empati

Cimber now have the option of using a mixture of B737, CRJ and ATR. Norwegian is using B737-800 on thin CPH routes, competing with CRJ and ATR. I think Kjos is gaping to wide! But were else is he going to put all those airplanes he ordered? Just wait...tick..tack!!

Guttn

hangar.no is now reporting that Norwegian is going to furlough 30 of its 100 .se pilots. But about 15 are said to be offered jobs at CPH base...

But what really strikes me (again and again actually) is that Norwegian use ANY opportunity in the media to tell the flying public about their fantastic new proposed routes and/or prices. Even in this furlough case

Dovregubben

One importent thing to remember is that Flynordic/Norwegian.se will not continue as an airline. Both the board of .no and .se has decided to cease the Flynordic AOC in September 2009. After that Flynordic will be a crewleasing agency.

Guttn

So basically this means that the .se/Flynordic pilots go from fulltime employment to contract employment? Or, of course since the AOC will cease, furlough? Probably not too popular amongst the pilots (or any other employees within .se for that matter).

Dovregubben

Norwegian.se as a brand and shareholder company will remain.

Removing the AOC removes the airline. Most of the operating functions in .se are already put under .no governance from Oslo and soon there will be next to nothing left in Sweden.

Some of the pilots will remain employed by .se and some are seeking positions directly with .no.

The lot of pilots hired by .no this winter will be put on a 6 month contract.

Hanguren

Do you mean that .se and .no will operate under a common AOC...? This I really do not understand: Due to new EU regulations, SAS is forced to have a separate AOC for each country, since it according to SAS no longer is legal to operate with trans-nations AOCs...

Or have I misunderstood the above posts completely...??

Hanguren

So the argument from SAS management was just a big lie...? A company are really able to have one AOC, and have pilots employed in several countries...?

Instead of using hundreds of millions on 4 seperate AOCs (SAS own figures...!), SAS could have registered all aircraft in one country, and continued with 1 common AOC...?

If this is the correct interpretation of the EU laws, I feel really fooled by SAS management!

This is just incredible...!

K21

Being wise of history, I belive the managment in Norwegian will work towards a complete .no operation and one AOC.

To be able to compete in todays aviation business, you certainly don`t need a large number of unions and merging of different companies! Looking upon what has happend in SK vs BU and also the conflict in former Sterling

Dovregubben

There is absolutely no problems with a single AOC operation given aircrafts are registered in same country as AOC. Sweden has no interesting bilateral agreements that would justify a second AOC.

Why SAS is choosing a multi AOC operation is beyond my understanding.
4 AOC`s requires 4 complete operational managements with with a full set of accountable managers each.

Only argument I can see is if they want to split unions, sucess not guaranteed.

Dovregubben

Believe that se. pilots will be swallowed by general expansion in .no. The contract pilots hired now for the summer season is to cover for seasonal tops/vacation for permanent pilots and the uncertainty with CPH succes or not. If lucky with CPH, there will be permanent hires picked from the contract bunch autumn 09. I believe the best advise for .se pilots is to go for a position at .no asap. Seniority in .se will be of absolutely no interest since .se cease as an airline this autumn.

Manamanah

What I´ve heard is that the pilots that are offered a new base is those already rated on the 737 even though these pilots are the last on the seniority list. The MD pilots with higher seniority have to pay their rating to change base.

Correct me if I am misinformed.

BestGlide

Ooooh yeah!

Guttn

Is this for real? In that case; what kind of cr@p company is this!??! Being employed by the company since the company bought your former company. The aircraft you fly is to be phased out, and there is to be some restructuring. Your seniority means sqwat appearantly, and to be able to continue to fly for them they require you pay for a rating even though you are employed. And then, if offered employment, you get a 6 month contract And where are the unions to protect its members? Jeeeeez....

Dissident

I agree, this is unheard of! Feel sorry for the guys at .se who is getting bu..fukced and not given the common decency of a reach-around... I hope things will turn out ok somehow.

Have .no-staff been offered the CPH-base yet? Is there enough crew in Oslo who wants to go south or will they force people? Guess they wont have to if they offer the .se-crew contracts in CPH...

Crossunder

This has absolutely nothing to do with loyalty. It is called business. These are two different companies we are talking about. One bought by the other - then closed down. It is what happens every day outside the aviation industry as well, and is completely legal. Of course you have to feel sorry for the ones losing their jobs, but if Kjos didn't do it this way, there'd be nothing but trouble, like with SK/BU, Linjeflyg, AF/KLM etc. Two different seniority lists - and we're suddenly supposed to interweave these two? I, for one, would not be very pleased to see a swedish FO from another company we bought, swoop in and "steal" my command upgrade! Sound familiar, you SAS/BU guys? Rip the band aid off in one, swift movement, and be done with it...
The expansion out of CPH needs to happen right away. DY's training dept. simply has no chance of giving 30 swedes a type rating - they have more than enough trouble giving all the existing 737 pilots their semiannual sim training, not to mention the NG diff training for everyone. Also, I believe a lot of the ex-Fly Nordic guys have already been given the 737 rating by DY, and these swedish pilots are operating 737s out of STO. Sooo, if our CPH base is going to be a pure .no operation, everyone there needs to be employed by .no. Pilots not employed by .no and without a 737 rating are thus of no interest, since they are not employed here, nor can they legally operate our aircraft...
I also seem to remember a time, not so long ago, when the WF pilot union went into a tail spin when there were talks of integrating SAS Commuter pilots into WF, in order to take over the F50 route network. That one didn't sit very well with the pilots on either side, as I recall.
No one in this business is ever going to sacrifice one's own career, income, command upgrade, pension or life style, in order to accomodate someone elses needs - especially if that someone is from another company. Life in the aviation industry is rather FUBAR, thanks to our predecessors and, in part, ourselves.

K21

In aviation, the term, "One for all, All for one", is often not complied with, when starting to speak about our position as pilots and the term seniority within a company!

Who created this problem? We, yes, the pilots and way back when! Did we then think about the future and lowcost carriers.....? No, of course we didn`t. At that time, there were solid jobs within national carriers and we all thought that these were the safest jobs in the world and they were! Did we have "free competion" on all the routes we wished to fly, NO!

Blame our self and nobody else!

Good luck to U`all!

Gnirren

Just keep this in mind. Back in the heydays when people were earning the $$$ with fantastic pension, flying 400 hrs a year and staying with the same company until retirement the industry was much smaller and the chance of becoming a pilot much smaller. Under that system plenty of us would never have been able to work as pilots to begin with, so the success of all these low cost companies is a double-edged sword. Gives plenty more people the chance to a flying career but there are more pilots around so the benefits get watered out because if you don't like it there are 400 guys queuing up to replace you. Then of course, in a downturn all that capacity is no longer needed and so people get laid off resulting in a much lower job security. It's not hard math, it started out with companies paying for everything. Now we have people paying for their own line training. What those people need to understand is that pilots coming after them will be happy to pay for that AND their hotel on overnights (for example). The idiocy of competing to sell ourselves the cheapest should be clear enough, if not then it will be by the time you've had a few years experience.

I absolutely agree that we are out own problem when it comes to declining salaries and benefits. The bottom line will always be the bottom line and we keep agreeing with reductions for personal reasons like seniority, base and so forth. In my opinion, unions are pretty much useless when faced with a situation like this one. The MD pilots get screwed and the union does nothing. Stop expecting morality in aviation would be my advice, cynical perhaps but at least you'll be able to plan your life accordingly with some degree of predictability. The same goes for colleagues, when the going gets tough, ultimately it will be every man for himself. That is something you can count on.

To the .se pilots, especially on the MD good luck and all the best. To the rest of us, how long before we get a similar treatment?

Hanguren

Crossunder: You can say many things about LIN/SAS, SC/SAS and all other company takeovers and ingegration of pilot groups throughout the world, but I have never heard about a case as fu.... as this one! Many pilots have lost something in situations like this, but loosing everthing, and being kicked out like this...? It is a shame!!!

And by the way; Integrating SC pilots into WF have never been an issue! There were talks about ex SC pilots flying temporarily in WF, but never an integration. And; there were absolutely no problem between SC and WF pilot groups in these talks!

Reading what Norwegian is doing in Sweden, I am not very proud of being a pilot from Norway..!

Crossunder

13th stage: what you are saying, is that you would happily have let someone from a different company, based in a different country, on a different contract, have passed you by; thereby cutting you short on pay, upgrade and basing? The only ones not having the same attitude as me in this matter, are those with more seniority than every ex-Fly Nordic pilot. I wonder why...

As for the SC/WF case, there were talks of SC pilots keping their salaries, bases and positions. WF pilots were outraged - I know- I was there. Why do you think the deal never came through?

Hanguren

There were absolutely no problems regarding salary, bases or positions - I know - I were on the other side. The pilots were already integrated and employed by SAS Braathens, which would pay the salary difference.

The deal did not go through partly because WF pilots demand for compensation in salary, tickets and transfer to "south" bases, but mainly because SAS realised the bad economics in the deal, since they had aircraft and crew on their own, ready to fly the routes.

And again: It was never talk of a integration of companies or pilot groups - it was a temporarily duty with WF.

So stick to the case you try to defend: The most outrageous treatment of pilot collegues that I have ever experienced!!!