:

AB

Great thought provoking post. We all have to step back to see the big picture sometimes.

AB,

very emotional post, almost had a tear to my eye.

But how is that any help to us now, exactly?

Or are you just telling us to give up because it's a lost battle anyway, take whatever paycut the company offers, pick up the pieces, and bend over forward and apply generous amounts of K-Y??

I don't understand the point of you post...

That goes down as the "all-time-most-sensible-thing-I've-read-on-pprune." :ok:

Quote:

- Never turn down a command or you will regret it (sounds familiar)

Never turn down the money now or you will regret it .
Pilot is a very risky job. It is too easy to lose your licence.:ouch:
Earlier is better.

Why do people think the post written by AB is so great? Why, just because it's long? It is completely out of touch and out of context!

The whole thing could have been summarized by saying, bend over, take it like a man, but don't worry be happy!