Norwegian VS Ryanair
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Working for free on an off day was normal way back 80's and 90's. Was the same at my first company. We got called, did them a favour, got maybe(not always) an other off day. That's it.
Again - times changed. Unfortunately not for the better(writes someone who flew for free in his young years on a off day, I know - but at least that means something ^^).
Again - times changed. Unfortunately not for the better(writes someone who flew for free in his young years on a off day, I know - but at least that means something ^^).
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In the good old days of the charter airlines I would help them out by working a day off because almost all standbys ending up as days of and I was respected by the management who regarded be as a professional business traveler and used appropriate hotels.
In the lo-co life has changed, almost all STBY days end up as work and the rest you get after long working days and being sent to cheap scabby hotels is limited.
The result of this is not working days off is not any sort of revenge or political action aganst the management, it is simply a fatigue management tactic so that I am safe to fly on normal working days.
In the lo-co life has changed, almost all STBY days end up as work and the rest you get after long working days and being sent to cheap scabby hotels is limited.
The result of this is not working days off is not any sort of revenge or political action aganst the management, it is simply a fatigue management tactic so that I am safe to fly on normal working days.
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In the lo-co life has changed, almost all STBY days end up as work
The business model caused crewing levels to be at minimum and rosters all to max/min FTL's. Thus any disruption today caused a change in tomorrow. SBY's were not called out at departure time, but used in advance due to crews being out of rest hours for their next duty. SBY's were firefighters due to bad rostering practices and NOT for last minute disruption scenarios, which was their basic concept.
The business model caused crewing levels to be at minimum and rosters all to max/min FTL's. Thus any disruption today caused a change in tomorrow. SBY's were not called out at departure time, but used in advance due to crews being out of rest hours for their next duty. SBY's were firefighters due to bad rostering practices and NOT for last minute disruption scenarios, which was their basic concept.
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As I mentioned in post #51, here we have the "new Norwegian", replacing Scandinavian high-cost labour 
with cheaper 
low-cost ACMI by go2sky. . . . . inspiring Huh ?
Sign at your peril
https://scontent-arn2-1.xx.fbcdn.net...0a&oe=57D6AE71
with cheaper low-cost ACMI by go2sky. . . . . inspiring Huh ? Sign at your peril
https://scontent-arn2-1.xx.fbcdn.net...0a&oe=57D6AE71
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Interesting thread! Norwegian used to be a "threat" to SAS so I followed the news carefully about this.
Turns out, Norwegian mgmt was fed up with unions and regulations messing with shareholders money and moved the joint to Ireland a few years ago to take advantage of their most liberal taxation rules. Some crew were replaced with non-EU citizens, some had a salary cut. Others were laid off. Since then they have been running a somewhat acceptable circus. Do not expect anything like Norwegian labour laws at NAS! They are entirely non-Norwegian in their nature. Hiring and firing - doesn't matter, they do it with poise and arrogance. Mr Kjos is smiling at the cameras and then hiring Indonesians to do the dirty work.
When Norwegian first started, every other person was sooo excited here in Scandinavia, now we could travel for no money and still all the service! Still, I strongly advised my friends to choose anything else than NAS since it was too cheap to be true. (Of course I more or less forbid them to RYR anything!) Anyway, when it was still in Norway, I could give them the benefit of a doubt, but going rogue into Ireland....? Nah, not cool!
The glory of the moment has faded for Norwegian now. It has NOT helped, all those stranded pax all over the world. Their 787 fleet has had many mishaps, with airplanes having to be flown in to ferry pax to their destination because their designated 787 had "technical issues". It seems to have calmed down some lately though.
737 fleet also some hiccups, I'm sensing they could be maintenance related (because of their nature: lots of loose stuff, lost gaskets, misplaced pins, etc) but I don't have the inside gossip to verify this. Last I heard, some weeks ago, they had an incident with a tank overflowing and jet fuel dripping from the wing. Pax had to wait a few hours, lots of angry faces in the news, especially since this was not the first time this happened to this very flight.
Oh well, just the inputs from an interested bystander. If you don't really HAVE to, don't choose Norwegian. They are not AT ALL what they used to be before the move.
SAS is doing great btw. Last hiring period they had about five applicants per seat. Good times.
Turns out, Norwegian mgmt was fed up with unions and regulations messing with shareholders money and moved the joint to Ireland a few years ago to take advantage of their most liberal taxation rules. Some crew were replaced with non-EU citizens, some had a salary cut. Others were laid off. Since then they have been running a somewhat acceptable circus. Do not expect anything like Norwegian labour laws at NAS! They are entirely non-Norwegian in their nature. Hiring and firing - doesn't matter, they do it with poise and arrogance. Mr Kjos is smiling at the cameras and then hiring Indonesians to do the dirty work.
When Norwegian first started, every other person was sooo excited here in Scandinavia, now we could travel for no money and still all the service! Still, I strongly advised my friends to choose anything else than NAS since it was too cheap to be true. (Of course I more or less forbid them to RYR anything!) Anyway, when it was still in Norway, I could give them the benefit of a doubt, but going rogue into Ireland....? Nah, not cool!
The glory of the moment has faded for Norwegian now. It has NOT helped, all those stranded pax all over the world. Their 787 fleet has had many mishaps, with airplanes having to be flown in to ferry pax to their destination because their designated 787 had "technical issues". It seems to have calmed down some lately though.
737 fleet also some hiccups, I'm sensing they could be maintenance related (because of their nature: lots of loose stuff, lost gaskets, misplaced pins, etc) but I don't have the inside gossip to verify this. Last I heard, some weeks ago, they had an incident with a tank overflowing and jet fuel dripping from the wing. Pax had to wait a few hours, lots of angry faces in the news, especially since this was not the first time this happened to this very flight.
Oh well, just the inputs from an interested bystander. If you don't really HAVE to, don't choose Norwegian. They are not AT ALL what they used to be before the move.
SAS is doing great btw. Last hiring period they had about five applicants per seat. Good times.
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The bulk of the RYR guys that joined tried to go back to RYR, and for good reason. NAS continues to plumb new lows in the industry. Any decent regulator would shut it down, but they use the rubberstamping IAA to get away with anything they like. ICAO should be blacklisting Norwegian and the IAA alike.
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Norwegian seem to be offering 2year bonds on the 738 and believe I fall into this category. I don't have a type rating, but have always wanted to fly the 737 (as Im in corporate aviation) and later move on to bigger airlines, possibly the likes of EK or EY in a few years. If I had to take a bond, what is the likelihood of redundancy or reduced pay over winter months? Surely it wouldn't make sense to get rid of pilots that owed them money/time?
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@johnnybgoode
Well, at the end it is a choice to make(we all had to do that in our aviation lifes). It might be wrong, maybe right. Norwegian or RYR. Or someone else.
If you fly corporate(did that as well for a while, brrrrrrr, lot's of interesting memories) and you seriously want to "improve"(I was down there with ME dreamairlines) your life, why don't you go directly to EK. Their requirements are so low at the moment(as far as I know, piss in a straight line and breathe ^^) that even with just corporate time you should make it in. I think they even lowered it that much to fit EXACTLY the profile a lot of the corporate guys have. Give it a shot, spare you the time with the low cost if it is anyway not the thing you are looking for.
Especially, I don't think so many airline guys are really so keen to go down there(talking about Europeans), why would you change a not so great paid job, most likely in your home country, with social security and retirement(even if it is just state) to change for another not really so great paid job(if you think, they do NOT pay their share of social insurance and retirement to the state, so at the end EK is very cheap on that compared to any european airline. If you add up their contributions you easy reach an EK salary), flying far to much, sitting in a place where for at least 9 months/year it is far to hot and very expensive to live.
Not talking about the management mumbo jumbo, for that have a look in the ME forum in the EK threads. QR or the other one, unspeakable one ^^, is even worse.
Well, at the end it is a choice to make(we all had to do that in our aviation lifes). It might be wrong, maybe right. Norwegian or RYR. Or someone else.
If you fly corporate(did that as well for a while, brrrrrrr, lot's of interesting memories) and you seriously want to "improve"(I was down there with ME dreamairlines) your life, why don't you go directly to EK. Their requirements are so low at the moment(as far as I know, piss in a straight line and breathe ^^) that even with just corporate time you should make it in. I think they even lowered it that much to fit EXACTLY the profile a lot of the corporate guys have. Give it a shot, spare you the time with the low cost if it is anyway not the thing you are looking for.
Especially, I don't think so many airline guys are really so keen to go down there(talking about Europeans), why would you change a not so great paid job, most likely in your home country, with social security and retirement(even if it is just state) to change for another not really so great paid job(if you think, they do NOT pay their share of social insurance and retirement to the state, so at the end EK is very cheap on that compared to any european airline. If you add up their contributions you easy reach an EK salary), flying far to much, sitting in a place where for at least 9 months/year it is far to hot and very expensive to live.
Not talking about the management mumbo jumbo, for that have a look in the ME forum in the EK threads. QR or the other one, unspeakable one ^^, is even worse.
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If you are a " core pilot" sitting on sub 800 hrs a year, fully protected, unionised and wrapped in cotton wool your view may be somewhat different to the " contractors" flogged for 950 plus hours with worthless contracts and no bargaining power. How many " core pilots" have been called to cover shortages at LGW compared with Spanish crews? Expense reports and fatigue reports go hand in hand at NAS, Many of these " contractors" were lured away with false promises and high hopes and now sit in the aviation wilderness.. at least with Ryanair you know the score from day one..the choice of frying pan ( RYR) or fire. ( NAS) ...pan tends to get evenly burnt, fire you are cremated.
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A couple of Winters back the guys who had joined without TR were given the choice , take 4 mths OFF unpaid & come back, or leave, but you have to pay back the TR. The Union eventually got it diluted to less unpaid time off, and some people were given 50% with the salary deductions for TR suspended.
Some bods did indeed get back into RYR, depends on the circumstances in which you left, never burn bridges being the lesson. In most cases they had left to avoid taking low paid Command upgrade / base change & came to NAS with promise of rapid command which didn't materialise, so , felt it was better to retry "the devil you know" finally.
Some bods did indeed get back into RYR, depends on the circumstances in which you left, never burn bridges being the lesson. In most cases they had left to avoid taking low paid Command upgrade / base change & came to NAS with promise of rapid command which didn't materialise, so , felt it was better to retry "the devil you know" finally.
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"The busiest time of year is right around the corner with millions of Norwegian customers about to go on vacation. Unfortunately, our summer operation is facing challenges due to erroneous planning causing considerable lack of pilots."
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If it was only "erroneous planning " . . . . . . . . . no doubt this phrase will be wheeled out again in the Autumn when they decide a certain percentage of the pilots will be only too happy to take unpaid /unrequested vacation to cater for their oft demonstrated totally inadequate organisational skills. (or is it, rather, actually merely a cynical attempt to cover seasonal variation in the simplest way possible ? )
A much bigger elephant in the room , and a greater part of the recruitment problem, is the change of company culture/mindset towards their employees.
That is a harder one to fix than merely screwing up recruitment numbers.
Not to worry, outsourcing production to go2fly employees will solve everything in short order
"Bring back Sterling Mk.1." Hmnn . . . if you knew some of the internal machinations / criteria for obtaining "appointments" , & those involved, you would quickly realise that the company could be better named "Danish" in preference to "Norwegian", & a base rechristened as a "Lodge".
A much bigger elephant in the room , and a greater part of the recruitment problem, is the change of company culture/mindset towards their employees.
That is a harder one to fix than merely screwing up recruitment numbers.
Not to worry, outsourcing production to go2fly employees will solve everything in short order
"Bring back Sterling Mk.1." Hmnn . . . if you knew some of the internal machinations / criteria for obtaining "appointments" , & those involved, you would quickly realise that the company could be better named "Danish" in preference to "Norwegian", & a base rechristened as a "Lodge".
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A little human interest story, maybe reflecting upon what tripulante521 said:
Norwegian förstörde Erica och Almas Londonresa | Nyheter | Aftonbladet
My translation:
Norwegian first announced the flight would be late and would take off, first at 16:45, then at 16:50.
- A few minutes after 16, I get a text that the flight is cancelled. Many people were upset, says Erica Nilsson.
[...]
Norwegian claims that the cancelled flight was due to accumulated delays during the day, which eventually meant that the crew of flight D82853 would have to break working time regulations.
----
To set things straight: All passengers was offered the chance to re-book their tickets on any other Norwegian flight, or even get a refund. What I find interesting is that this took place in the first place, considering what you guys have said previously in this thread.
I would also like to point out that this is the image Norwegian have in Swedish media nowadays. Everything was very positive in the beginning, reports about our Norwegian neighbour accomplishing such a feat (as in: getting into the flying business, buying brand new high tech airplanes like the 787) were plenty.
"The busiest time of year is right around the corner with millions of Norwegian customers about to go on vacation. Unfortunately, our summer operation is facing challenges due to erroneous planning causing considerable lack of pilots."
Flygbolaget Norwegian meddelade först att planet var försenat och skulle lyfta 16.45 och sedan 16.50.
– Strax efter fyra får jag ett sms från Norwegian att det var inställt. Det var många som var upprörda, säger Erica Nilsson.
[...]
Att flyget ställdes in skyller Norwegian på följdförseningar under dagen som slutligen resulterade i att personalen ombord på flight D82853 skulle överstiga lagstadgade arbetstidsbestämmelser.
– Strax efter fyra får jag ett sms från Norwegian att det var inställt. Det var många som var upprörda, säger Erica Nilsson.
[...]
Att flyget ställdes in skyller Norwegian på följdförseningar under dagen som slutligen resulterade i att personalen ombord på flight D82853 skulle överstiga lagstadgade arbetstidsbestämmelser.
Norwegian first announced the flight would be late and would take off, first at 16:45, then at 16:50.
- A few minutes after 16, I get a text that the flight is cancelled. Many people were upset, says Erica Nilsson.
[...]
Norwegian claims that the cancelled flight was due to accumulated delays during the day, which eventually meant that the crew of flight D82853 would have to break working time regulations.
----
To set things straight: All passengers was offered the chance to re-book their tickets on any other Norwegian flight, or even get a refund. What I find interesting is that this took place in the first place, considering what you guys have said previously in this thread.
I would also like to point out that this is the image Norwegian have in Swedish media nowadays. Everything was very positive in the beginning, reports about our Norwegian neighbour accomplishing such a feat (as in: getting into the flying business, buying brand new high tech airplanes like the 787) were plenty.
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Latest from Norwegian:
Piloter og kabinansatte vant over Norwegian - Norwegian Air Shuttle - Børs og Finans - E24
The union brought NAS to court for violating Norwegian employment rules. The court ruled in favour of the union.
My translation:
The pilots were transferred to the daughter company Norwegian Air Norway in 2013 and later to the "pilot service provider"* Pilot Services Norway during the strike in spring 2015.
The cabin crew were transferred to the company Cabin Services Norway in 2014.
The case is divided in three parts. First, the union considers Norwegian Air Shuttle to be the lawful employer for the pilots and cabin crew, second that Norwegian Air Norway has unlawfully acquired employees and third that the transfer to Pilot Services is illegal** because it took place during a strike.
The court decided in favour for the union in first and second complaint, but not the last.
*The original word is "bemanningsselskapet" which I don't know how to translate to English. A "bemanningsselskap" is an agency for professionals with certain knowledges who then hires those professionals to people who need them. A "bemanningsselskap" can f.ex. employ nurses that other companies then hire for a fixed period of time during peak seasons.
**I think the word "ogyldig" actually would be "not valid" or "not applicable" but I chose "illegal" because of the context. Translation is haaard!
Piloter og kabinansatte vant over Norwegian - Norwegian Air Shuttle - Børs og Finans - E24
The union brought NAS to court for violating Norwegian employment rules. The court ruled in favour of the union.
Pilotene ble overført det heleide datterselskapet Norwegian Air Norway i 2013, og senere til bemanningsselskapet Pilot Services Norway i samme tidsrom som streiken på vårparten i 2015.
De kabinansatte ble overført til selskapet Cabin Services Norway i 2014.
Saken er tredelt: De ansatte mener både at Norwegian Air Shuttle er reell arbeidsgiver, at Norwegian Air Norway har drevet ulovlig innleie av arbeidskraft og at den siste virksomhetsoverdragelsen er ugyldig fordi den skjedde under streik.
De kabinansatte ble overført til selskapet Cabin Services Norway i 2014.
Saken er tredelt: De ansatte mener både at Norwegian Air Shuttle er reell arbeidsgiver, at Norwegian Air Norway har drevet ulovlig innleie av arbeidskraft og at den siste virksomhetsoverdragelsen er ugyldig fordi den skjedde under streik.
The pilots were transferred to the daughter company Norwegian Air Norway in 2013 and later to the "pilot service provider"* Pilot Services Norway during the strike in spring 2015.
The cabin crew were transferred to the company Cabin Services Norway in 2014.
The case is divided in three parts. First, the union considers Norwegian Air Shuttle to be the lawful employer for the pilots and cabin crew, second that Norwegian Air Norway has unlawfully acquired employees and third that the transfer to Pilot Services is illegal** because it took place during a strike.
The court decided in favour for the union in first and second complaint, but not the last.
*The original word is "bemanningsselskapet" which I don't know how to translate to English. A "bemanningsselskap" is an agency for professionals with certain knowledges who then hires those professionals to people who need them. A "bemanningsselskap" can f.ex. employ nurses that other companies then hire for a fixed period of time during peak seasons.
**I think the word "ogyldig" actually would be "not valid" or "not applicable" but I chose "illegal" because of the context. Translation is haaard!
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So no more selling of off days now. Norwegian cancelled 18 flights only in Norway due to lack of crew. Also almost 10 planes wet leased operating for them right now.
Must be cheaper to just hire some more pilots soon?
Will we see an improvement in conditions?
Today a 777 (CS-TFM) operated Stockholm Dubrovnik and Palermo.
(In Norwegian)
https://www.nrk.no/rogaland/parat-be...ian-1.13025136
Must be cheaper to just hire some more pilots soon?
Will we see an improvement in conditions?
Today a 777 (CS-TFM) operated Stockholm Dubrovnik and Palermo.
(In Norwegian)
https://www.nrk.no/rogaland/parat-be...ian-1.13025136