Excess Aircrew
 

While we wait for manning to sort through SDSR how many Aircrew are we going to lose? I am lucky enough to have already passed my pension point so have something to fall back on; but I would like to know sooner rather than later where I stand.

Oi Manning; get the finger out and let us know.

Then you'd be howling about how there had been no due diligence and 'how could they rush such a decision' and 'don't they know these are people's lives'.

If you are over 50 you should know where you stand. If your aircraft is out of service or going then no more OCUs. If you are over 45 then you are not standing on a rock either. 38-44, what skills do you have? Are you Well Above Average or a GSS?

Oi Manning; get the finger out and let us know :ugh:

PN,

You forgot, are you on a pensionable engagement? If not worry.

I am not sure if I would be too concerned if I were aircrew. The two-winged master race will look after its own and the Flight Ops specialisation (which only came into being to release aircrew back into the front line) will, IMHO, get the elbow. You will not be getting any more flying but you will be in a job.

I am not in the picture about the FOS but I suspect you are being over optimistic. If all billets are filled where would you slot aircrew in?

Making less expensive FO redundant might be a less expensive option as many will not have earned a pension although the initial retreads will have done so.

Putting highly paid aircrew in to the posts would I guess be more expensive though you could close down the Flt Ops training except it may have become a self-licking lollipop.

If trained and qualified FO were replaced by aircrew (without flying pay) I think there would be the mother of all stinks desirable as it may be seen in many quarters.

The MOD is not an employment agency and is not going to retain personnel on a just-in-case basis when the aim of the game is to lose 5000 RAF personnel. It has no track record of retaining skill and experience when it is not needed and the cost arguement doesn't wash either as it doesn't with past infrastructure spend. :)

My understanding is, for what it's worth, that Manning have established that they will be short of trained aircrew in the medium term once airlines start recruiting non-type rated pilots, so there is not much likelyhood of any widespread redundancies. There may well be some targeted at particular individuals, presumeably the older generation with little time to serve?

The trick will be finding something worthwhile for people to do in the interval. At Wiltshire's secret airbase we're reducing crews but looking to retain everyone for the future, so lots of OOA & COS jobs to be filled?

Short of role-trained aircrew is more likely.

If you are in a role that has potential to absorb more aircrew then you will be in a different situation from those whose roll had gone.

4-jet maritime will be needed less than single-engine FJ I would guess.

FJ fleets are in long-term decline, there will only be so many QFI slots to fill under MFTS, so the only growth areas in the future will be ME (A400, KC30) & RW.

We have a number of ex-Kipper fleet pilots at the Secret Airbase, already experienced ME operators, just an OCU was required to teach them to fly a truck. It's a much bigger deal to turn a single-engine FJ 'sky god' into a ME pilot, so I don't agree with your last point.

Ken, I agree about the FJ although the driver who took me to Cyprus for my overseas tour was an ex-Lightning mate who had converted to Brits.

No, my premise was not the maritime could not convert to AT but the possibility that AT was also either in decline or static as well. What about the K-drivers and 10-drivers? The latter could do the tanker and the former the A400. Of course if the UE increases to improve utilisation then that would be different.

I imagine most of them are getting their CVs and licenses sorted to go along with the v fingers in the rear view mirror as they move to the civil sector in about 18 months time.

I have heard from within BA that the company is actively looking at opening their recruiting to non-type rated military pilots. If that includes giving preference to military pilots who were formerly in the hold-pool, I don't know. I would hope so.

I think he was talking about getting rid of Flight ops completely....not sacking the Flight Ops people and then putting aircrew into those jobs... Just get rid of the Flight Ops branch.... i.e get rid of the job...not the people

Vec, feasible but not really practicable I would have thought. Flt Ops replaced aircrew. Get rid of Flt Ops and you have a hole. Put aircrew in as ops officers and it will cost more.

On balance perhaps more aircrew ops officers were non-pilots. The number of available non-pilots will reduce in the near term even.

No cheap answer.

My suspicion is that pilots of now-defunct fleets will be recycled onto other fleets and that the spare WSOs/WSOps will be filtered into ops jobs vice Flt Ops personnel. The Flt Ops lot appear to be on a very sticky wicket at the moment and could disappear as quickly as they were created if they are not careful.

Yes, financially, it is a tricky circle to square but, taking the long view, one could argue that a WSO with 10 years to push is worth keeping on in place of a Flt Ops officer who has already qualified for his pension.

I am sure, when the redundancy details are published, we will see that any short-timers will be first to go on the basis that they will get a smaller redundancy payment and they were going to get their pension/gratuity soon anyway.

Ultimately, only the individual can decide if it is the right thing to stay in and cross fingers or to take the money and chance it on the outside. IMHO the spare aircrew may get a better deal out of it than the rest of us. The RAF is not paying me to get my civil Qs as an incentive to stay in for a few more years.

I'm an OpsO and the future of my branch has been perpetually under consideration since it's creation. Issues of how well the job is or isn't being done, can it be done better by aircrew/ATC/ABM/the cleaner etc etc, will I think be made irrelevant by the over-riding concern of cost. All the while that ground branch officers are the cheapest option then I don't anticipate that aircrew will have a look in (other than perhaps the odd specialist position) but when you are building a carrier that will never operate FW aircraft anything is possible. Having been commissioned as an OpsO I don't have another specialisation to fall back on should we go the way of Sim Techs but I am in the fortunate position of already being pensionable. Whilst I'm not keen to leave it wouldn't be as galling as it will be for those who haven't yet reached their 38/16 point.

MB

The cynical part of me thinks manning will delay any redundancy until after the Apr 2013 change of conditions.

What exactly are the change in conditions?

JP,

I hear rumours that CAS is trying to push for all 3 tranches of redundancy to take place before 31 Mar 13 with a bit of flexibility built in to allow it to happen. Good for all of us if this is a) true and b) it actually happens. My cynical side sadly concurs with your thoughts though.

hg,

Those on AFPS 75 who leave either voluntarily or compulsory before 31 Mar 13 will receive 9 months tax free pay. Leave on 1 Apr 13 or after and it drops to 3 months tax free pay. This probably means that those who left in the mid 90's probably got a much bigger payout than someone who will leave in 2015...

But remember it's all about our people who always come first!!! B0LL0**s