Whaaaaat????

Do tell please!!

K

CEO
 

Yes roti, I saw that one. That is exactly what he said in the letter of Oct 10 to staff.
With only $3MUSD in profit for the financial year and ++$3.3BUSD in direct a/c purchases (350/787) and lease commitments for over 12 more (787/350) there isn't much free cash flow to service new loans or pay leases, yes there may be a few new routes but Vietjet and the boys from the Middle East and Turkey are making serious inroads.
State owned enterprises are notorious for not displaying the best business acumen, but rather basing decisions on perceptions of national pride and personal gain, until it comes crashing down al la Vinashin or Vinalines.
We shall see if miraculously VNA was the repository of the best business minds in the SOE framework or another folly, awaiting the dominoes to fall.:eek:

How long is a piece of string?
 

I wonder if anyone here can provide any info on time to upgrade?

I understand it can be difficult to predict, but assuming an FO joins with more than the minimum hours required for command, how long would you expect it to take before an opportunity came up to move to the LHS?

Is it generally based on date of joining for expats? Or is it more a case of who you know?

Although Vietjet is all the current rage for airlines in VN, would the government actually ever let Vietnam Airlines falter being that its the national flag carrier and all?

Seems that would be the biggest "black eye" to the government to let the national airline not necessarily go under but have a significant decrease in the airline world of Vietnam, especially with the new aircraft and new routes coming.

Yes, business is business and at the end of the day, you do have to make money, but hopefully this will make VNA realize they have to make changes to survive…..

Kap

World-Wide phenomena
 

Kap,
the Government in Vietnam has been struggling to find the money for the new airport for the last 5 years, has poor infrastructure (roads, rail, ports), needs investment in education and healthcare, and is going to ramp up military spending now that the U.S. has lifted the embargo.
So whilst I am not suggesting they would let VNA die (huge black eye), they are aggressively pushing an IPO, because they have publicly stated they the don't want the economic burden of it. People in the aviation industry often look myopically, thinking their industry is the only one deserving of support. When quite often it is nothing more than a phallic projection of national pride. Whereas healthcare, infrastructure and education are very real and urgently needed investments.
Private enterprises such as VietJet, AirAsia and the Middle Eastern carriers (private, public?) will gladly fill the void.
Look at how many VNA321 spend all day parked on the ramp, ask pilots there what the daily utilization rates are like, ask about the 4 lemon 777's. Honestly, while most pilot's there are excited about the arrival of the 350 & 787, this punter believes the arrival MAY expose some irrational exuberance.
A number of SE Asian airlines have recently adjusted a/c requirements and cut overcapacity, time will tell if VNA has been guided by a deft, shrewd hand or more of the "same same".
Peace

I saw this one worded something like this, Kap, Must be the same,

In The preliminary review of the first 6 months of this year,

The Board of Members has forced to decide not to pay usual additional salaries as one of the measures of financial balance and stability during this tough business time. If the problem of balance is not resolved, the income of all staff by the end of the year will definitely be affected.

One of my VNA local Colleagues has just walked over to vietjet with 4 of his friends BTW.

Kwai
 

Indeed, I saw the same letter from their CEO. Your quote is accurate.
Funny, in 2010 expats had a 5% paycut to help out, for 6 months.
No there is nothing in the expat contract about helping out. :ugh:
And.... No they didn't get it back when the airline posted a claimed profit in successive years...
2015 will be interesting. And yes the locals are heading to VietJet.
Now if Vietjet management were smart (oxymoron), they would introduce a PROPER stable rostering system and give a travel allowance and/or sign a Zed fare agreement. Also get their upgrade program up and running and then... It would be really interesting...

Well…. this is a bit disconcerting to me as I've been looking seriously at the contract in the near future with VN.

I did send an email to my contact at Rishworth to see if they are privy to any of this…. which I'm somewhat convinced they are not, and more than likely know nothing about it, but worth asking about.

Guess, I'll just have to wait and see what the next few months bring…

I've spent quite a bit of time in VN the past 6 weeks and have really grown fond of it… friendly people, good food, good drink, inexpensive living. But CRAZY traffic!!

K

Kap
 

What fleet are you looking at?
A search of this thread will tell you the 321 fleet is hard work.:ugh:
Don't get me wrong, things happen here in slow time, so if you need a job, there is one waiting for you.
My forecast is based on CEO statements and what happened at Vinashin, which everyone saw like a slow moving train wreck, but because they were all feeding at the trough, nothing was done until they defaulted on a $600M USD bond payment on $6B USD of debt and wrecked the countries credit rating.
Some argument could be made for replacing older wide bodies with newer aircraft, but these orders were made before the advent of VietJet and the likes of Emirates etc showed up.
The game is rapidly changing!
Vietjet is compressing margins in the domestic arena and now on the regional front and The ME carries are taking the premium traffic to Europe. AirAsia is now offering transit flights within their and AirAsia Xs network, so outbound traffic from Vietanm (Vietnamese consumers are quick learners, and recognize value for money and/or good service) is not the sole domain of VNA anymore, inbound traffic have many choices and VNA doesn't do themselves any favors when they send 777s to Frankfurt, with paint peeling off the a/c, the IFE INOP and half the business class seats not working properly (hey Luke Toddler, jump in at anytime if I am incorrect:p).
Hopefully the talk of ANA becoming a Strategic investor will materialize. Vietnam is blessed with amazing people, great weather, fantastic food, stunning geography, if the airline could employ the service levels of Singapore Airlines, the efficiency of the Japanese and treat it as a proper business instead of their nepotistic feeding ground, there be no stopping them...

Dihedral1…

A PM awaits you!

Kapitanleutnant

" if the airline could employ the service levels of Singapore Airlines, the efficiency of the Japanese and treat it as a proper business instead of their nepotistic feeding ground, there be no stopping them..."

That....my friend, is not going to happen in at least 300 years.
It is not because VNA.
It is because the so-called "Vietnamese Culture" that local people are so proud of.

If you have actually "lived" in Vietnam for some time, instead of just enjoying the cheap beer, you will know what I mean by "Vietnamese Culture".
Vietnamese are very very conservative, almost rigid. Yes, you will find lots of "open-minded" young ladies in Pubs, but even they are just open to sex for money, nothing else. For 99% of the Vietnamese, its very difficult for them to accept, to understand, anything that is not a part of Vetnamese culture.

For example, marriage.
95% of Vietnamese get married and have kids before 28. Now, I am not saying it is right or wrong, because there is no right or wrong. But for Vietnamese, they can not understand "Hey Jacky, you are 30 already, why you dont get married?"
They just can not understand that there is other choice, they can not understand that how can people live a single live.
Anything that is a not a part of Vietnamese culture, they have huge difficulty to understand, and honestly, they dont really bother to understand.
This is the main reason why things in Vietnam changes so slow.

Chinese people nowdays are so different than thier elder just 30 years ago. But in Vietnam, now people are still same same with their elder in 200 years ago. This is the most amazing part of Vietnam, if you really try to understand Vetnam.
"Things just do not change."
Yes, they have Starbucks now.
Yes, very soon they will have B787 and A350, the newest jet airplanes.
But Vietnamese, they are the same, they do not change.

Actually
 

Not much of a beer drinker.

I must say, if you check service delivery and management ethos among the foreign educated younger Vietnamese (check out the tech start up scene) and among the overseas Vietnamese who have returned, it is on par with Oz, UK, USA etc

That said they have huge problems opening up the mindset of local rural Vietnamese and their elders, but they are fast learners. Talk to the pilots trained overseas who fly the 321, they are night and day different in their outlook to their fathers flying the 777.

On Vietnamese TV is a show about 5 woman who are all over 30, single, childless and professionals, so the times are a changing. I laugh at your assessment of 300 years, in that time the U.S. went from colonial upstart to World power to now still strong but fading superpower.

Im asian and know VN , lived there.
Some things are true but not fair.
First some vietnamese are old fashion, but mostly parents and grand parents.
The new generation nowadays is very near the occident culture. My ex g/f is 30 is not married, she has indeed pressure from her family "why are you not married".
That's true.
BUT, she does not care. And many girls do not care now. Many told me, they prefer to be married later on with a good guy than being married and unhappy.
Vietnamese meets many foreigners now and they are aware of what it is in other part of world.

another thing, don't expect a country who had known the war for many years (against japanese, french, usa) to change so fast. A country never changes like that. It needs time.
and don't think that girls only want sex and money, that's very wrong and not fair to them. I dated 3 girls, we broke up and are still freinds.
They give me ride, they help me if I have some administration problems, etc without asking me anything.
They are human being you know...not sex/money machine.
Of course depends where you. If you date hookers, that's your problem.

btw, I can say many stories about foreigners acting badly in VN...just because they feel "superior". They just want to f**** many girls in same time.

VNA national carrier of a nice country
 

Guys,

Would you mind coming back to the original topic about VNA.
I must admit that I am very unknowledgeable about Vietnam and their national carrier, yet all comments I can get so far is that vietnemese are extremely warm and welcoming.
After having checked a bit what they offer to tourists or expats desiring to seettle in for a couple of years, it looks like this country is really amazing...

Having closed the subject now, what about the contractors working with VNA?
I have so far contacted 2(Parc and Rishworth) and some differences in the contracts show that it'worth reading carefully their different offers to choose the best contract: can you tell us a bit more ? anybody working on A330/B777 get a good experience with any of the contractors involved in VNA recruitment?

Thanks for your information.

Safe flights to all you.

Do not worry about the contracts, they are 99.9% the same.
Yes, maybe some differences in medical insurance policy, maybe you get your salary on different day....but hey, big deal???

They are the same contracts.

Vietnam Airlines A320 contract thru DPI
 

Guys, I've gone thru the t&c's with dpi. Note it's clearly stated that for the first 28 days there'll be NO pay, only hotel and transport. I presume this is for the period of ground school till line training starts which then the pay amounts to $243/day. And then after getting checked out, the $10,800 for the rest of the 6/2 contract. There is some discrepancy as someone told me that before this for about 7 months u didn't actually receive the full pay but has this actually changed with the DPI contract or is there something I'm not being told? Anyone here working for VNA thru DPI? Any info is much appreciated.

If you are type rated / experienced and are willing to accept these conditions . You deserve each other .

Airplane Driver….

Those numbers are on par with what Rishworth offers as well…. no pay initially, partial pay and then when finished with training, full pay EXCEPT… for the first 3 or so months, they take about a quarter of your salary for a "security bond", which is returned upon completion of your contract.

What my concern is…. is that once the 330's and 777's go away, how much will the "pay for training" be to transfer to the new 350's and 787's. I've heard one say an astronomical figure of about 40-50K (USD) for it. I find this quite over the top as, for example, the difference between the 777 and 787 is merely about a 5 day differences course and maybe 1 sim (at least this is the way my old airline is doing it)…. and it's nowhere near a full course, so how can it be so expensive at VNA for this? Will it be pay upfront… will it be a bank loan, will it be a bond??? In addition, as I understand the EASA or JAA of Europe has these two (777/787) as common type ratings!!!! Someone is making a LOT of money from this.

Kap

Kapitan, very valid points. Thank you. Just for my info, as I'll be on the 320 if I join, will they be phasing them out as well? Or only the 330's and 777's? Absolutely, those figures reek of some corrupted a**e trying to screw desperate individuals.

Generally how long after joining would u be able to start actually making the full pay? Can it take 7 months as someone told me awhile back? Cos that long with 75% of the pay is not really going to make me want to go there in a hurry.

Correct, the 320's are phased out. They now operate 50+ 321's