QR facts for the upgrades

[Capt.Tentacles]

Smirnoff N21, what you saying is that upgrades are happening? which fleet?

For now just on the "Push Back Tug"

Hope this info helps......See you on the "Left-seat" of the TUG......"Commander"

Happy Push Backs!!!!

[goatliner]

Smirnoff N21,

I greatly agree on some things you mentioned but nevertheless I have to get some things straightened out.

Firstly the money issue.If you are a senior first officer in Qatar flying A330
and you finally jump hoops and get ( on 320 of course ) you will take a salary decrease of 10% in exchange for 4 bars,a ****ty lifestyle and a ****ty route network.
Secondly, the day you pass your first linecheck on 320 you will loose your seniority in the company.You are now considered as a new joiner.The company tries to cover that by letting you keep your staff number but this number is not related to your seniority ( I know I will get a lot of **** for this line by the blindfolded "everything is fine first officers" in the company;we still got some of those).

Thirdly you will not get upgraded within the mentioned timeframe because Qatar is not interesting enough for somebody who has experience a FAA or JAR license or other choices. The number of captains applications outweigh the F/O applications ten times, so make your own picture.

Last but not least there is a problem with the experience gradient right to left, true.A first officer with 8-12000 hours that joined the company 4-5 years ago is certainly not very motivated after getting all these wrong promises and facing himself sitting next to a 4000 hrs ATR DEC on A330
babysitting him around the world.(Don't forget he is now more senior when you get your upgrade). I am not saying that every newjoiner in the left hand seat is weak or unprofessional but the numbers rised critically within the last 2 years.

So how does the company adress this well known problem? As always we try to keep the first officers concerned in line by letting them do their upgrade interview although there are already 60 plus candidates waiting for their training( from last years march selection on).
We are looking across the runway and there lies the solution 190hrs experience college graduates that we could put in the right hand seat of a A330( what a career- congratulations and not their fault to take it).
First 200 hrs F/O's are already flying on line so every captain flies as a trainer, qualified or not.
Marsalama collegues

RGDS G.L.

[Qatari515]

Sad but true.....


A very good way of putting this G.L.

I just hope somebody will FINALLY listen to waht people like you are trying to say...

TAke off the pink colored sunglasses people....QR is fooling you in every possible way imaginable!

[PIPE RIDER]

I Will give you a quick example;
2 years ago QR did not accept CRJ pilots, they did the interview a looong time ago and were not accepted,then they were called 6 or 8 months ago aprox. so in those 2 years a good amount of F/Os have shown very good skills, know the routes, company procedures,etc.. what for?? So they can become babysitters of todays DECs. When I am deadheading i feel safe depending on who is the F/O, many good guys I've flown with and will make excellent captains.

[Bat600]

goatliner

I have to get something straightned out.

The management will keep you as first officer to solve "this well known problem" ... or ... to avoid increasing the problem???

You have to raise your opinion to the management and show your FAA or JAA license and your logbook with your 12,000 hours in the right seat. (But try to explain it very carefull, because it is strange to have 12,000 flight hours and not being a Captain yet. I can imagine good reasons for that.)

After this you might get your upgrade on B777.

Marsalama, skilled and professional First Officer Goatliner

[Smirnoff N21]

The idea of upgrading people on 320 might be plausible from operational point of view but not realistic. It doesn't really matter which airplane to be upgraded on it only matters how quickly, isn't it. The problem is the queue on 320 and limited sim slots resulting in backlog of about 50 guys, if I'm correct. Even though the latest OPS review states ongoing 330 upgrades, we shall see. There's a widespread problem within industry called shortage of everything sims, slots, TRI etc. Again why not to outsource it? Why not to upgrade on 777? If QR fills the right seats on 330 & 777 with cadets then the senior guys won't see their upgrade in due time. Well, it only confirms the notion among them.
Don't take it personally take it on the rocks!!!

[9.G]

Speaking of CRJ check this out.
Senior FO's: Please see details of rapid-upgrade contract below!

Domicile: Beijing and/or Xian, China (Working VISA provided after your arrival in China - any nationality can apply)
Total Compensation: $110,500 (net)
Minimum Guarantee: 90 hours
Contract Term: First contract: 2 years. Subsequent contracts: 1 year.
Benefits:
• Pay includes: Base pay: $6800/mo, Housing allowance: $1200/mo, bonus pay: $375/mo.
PLUS: $10,000 per year travel allowance
• Worldwide Medical/Dental insurance
• Life insurance and Accidental Death and Disability insurance will be provided
• 9 days guaranteed off per month
• 30 days personal leave per year
http://www.wasinc.net/employment.aspx

[loc22550]

What do you mean Goat liner...with the seniority....
What about your end of service benefit:

For Ex: you have been 4 years as an F/O here and than 3 years as a Cpt...(total 7 years) So if you resigned they will consider you have been working for Q.A. ..for 3 years only...i can´t believe this..But you never known here..????
For the rest , fully right when you mention that a senior F/O on 330 makes more money than a CPT 320...!!!!!Is This normal....????

[IcarusRising]

HMMMMMmmm

I work in the region and was killing time scanning this and other threads when I came upon this thread and an amazing statement by Pipe Rider !...whom I think has been riding too many pipes !... otherwise he would not have made such a degenerate statement about Captains that he most likely had flown with. Pipe Rider yearns to earn command without having the basic knowledge that flying a modern bird professionally is a more about CRM and teamwork than being a Cockpit Diva ! which he and some of his friends seem to be... I pray that this airlines flight management and instructors would stop this pipe rider in his tracks before he endangers their customers lives.

Public transport is no longer a place for his kind...he needs to be directed towards Crop Dusting where he can earn quick Diva Command status!...and the sooner the better.

[PIPE RIDER]

Ups! sorry if i hurt your feelings, maybe just maybe I was not really clear, the difference between a DEC and the upgrades from inside the company is very different, WHY? because if you have been flying enough as you say and you have CRM, you know that we learn from the people that has been flying long enough in the region, on the particular type and will give you the do's and dont's. So if you add this to a high time F/O you will have a great CP. But in the opposite you bring a guy because he has more than 500 pic on a jet, and some other company took the chance with him, you will see the results that QR has had in the last two years, and just read again I have flown with excellent f/os who really deserve a shot in the left seat, they gave me my chance for comand looong ago my friend,

[goatliner]

Bat thanks for your concern and for your sure well-ment advice.
If the company and the chief pilots would not know about their employees experience I would follow your advice.
If I wouldn't be in QR longer than you I would follow your advice.
If I wouldn't know the final authority I would follow your advice.
If I wouldn't come from a big airline that would upgrade earlier I would follow your advice.
If I would not have a very clean record and would still believe them I would follow your advice.
If I would not be sick of every new joiners advice, I would follow.
No hard feelings but I have seen more good drivers leaving QR than other airlines have. What happened to all the staff numbers between 3000 and 24000. Very simple maths isn't it.

RGDS G.L.

[Black Stain]

BAT600,

Expatriots join Qatar Airways for a consistant narrow band of reasons. The most legitimate being unemployment without fault. e.g Collapse or imminent closure of home airline.

Many senior Goat First Officers share this common history, and are conveniently used by said Goat as baby sitters for DEC who join for more collourful reasons.

This being a fact, your comments do seem inappropriate.

Why did you join BAT? Please dont tell me professional excellence.

[Bat600]

Black Stain

Dear Goat First Officers

Don't be upset with reality. No one, nowhere, will never understand how an unhappy pilot or any other employee would remain on a job who do not respect him, do not give him any value, being only babysitters when they are supposed to be something else.



And even more I will never understand why do you blame the DEC new joiners for your situation. What do you believe in your pink world? Only First Officers have professional excellence in the Goat Airline? Do really believe this new joiners would not accept to enter the company as Captain? Should they say to the company: No, thanks, I will not accept the job because you have lovely First Officers who believe they could be excelent captains?



If you know "The most legitimate being unemployment without fault. e.g Collapse or imminent closure of home airline", why do you blame the whole group? You have a tendency to generalize.



I will say again, don't waste your lifetime only complaining and blaming someone else. Change your life yourself.



I still believe that IF the company could count on this excellent pilots, sure they would upgrade them and hire First Officers who needs babysitting. It sure is much more cheaper and safer.



Sorry if I will not reply to you anymore. My poor babysitter is waiting for me to fly.

[Qatari515]

BAT600,


you really have not understood anything what is going here, have you?

Being an LTC myself, I have seen the new DEC coming in.

First of all, I am 100% sure many of them have lied regarding their previous experience.

Second of all, even when looking at their experience I have been surprised many times that QR hired them as DEC!
Its a known fact by now that the recruitment team has been making huge mistakes in the past, only focussing only on DEC and forgetting all the rest!

Now it seems that they have cjanged policy. Recently large batches of FOs have been filtering through, all of them with lots of experience even in a left seat. They have been hired as FO A330! I evenmet a check airman B727, who has been hired as FO A330.


Without wanting to generalise I would like to see that in the last two years we have been hiring DECs who are not at their place in the left seat at QR. They are weak, have no backbone nor knowledge, they are NO Captains!

Once more BAT600, maybe you re one of the good ones, in which case you should not feel offended. If you are one of the weaker ones, I can understand your reaction.

But I surely understand the reaction of some of the senior FOs here. They feel bypassed, they truly feel they are babysitting during many of their flights without being given a fair chance!

And one more thing....

Hiring a DEC is 50% less expensive than training an in house FO to become captain.

Firstly: When hiring a DEC you only pay the TR
Secondly: With a DEC, some other company took a certain responsibility allready so QR does nottake any risk!
3Rd: There is a chronic shortage of experienced FOs on the market. A company as QR does find 2X more DEC than FOs willing to join!

So Yes, they do want to keep the FOs in the seats and hire DECs, because on the longer run it is less expensive this way than to have flights departing with two captains for years in a row!

[Two Dogs....]

BAT600: Aint nothing worse than baby sitting an arrogant liitle boy like you.

For the record, many of the baby sitters have left. They realized that grass roots team building and subsequent loyalty will never exist in Qatar. The Goat is a cheap Sweat-Shop. Import the labour, hold them down and make them work, work, work.... Let them go or push them out if they squeak.

"Pilots are cheap. I can replace any of you anytime". Now who said that at a pilots meeting a few years back???

The only fault of the baby sitters that have stayed is that of being gullible. That last six months of Goat management should be proof to all F/O that now really is the time to go. Dont waste the aviation boom in that rat nest.

[shneidertrophy]

At the moment, upgrades are bubbling along but at a very slow pace.

Until further notice, all upgrades will be done on A320 as that is the fleet with the highest need of Captains. The A330 suffers from a chronically surplus of Captains at the moment.

Besides that, it has been proven that upgrades on the A330 are causing a lot of bad feelings within the pilot community because there is no straight forward career progress plan in this company. People are being upgraded randomly and although a type of airplane should not matter to the newly upgraded captains, there are huge differences in lifestyle and remuneration!

So the only solution would be:

• STOP DEC hiring
• All upgrades are done on one fleet, in our case the A320
• A clear seniority list is published on yearly bases, so everybody knows exactly when he/she can expect a fleet transfer or a promotion.
• All politics and networking should be left behind us for once and for all!

That way, all is clear to everybody and no moaning is possible!

Utopia, I know, but maybe it will be like this somewhere in the future.

As general information, at the moment some 60+ First Officers are selected for upgrade and are in various stages of the process to command.

[Smirnoff N21]

Update on the upgrade issue:
A 330 guys are scheduled for their assessments flights.
A 340 guys are lagging behind.
All in all a very gradual processing.
Alas, no info revealed up to date as per maison habits.

Don't take it personally take it on the rocks!!

[CEO PITA]

Update

A330 ,340 ,320 guys going for intervew . Upgrade is going on only on A320 there is 62 waiting for training and A320 can accomodate only 2 /m so slow slow promotion !
A320 roster sucks and guy who is doing it is slow motion and short memory.

[CEO PITA]

CCT

Today confirmed new rules 5 y to upgrade . Waiting for CEOs approval !

[papyjo]

All but B....it!
This airline and its management are just liars.
Salary is average considering huge inflation (15% for 2007 and 25% for 2006), euro-dollar exchange rate, and amount of flying hours (850 to 900 hours per year with no more overtime!!!) and housing costs;
Crew moral has reached its minimum with MOST pilots willing to LEAVE, a lot actually leaving, at least those able to do so (sorry to say so but most third world countries pilots have no other choices and it has nothing to do with tech standards or personal or individual abilities).
On top of that, what drives each of us as human being which is motivation, progression and respect is completely disregarded and fooled:
-Captains have no more authority on fuel decisions (up to dispatchers) which was the only issue left to them in this airline.
-Worse than that, F/O have no future at all: Interviews still going on but the queue is now longer than the one in lulu supermarket on thursday evening: more than 60 holding in various stages but no training took place for the last 6 months!!!
They just call F/Os for upgrade, make interviews hoping that it will ease their "impatience" and that they will be kept on SBY for indefinite period of time (why should an FO resign while being so close to captaincy). WRONG!!
" you can fool some people sometime but you cannot fool all the people all the time".
The FO shortage will go from bad to worse. The 2 and 3 years old FO are getting more and more disappointed (5 years to upgrade will be official even if it is already the case).
The funny thing is that an unhappy FO will make an unhappy CPT. Majority of them will leave after 500 to 1000 hours
SO PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT JOIN QR: YOU WILL REGRET IT whether you are a CPT or FO. Go everywhere but Qatar.
You have many many choices:from far east to sand pit (EK, EY, Air Arabia..) to old europe, many airlines are recruiting and offering many more attractive points and packages than QR.
I even did not mention in this post AAB; no need for that as everything has been said and written about little big man.
Stay away from Tchernobyl!!!!!!
Five stars my .......