Pilots strike Holland
 

Transavia pilots threaten to strike on Tuesday

yes , and it is all about those long flight's ( duty's of 16+ hrs ) with a crampy 'crew rest' in a 737 700/800 , and the company willing to lease-in more and more capacity , giving present f/o 's a lousy career outlook.
besides that there is an overall lack of thrust in present management , interpreting and using the collective labour agreement it's own way.

Whilst I have every sympathy with the crews if that is their lot, I have to ask if this is the best time to go on strike, with the industry facing quite a serious downturn?

Best time to strike is when the industry is doing well!

fmgc

[Whilst I have every sympathy with the crews if that is their lot, I have to ask if this is the best time to go on strike, with the industry facing quite a serious downturn?

Best time to strike is when the industry is doing well!]

Your points are not without merit, but I would suggest that the best time to strike is when the pendulum has swung in your favor, whatever those circumstances actually are. That may not actually occur when the carrier is doing "extremely well".

I.E., the pendulum swung greatly in the US carrier's favor after 9-11 and they used that it to the extreme.

A true shortage of pilots would be an example of the pendulum swinging towards the pilot's side.

JMHO .:)

Been There..Done It...Have the T Shirt
 

The so called "crew rest" used by Transavia has always been a joke. The fact that they could curtain off two rows of economy class seats..call it a " rest area" and then allow the crews to work up to a max on 19 hours has always been nothing short of amazing. (I am sure if you were standing on the moon, and a similar thing was tried on their KLM collegues, you would hear the screaming from there!!) Why has it taken the VNV so long to act about this???

Anyway good luck to all, if the strike goes ahead. Its about time the situation was fixed...I am sure that NOONE else in that workers paradise, called Holland, is expected to work 19 hours straight, not receive any food and try to "sleep" upright, sitting in the "tent".

Support
 

Let's support our fellow crews in TRANsAVIA! This airline is really a slave driver!

Any news..is it going ahead?

There is a court case between Transavia and the VNV at 13:30lt AMS this afternoon. Obviously Transavia is trying to block the intended strike.
This a "normal" procedure in The Netherlands; VNV is confident they will win.

More news later today...

TS737

hello,

a bit off topic maybe...but:

the 19 hrs duty period...how is this done in accordance with the new EU-ops? Are you flying with a triple flight crew? (just a wild guess)

Thanks for the info!

The judge prohibited the planned strike, both parties have to (try to) come to an agreement with a mediator...

As far as first reactions go, the union said the would respect the judgement.

Might find that the instances of "summer flu" goes up remarkably sharply though :E

VNV made a bit of a blunder by not practicing what they preach, i.e. getting a mediator before using the ultimate threat of strike. This time vnv apparently 'forgot' the procedure and threatened with a strike before getting a mediator on board. (do they employ a lawyer who checks this stuff?) A waste of time for everyone really, especially thousands of people wanting to go on their holidays not knowing what the story would be until late this afternoon. Thanks guys, well done.... If this is true, next time think twice before acting this way.

The remainder of the dispute is over a payrise for the pilots. Transavia management can't sell that to the rest of their staff. In that respect I agree with management. You can't treat part of your staff to a payrise which the rest isn't getting. I am pretty sure the pilot's aren't the only ones working hard in an airline.

Go For It, Guys.

@soullimbo

As far as I know, communism was abolished even in Russia a couple of years ago.
I am sure other parts of the company work just as hard as the pilots and probably even harder, but that should not limit any payrise for another party. Since the non pilot groups have different representation, it is up to them to get the payrise they want. If another union is able to get more, the other unions should have tried harder.

Since I do not know what the paylevels are for the transavia pilots, I obviously cannot say if their demands are justified, but as far as I am concerned, other employees' payrises do not matter in determining what you want. (assuming the pilots and the union can indeed justify their demands and they do not demand ridicioulus amounts of money)

And since when is management in general concerned about the rest of the workforce, when giving themselves a substantial raise/bonus!

I forgot that point indeed, such behaviour gives all of us an excuse to just think of ourselves. If values of CEO's are substandard, does it give you and the rest a valid excuse to behave that way? It's just that consideration that clashes with my values.

@Soullimbo, what I understood is that the dispute is not about pay at all. It's about reducing of longduty hours, the high workpressure, wetlease (causing careerstops for F/O) and the management not keeping to existing agreements.

Since you're from Amsterdam, you can probably read the info on this site: actieinformatieteam. You could have all information from their side if you had been a member, or at least checked their website before you posted your comment.

A bit off topic, but the term wet lease was brought up. I noticed a Miami Air -800 in PMI last month. Was that a wet or dry lease?

I think GolfYankee is correct (although I hasten to add, I cant read the web site), but from what I understand, with the so-called "crew rest" installed in the aircraft(nothing more than curtained off "Y" class seats), the crews can do upto 19 hours duty under Dutch Law.

From what I hear, the new EU law prohibits this, but Transavia want a dispensation to continue operating in this way. (I note by the way that the Transavia management has managed to drag this thing out through the summer months..so they have "made it through" by using the crew rest, and now only have to argue it out through the winter, when its use is less of a problem.) Add to this, as I understand it, that Transavia provide no onboard catering for crews, and that dutys can consist of many 3.00am starts in a row, I can see why they are complaining.


The part I do not understand is the VNV's position in all of this. There is no way the would ever ever accept any of this in KLM. so why did they allow this situation to develop in Transavia in the first place? Is it because Transavia has always been looked on as "the poor cousin"? Is it because of the Dutch attitude "well if you are not a pilot for THE KLM, well toy are not really a pilot at all", so who cares?

Perhaps some pilot from Transavia could post on here and fill us all in properly on the situation