Gulf Air: Qatar/Oman refuse new funds & New CEO

[ia1166]

by the way, who is aa and ahm anyway? which departments are we talking about. all i heard was that 5 guys in rostering were laid off. the same day that some passports strangely dissapeared from rosterings' safe draw.

[boiler]

I was told of the following joke that is going around GF lately.

"What does the 'TBA' stand for in a lot of the organization charts that have been e-mailed around lately"?

Answer: To Be Australian!

So, is there any truth to that? Are a lot of Australians esp. ex. Ansett people being hired by GF?

[Bullishit]

Where is the report of the A320?

[Lodestar]

Can anyone confirm the rumours that GF is considering to buy 50/70 seaters from probably Bombardier?

What is the news from GF, it really has been too quit around here.....

[MTQatar]

The 50-70 seater rumour has been confirmed by the CEO in a recent press conference in Dubai. A decision will be taken in September this year.

[GULFPILOT76]

I've seen an article in the Gulf News lately talking about 50-70 seaters. This is a recommendation from SH&E. They will look at Bombardier and Embraer. Sounds good to me, the more fuel you carry the more it F**KS up your life, so I'll volunteer. The latest
767 blocksheets are as close to hell as you can get. Embraer here I come!!( on the same pay of course).

[scanscanscan]

Please post the 767 block sheets so we can see if they are hellish or not or simply legal.

[GULFPILOT76]

3X scan,

Quote. ' On the one hand the commercial aims of the company require that the maximum productivity be obtained from what are very costly resources, the aircrew, and on the other hand the dictates of flight safety require that the personnel are NOT worked so hard that natural tiredness develops to a level of fatique at which they are unable to safely perform their duties and from which they cannot easily be aroused in an emergency' end quote. May be this rings a bell. Pilots, even within the FTL, can be worked to a point where fatique will start to kick in. I think there are signs within the fleet that this is about to happen, I am sorry to say. A lot of reports have been written on this subject.

[Icarus]

Pilots are not costly!

very costly resources, the aircrew,

I belive the fact the schedule GF produces is a heap of cr@p that makes it a costly operation, not the aircrew!

Look at the ratio of block-hours to flying-hours; it is garbage and that is a major factor in GF's unprofitability.

Perhaps that's where these new boys should look more closely.

But then again, I think from what I have heard the Chief would have to bend over double and look up his behind to find the culpit(s)!!

[GULFPILOT76]

Icarus,

I've seen your reaction to the economics side and I fully agree,
but do you also have an opinion about the human factor side of my last post. I understand it's very hard to glance over a block sheet and say it is hard or not, but still I would appreciate your general opinion as a manager.

Thanks.

[boiler]

From what I have heard, it is not the schedule as much as using the crew inefficiently. There is no doubt that GF has a costly operation, but the schedules is only a small part of it. GF just got an award from Airbus for the way they use the A340's. This seems to indicate that the problem is much more than the schedules. Maybe the crewing department is not using their systems properly (or maybe there is no one who knows to get the max out of it). But that is just a guess.

[ex330]

Fleet Plans???

Has anyone heard what the fleet plans are yet. Is GF still getting the 5 new A320's they were planning to. How many RJ's are they looking to get. any info would be appreciated. Cheers
ex330

[Icarus]

Logic??!

it is not the schedule as much as using the crew inefficiently

Well I guess the flight and cabin crew just decide when they want to work then do they! Or do they follow are rather inefficient (and therefore very costly) schedule?!

Award from Airbus, big deal. For what, the highest cycled A340's in the world 'cos they do 20,30 and 40 minute sectors. Great planning, wonderful efficiencies. Wonder what the maintenance costs are compared to other carriers! No wonder no-one wants them!

GP76 - Human Factor, since whan has GF been that bothered? I feel for you guys some time, really, I've seen some of you coming back off flights and walking into HDQ looking like death warmed up especially on the 76!

I think the problem in crewing is well known, but nothing is going to happen, as usual.
Not the answer you are looking for, sorry. I don't even think the new systems will make that much of an improvement either.

Until the schedule is one that is efficient then nothing will change. GF keep masking it under phrases like 'fluid or unstable markets'. That's BS as far as I am concerned, GF creates it's own instability by chasing every thing in the market and usually winning by under cutting with no regard to cost of sale or cost of operation.
Until that philosophy has gone I can't see any black ink on the balance sheet for a long time to come yet!

[boiler]

Award from Airbus, big deal. For what, the highest cycled A340's in the world 'cos they do 20,30 and 40 minute sectors.

Oh pu-lease? A 20 minute sector? when was the last time you saw a GF schedule (if you actually have)? The 340's are used to LHR, DAC, BKK, RUH, JED, MNL, KUL, and other long haul routes. No 20 or even 30 minute sector there. The only sector with a less than 40 minute block time is BAH-DMM (35 minutes) and an A320 is used. Please Icarus, stop spreading false statistics. I would really like to believe some of the things you say about GF because you are working for them, but I really can't when you start to exagerate stuff.

[MTQatar]

Bolermaker,

GF still flies the A340 to DMM, BAH, JED and MNL from DOH (www.amadeus.net). DMM and BAH are a total waste of aircraft, JED is understandable but the B763 would be a better use of aircraft.

[Icarus]

BM you really are hopeless aren't you.

So, agreed MNL and maybe KUL could be viewed as long haul being 7 and 10 hour sectors, but the rest? RUH and JED! Get real, if a 2 hour block time is long haul then you really are not from "Planet Earth, obviously!" And the 'hopping' around the Gulf (and yes GF did for a long time use a 340 on a 12 minute flight BAH-DMM for quite some time) in these aircraft is nothing more than ridiculous.

I was getting at high cycled long haul aircraft, these aircraft are designed for a very different operation to that that GF uses them for, be it 40 minutes or 2 hours, it is a sad waste of money caused predominatly by bad scheduling. This cascades to tired and under-productive crew from an expensive and inefficient operation. That was the point of my initial reply.
You on the other hand rely on 'your sources' who are in fact close to (or are) the people (IMHO) who are entirley (ir)responsible for most of GF's continued negative-growth (to coin a PC phrase!).

[scanscanscan]

Gulfpilot 76.... Feel your pain man!
Was a GF line pilot, from April 1974 until May 2000.(2years F27,14 years on the L1011 and 10years on the B767.)
After termination at 60 I found it took about 18 months to normalise the sleep patterns and 2years to regain health and fitness, consider myself lucky to have survived these blocks, others did not.
In retrospect I should have packed these blocks in at age 50 and took a job with a pension at B&Q.

[boiler]

MT Qatar,
I am looking at the GF timetable right in front of me. No 340's to DMM. Maybe they did so on the past, but not anymore. As for JED, don't they use that for Umrah and for labor markets connecting to MNL? You also have to take the planes to AUH for maintenance, so in certain cases, you have no option but to use them in certain intra-gulf sectors.

[GULFPILOT76]

Triple scan, Icarus,

Thanks for the kind understanding and your own experience, I am still optimistic (against all odds) things will change, don't ask me why. I just guess some of us won't make 60 if it doesn't.