Alitalia Double Up!
 

CNN are reporting that the Alitalia pilots will now be working almost twice as hard for much less loot. I know they're in dire straits, but what kind of deal would they have had before all of this, if they're now able to double their flying hours and still remain within the constraints of a regulated flight time limiting scheme?

CNN Report Here.

They used to have one of the sweetest deals around... Very well paid, didn't work very hard, chaffeured cars to pick you up and drop you off before/after duty.. List goes on...

It certainly does. I missed that and it makes the point even clearer. I'm not sure what your deal is, but mine is already for the max legal limit. Did these guys have an in-house deal limiting them to 450 hours per year? If so, it might not be too suprising that their company is in such a state of financial disrepair.

Guys - thanks for answering my question before I asked it!

I am currently working in Italy and have (oh woe is me) to depend on this airline for much of the transport I provide my customers. It beggars belief how this country holds itself together! I was wondering what the 'average' flying hrs per yr was for the developed world.
The employment laws here are arcane too - I am impressed that they've got round them and pushed the pilots so far!
Another slow step forward for Italian aviation!

I'm usually around 700-800/year. Sometimes slightly more sometimes slightly less..

That's about the way it works for the UK charter carriers...If you employ staff to fly 1/2 the max hours they could legally do, you're not exactly running an efficient operation are you? (Which presumably adds to Alitalia's financial woes?)

PHX

I FORD,
i also fly in Italy (not for AZ of course) and my average monthly flight time is 72 hrs,i know from a friend in AZ that he was making more money than me flying about 50hrs a month.
my question now is:will you guys fly twice as much(almost) per month for the same amount of money than before or just fly like everyone else with the present contract and therefore just be more productive for the company and make huge amounts of money as well?since with your present contract if you fly like we do you would be making thousands of euros more per month?

Mr C.

You sound a bit miserable in Italy. If so,do yourself a favour (and Italians too), GET OUT. Just a suggestion, please don't take it the wrong way. By the way, the country holds itself together quite nicely,thanx.

For Mr. DeOne, I wouldn't be too proud to admit you fly to the max every month. That's exactly the reason our profession is going down the tubes. I'll be retiring in eighteen years and at the rate we're going, we will be no different than bus drivers or truck drivers by that time.

I had a look in the first Italian newspaper, and it says pilots will go up to 900 duty hours from 770, and from 494 to 598 flight hours (»21%) on Long Haul and from 550 to 672 hours (»22%) on Medium Haul.

link to article on the "Il Corriere della Sera" (in Italian)

450 HRS A MONTH!??.......

It's absolutely ridiculous! Normal flight time for the average pilot on the averge airline would be 700 to 850 hrs /year.

If they want to survive the will need to forget la dolce vita and fly like everybody else....

it's time to work hard guys....honestly.

I-FORD,

I am appalled by the lack of solidarity of your fellow pilots. Please accept mine in such a dire situation for all the hard workers in your company, who as usual are made to pay for the bad management. Hope you'll get through this as soon as possible.

I-FORD.

I think your english is quite good. Personally I think it's just some people's way of putting down AZ.

To tarjet and phoenix,

All the sudden our industry is filled with "hard working" pilots. Someday when our lifestyles will be no different from that of truck drivers maybe we'll think about the good old days. Sure, we all need to work a little harder, but let's not blame our coleagues for the downfall of an airline.
Ciao.

tarjet this statement is completely meaningless unless you specify what you and your alitalia friend fly, in wich position, how much do you earned for a 72 hours flight month and how much do your alitalia friend earned for a 50 hours flight month. In Italy airline pilots salary is usually much lower than in the rest of europe, including alitalia, a comparison of european major airlines was recently published showing that alitalia pilots salary are the lowest in europe, if you earn less than your alitalia friend I suspect that here the problem is that your company pays you peanuts not that alitalia pays too much.

Isn't a shame how even a group of professionals (us pilots) can be fooled by the well-paid and politically-controlled media to think that Alitalia pilots are to blame for years of mismanagement.

Every company offers certain benefits to its workers and, yes, being state-run, Alitalia pilots had certain bennies like home pick-up that some of us who have worked for private airlines would never dream of having. That said, it is obvious in the deregulated world of aviation that all employees must tighten their belts and give certain concessions in order for the company to be competitive, especially with the low-costs guys around.

What I would really like to see, and surely won't, is a statement of accountability and responsibility by Alitalia current and ex-management for the absolutely ridiculus decision making throughout the past 10 years. It would also be nice to see them post numbers regarding their salaries and benefits and how they are willing to reduce them in order to participate in saving the flag carrier.

Too bad they don't have the balls to do so. In the meantime, we can prepare to sit back and be spoon fed propaganda in the news using meaningless numbers and jargon to fool not only the masses, but apparantly ourselves.

Here's one pilot in Italy hoping this thing gets worked out and our colleagues jobs saved and perhaps even more created in the process. Tanti auguri a tutti da un polentone.

Soda

Can't really tell you this, but I'm working 320 hours per year! No nightstops on my roster as well.
My struggle is that my family is 1200 miles away and the weather at my homebase is fairly lousy. So I for example would be happy to fly 750 hours again with homebase next to my family. The problem is that the company couldn't find local guys (typerated of course!!) and they offered me the job. (Was made redundant just before).
I hope one day the company pays typerating to local guy with family, he would be in paradise.:cool:
To all the companies: Be sensible again, let your people work for they'r money but give them a resonable livestile as well! Don'n jump from one extrem to the next, it can work!!!

I agree that pilots may have to clock a bit more hours.

But rostering wise it is not always that evident to achieve that goal unless you make them fly 4 sectors a day and let them play cards for 2 or 3 hours between sector 2 and 3.

It’s not that simple

Alitalia pilots may have to accept very long days with relatively short block hours a day to achieve that goal.

Cap 56

that's exatly what my previous company did. 12 hour duty days with 4-7 hours block. Very long days with huge brakes between the flights and about 80 block every month. But on the other hand we had 11 days off as well. This is resonable I think.

maybe someone from AZ will also enlighten us on the "ore credito" thing....

So if the next step could be that the max block a year is the same in every EU state then we are all an equal terms.

In the old days when flying was affected by weather and pilots had to wait for hours for improvement are back in town.

The difference is that now we are waiting for the passengers to show up according to the most efficient schedule planning in order to get those passengers anyway.

Then you would have to look at paychecks, then cost of living, then...

I think it's not that easy to put everybody in equal terms with such a big difference between states: income, labour rules, taxes, etc.

Although I think we should thrive to have equal terms within EU, that should come with everything else attached to it.:ok: