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Astraeus A320 Contracts

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Old 9th Nov 2009, 13:22
  #201 (permalink)  
 
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Yep. The confused passengers were wondering why they were the only ones on the "Aer Lingus" route network to divert that day.

A great big "Good job" to the management team at Aer Lingus.. I'm sure there will be another few promotions for that masterful idea.

Oh and by the way there is an oversubscription from the "legacy" pilots in Dublin to go to Gatwick and operate out of there on the new terms and conditions as set out by the company.

So despite the fact they could crew all their shceduled flights with their own highly trained and qualified flight crew for absolutely no extra cost (actually at quite a saving when compared to the salaries in Dublin) they elect to send in a parasite airline who can't even operate to CAT II/III conditions.

Well done ol boy. How about creating a new management position.

Manager of amusing cash depleting ideas with responsibilities for paying others to do the job we can do for ourselves at smaller cost.

Only geniuses need apply.

Bravo Bravo

Last edited by Bingaling; 9th Nov 2009 at 15:15.
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Old 9th Nov 2009, 14:03
  #202 (permalink)  
 
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I dare say Bing that an appointment to that post is in hand !! After all Muller said he wants to see more pilots in management, positions such as head of change and development (or smash and grab) and head of cabin crew (becoming the only pilot I know of to have screwed every member of cabin crew in the company!) - I am of course refering to their terms and conditions only!!

Pat
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Old 11th Nov 2009, 11:06
  #203 (permalink)  
 
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An airline with a new type on their AOC may not be granted immediate CAT 2/3 privileges in the UK. Aer Lingus would have known that .
Moreover the same goes for ETOPS . Aer Lingus will certainly have considered the consequences for their applied for UK AOC on the A330 operations moving there.
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Old 11th Nov 2009, 19:03
  #204 (permalink)  
 
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....."may not be given Cat 2/3"

....means that they might.

Cuckoostraeus management may have sold Aer Lingus a pure cock and bull story that such approval WOULD be given at the outset of their pirate operations.

....E.I. seems to have been sold a pup, IMHO.
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 00:02
  #205 (permalink)  
 
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I'm confused by this entire thread now.

Astraeus is an ACMI operation, pure and simple (am I correct?) - therefore, would Astraeus' Commercial Department have entered into a debate on the reasons for EI approaching them? Just as EI has the long-term viability of its business to protect, so does the management of Astraeus (or should they turn business away during winter and explain the morals of the decision to their shareholders and staff?). Given the current form of EI, what would have been the outcome if a new approach wasn't taken?

Clealry EI had to assume the worst (plannng a restructure) and protect UK passengers from IR issues in DUB. This protects the good name of Aer Lingus as it would have been hard to explain why a strike in DUB disrupted their UK operation. If the pilots in DUB are ready to accept that the jobs aren't in DUB and aren't on the Ts & Cs the company can no longer afford (if it hopes to compete), then good for them (and good for EI). Surely Astraeus' involvement will be short and 'sweet'. I'm sure Astraeus were aware it could be so.

As for all the derogatory remarks about Astraeus, I have difficulty believing that a UK, IATA accredited airline with CAT3, a WW AOC, multiple Boeing fleets and 180 ETOPS has any difficulty in running a short-haul A320 operation. The crew they have employed are all experienced Airbus pilots and the training seems to have been done by a certain UK Charter Airline with a long history in Airbus operations.

I did hear that the SOPs are a bit 'odd' in some areas due to Astraeus being asked to create their procedures to mirror the existing Aer Lingus procedures.
Apparently this was done to ease the transition for the UK Aer Lingus crews who would be flying on the Astraeus AOC! Maybe EI should stop flying the Airbus like a Boeing (sorry, couldn't resist). As for EI management washing their hands of it, that wouldn't be possible under the EU-OPS Wet Lease requirements (they'd still be accountable to satisfy the IAA). No doubt a number of the EI crews required to go through an Astraeus conversion course will come up with all sorts issues to grandstand with their management and probably IALPA and the IAA too. Then again, it can't be that hard flying the same aircraft on the same routes with the same crew using the 'same' procedures, but under a different AOC, can it? The OCC must be over-kill for the highly trained EI crews, having to sit it out just to go and do the same job again(?).

Also, it would be very obvious to anyone with an operational head that Astraeus could be CAT 1 on a new type for a short period. If Astraeus did pull the wool over EI's eyes (and I don't think they did for a minute) this would reflect badly on EI. As Astraeus were operating one A320 from BFS over the w/end it is odd the lines of flying weren't swapped to avoid the diversion (who's call, EI Ops or Astraeus Ops?).

What would have been worse, short-term Astraeus or long-term O'Leary?

Anyway, I'm sure the concept wasn't devised by Astraeus, so why bother trying to undermine Astraeus when the real issue is between EI crews and their management? Why shoot down Astraeus pilots for standing up for their airline?

The size of the 2 airlines can't be that different now (?).

Last edited by standbyils; 12th Nov 2009 at 00:20.
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 09:26
  #206 (permalink)  
 
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It really is this simple:
  • Aer Lingus has an oversubscription to the Gatwick base from pilots based in Dublin.
  • These pilots are willing to move to Gatwick and operate all the Aer Lingus routes on the new terms and conditions.
  • AL are paying for Astraeus to do the AL flights and paying for their own pilots to sit at home
  • Astraeus can't even operate CAT II/III
  • There is absolutely no mention of strikes in Dublin
  • Damaging the brand? Ain't the flight crew doing that....
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 09:38
  #207 (permalink)  
 
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Standbyils, don't be confused. Let us be frank.

While Aer Lingus pilots offered to work 1 month for free Aer Lingus management were scurrying around in the dark with Astraus planning a Union bust.

Astraues despite your protestations is a bottom feeder, we know it and you know it. Can't get a job anywhere else pay to join astraus and after paying for your type rating you can pay to log real flight hours on the line like a real airline pilot.

Astreaus are responsible for line operations and ops control on their flights. So not only are Astreuas crews CAT 1 only but their ops support staff can't read a TAF. If they can read a TAF then either 1. Astreus ops dispatched the aircraft hoping the WX would improve and the met men got it wrong or 2 they hoped their crew would push/bend a bit and get in. either way its either incompetence or cavalier.

The crews know well what they are up to. I empathize but they are still making choices. Its a long game and there are surprisingly few players.
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 11:52
  #208 (permalink)  
 
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standbyils - as one who is clearly Astraeus management, you can hardly be blamed for defending the indefensible. It is also worth mentioning that I personally see no safety issues with Astraeus operating the A320. In safety terms your company is clearly competent and proficient and any views I have of Astraeus do not extend as far as making any negative assertions about their professional abilities.

My doubts are much more to do with the active participation in a union-breaking operation that is clearly intended to udermine the power of the Irish unions. Somewhat disappointingly, a number of your own pilots are choosing to turn a blind eye to this contract to look after number one. Like all operations where looking after number one is the main aim, what goes around comes around and these very same people will no doubt find themselves royally stuffed by you and your management mates at a time and place of your choosing. Ultimately they will only have themselves to blame for having a cobra for a tie - looks great, makes you look better than you are and puts you briefly centre stage, but in the end it will always bite you. The people who are ultimately allowing this to happen are the Irish Unions, who are 'fiddling while Rome burns'. There will always be unscrupulous companies like yours but unions are there to oppose this sort of activity. In the final analysis only they know if they are willing to watch the destruction of their futures at the hands of a here-today, gone-tomorrow company like Astraeus. My sincere hope is they will have the foresight to take you on rather than bury their heads in the sand and hope you will just go away. There is no doubt you will not disappear just yet - the nature of scavengers and vultures is that they will always be hovering round near-dead carcasses about to breath their last. The question I have for the Aer Lingus fraternity is this - how long can bury your heads in the sand until someone cuts your head off while you are pretending nothing is wrong?
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 12:49
  #209 (permalink)  
 
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The people who are ultimately allowing this to happen are the Irish Unions, who are 'fiddling while Rome burns'.
I'm not sure that is at all accurate NSF:

10IND043 Request for Mutual Assistance - IALPA - Ireland

IALPA are doing more out of view, EI pilots have more suitable discussion mediums then PPRuNe, which is perhaps why you haven't heard more?

I'm a big fan of your work on this site, I gave up a while ago but it gives me some assurance that there are Pilots like yourself in the industry who can see as clearly as me where we are headed as long as Ryanair and Astraeus are able to behave as they do without the consequences that a united pilot force can bring.
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 13:32
  #210 (permalink)  
 
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Post Per Ardua Ad Shamrock

Hello Norman,

Lovely to see you as always, but I think you're being a bit unfair in slamming Astraeus in the way you have, and especially for rolling out your cobra tie criticism, an old favourite you usually hold in store for me. Should I feel jealous?

Aer Lingus are screwed, Norman. The reasons why they're screwed are complex, and certainly for the ordinary line pilots and flight attendants I feel rather sad since, clearly, they've yet to grasp the fact that they were doomed from the moment of privatisation. This is an airline with SIPTU representation, a union that make the Teamsters look like a picnic for autistic nuns, on its own board of Directors, for heaven’s sake.

Aer Lingus' central problem is that for every second of its existence since privatisation, it has been used shamelessly by a series of governments as a political football, and a series of unions as a trough in which to bury their snouts. Our Willy knew very well that Aer Lingus needed to be modified post-haste in order to complete with the local Gorilla, and I’m sure I don’t need remind you who that is. Lets forget for the time being about its fortunes within a suffocatingly competitive trans-Atlantic market, but Willy left for BA when it was made plain by Taoiseach Bertie (Bubbles) Ahern, that his vision for a truly competitive Aer Lingus would never be realised.

Enter stage left the gutless and emasculated Dermot Mannion, a man who represents to corporate backbone what a soggy stick of celery is to load-bearing architecture, far more interested in the personal packing of his golden parachute than in running an airline that he was paid handsomely for, and Aer Lingus’ already critical problems were exacerbated whilst the new Taoiseach, despite encouraging words early on, has placed Aer Lingus in the too-hard basket too, while the rather larger problem of Ireland’s financial collapse occupies his thinking.

These desperate days, under the stewardship of Christoph Mueller, a man so committed to the future of AERL that he commutes from Brussels rather than relocate to Dublin, and we have an airline with three hundred odd million €uro in the bank, currently losing €2,000,000 every 24 hours. That's €60 million down the jacks every month and it doesn't take a first from Cambridge in maths to realise that the Aer Lingus story can't go on for much longer.

Dr. Death, Herr Mueller, who hasn't held the same job longer than nine months in the past 10 years, has decided to shrink long-haul and expand short-haul, beyond the borders of the EU (so far, so good) in order to better compete with you-know-who (VERY bad idea). He knows this is necessary because swinging arrays of job losses are about to be announced from the pilot corps, among others. Unfortunately, the seniority system will dictate LIFO (last in first out), which means pilots in LGW and BHD first out, to be replaced by DUB based pilots on a vastly superior contracts, thus defeating the purpose of the exercise in the first place. Oh dear, here we go again.

Three big problems I can see from the get go. First of all, IALPA will squeal like stuck pigs (refer to Carmoisine's helpful letter in the post above) and threaten to throw their toys from the cot, (in the run up to Christmas, naturally) and Dr. Death will have no option but to cave in and relocate higher paid and better protected DUB pilots into LGW, at inflated rates and on full travel expenses, which is where our friends at Astraeus come in. Second, he has no way of competing with Ryanair, even beyond the EU boundaries, so long as their production cost is almost double ours and, crucially, with zero union inclination to cooperate.

Thirdly, Mueller’s strategy is to hold on and wait for a white knight to come galloping over the Irish Sea, hoping they don't swallow their remaining 300 million before the lights go out, or union malevolence depletes forward bookings entirely. You can almost hear the laughter from FRA CDG and LHR. The entire AERL board is gathered at the Bailey Light, gazing forlornly eastward, seeing nothing but an indifferent Albion in the far distance. Sad when you think the only thoroughbred stallion in a position to have Aer Lingus not only survive, but also thrive, has been twice ejected from the stable. Oh well, there's no accounting for the stupid gene.

You see Norman; it is the unions you speak so longingly of who are truly to blame for this dreadful state of affairs, and IALPA with its tiny jockey in particular. Aer Lingus will shortly collapse under the weight of its own hubris, taking hope and history down with it, and Ryanair will pick up the choicest bits among the rubble, including those fifty lovely slot-pairs at LHR, so I think it a bit unfair of you to blame Astraeus for having a tiny little sniff in the Shamrock trough as it circles the drain. IALPA has been snorting at it like a herd of cocaine-addicted elephant for decades.

Love to your wife.

Leo.

Last edited by Leo Hairy-Camel; 12th Nov 2009 at 13:46.
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 17:38
  #211 (permalink)  
 
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Curser

I guess the best way to find out who made the planning error would be for you to ask your Ops whether Astraeus Ops requested the change the night before (!).

Get your own ship in order before pointing fingers.

And Astraeus hasn't done any self-sponsored stuff for 2 years (since the management changes) so a good friend there tells me (that one actually upset my ex-colleague when I asked him!).
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 18:04
  #212 (permalink)  

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Does anyone really worry if EI go under? Apart from the employees and suppliers of course. After all, it's only a business, and an over-protected and badly-managed one at that. Ireland is an even poorer small country than Belgium and (haha) Switzerland, and these 2 countries lost their "flag-carriers" without a huge song and dance.

Come to think of it, what is a "flag-carrier" in Europe anyhow?
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 18:37
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guess the best way to find out who made the planning error would be for you to ask your Ops whether Astraeus Ops requested the change the night before (!).

Get your own ship in order before pointing fingers.
I would suggest that Aer Lingus Ops declined the change on the basis that they wanted to highlight to their management the inadequacy of the operation.

Does anyone really worry if EI go under?
No one apart from it's shareholders and those with future bookings with the company. That said, any company going under dosen't really worry anyone not connected with it, does it? It's the same in all industries in life.
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 19:03
  #214 (permalink)  
 
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Lord L - surely not at the expense of their customers - I very much doubt such an idiotic stance would be taken by a professional airline.
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 22:25
  #215 (permalink)  
 
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curser

Re. post #207, never seen so many attempts to spell it.

Astraeus Difficult? For some maybe but, keep trying, it will come through effort.

Aside...WWW, your comments are a little below the belt for a MOD....

Rgds
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 22:55
  #216 (permalink)  
 
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Astraeus Difficult? For some maybe but, keep trying, it will come through effort.
Perhaps but then I'm sure curser heard very little of your small company before now. Perhaps what would be more appropriate is a memo to your colleagues in Astraeus telling them that the callsign is 'SHAMROCK', not Aer Lingus. It's embarrasing having to hear ATC in Belfast telling you what your callsign is.

But that's just me being petty Ballymoss and wasn't something I was going to highlight in the argument. My anger in this whole scenario is more with Aer Lingus rather than Astraeus as your company should never have been put in this completely unnecessary situation in the first place. It's a Union bust and nothing short of it and you guys are unfortunately being used as the bait. It's nothing personal against any individual professional pilot in your company.

Lord L - surely not at the expense of their customers - I very much doubt such an idiotic stance would be taken by a professional airline.
If the decision was deliberate, and I hope it wasn't, then I think it was taken along the lines of it being best to highlight these problems early before any additional units come on board. 5 to 6 aircraft operating out of LGW to CAT 1 minima during the winter months is not my idea of a professional airline. Your words not mine.

Last edited by Lord Lardy; 12th Nov 2009 at 23:10.
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 23:20
  #217 (permalink)  
 
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Quick editing of your last paragraph LL! I was quick enough to catch the original post (our secret).

Surely operating to Cat 1 for a while is a professional approach to bedding in a new aircraft type with new crew, although I'm with you entirely on the fact EI should have spotted this one and protected their commercial interests.

Last edited by standbyils; 13th Nov 2009 at 08:32.
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Old 12th Nov 2009, 23:26
  #218 (permalink)  
 
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Quick editing of your last paragraph LL! I was quick enough to catch the original post (our secret).
The original post didn't have a reply to yourself, hence the reason for the addition and the edit. The end of your reply portrays your maturity, or lack of it.
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Old 13th Nov 2009, 00:44
  #219 (permalink)  
 
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NSF and WWW Bravo.

Leo, most people know who you are. Where do you get off, hiding behind your keyboard insulting people in your words 'ad nauseum'.
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Old 13th Nov 2009, 06:15
  #220 (permalink)  
 
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If Astraeus had not been awarded this contract , someone else would have got it. As has been mentioned before , there were plenty of bidders - many airlines would have just laid off summer-only guys and still have a surplus .

The contract is for six months - then Aer Lingus will have its own UK AOC. Who will fly the aircraft out of LGW then , if Dublin guys are laid off and the Astraeus contract finishes ? Half of them will be EI pilots already but the other half .....?
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