Astraeus A320 Contracts
 

Anyone has more info, number of aircraft, routes to be served, conditions...start date

Thanks

Grim conditions
 

Number of aircraft "maybe" up to 8.

Start date: quick if you're a Training Captain of various shades.

Conditions: Led to believe £5250 pcm plus £500 fixed allowances for a Captain
and even worse for an FO, I believe £3250 plus allowances.

8 or 9 days off a month.

Routes unknown, but will be mainly scheduled. Aer Lingus subcontract I am guessing???

Either way, the money's crap. There are zero benefits and it smacks of these guys taking the p1ss.

£69000 all in for a UK Airbus Captain? Get real. It's an insult.

For those unemployed its Luxury

Its a Job
Flying again
Renewing experience
A chance to pay those bills again
A happier family

What cost for the above ? Priceless !!!

I predict that there will be many takers if this is for real.

In the current climate with many unemployed pilots its market forces.

We were told...One A/c to start soonish, maybe up to 4, probably some of the old Excel guys involved, possibly new start up airline:ok: Only looking for experienced Captains at the moment, salary will be in line with industry standards. Problem is there are only a few A320 Cpts around, may be plenty of FOs at the end of the summer from other outfits.

Stansdead - If you don't like it no one is forcing you to work for them.

If you want to earn top dollar then go and fly for BA. Oh, by the way I forgot to say, they (BA) are currently haemmoraging cash at the rate of around £400m per year. :ok:

Stansdead,

In the current market there is not a lot to choose from, so either do....or don't, your choice.

My sources, who are very close to the 'scene', hinted to me it's upto 4 aircraft and for Iceland Express. This makes sense with AEU's tie up with the Icelandic's.

Still, interesting to see something new on the horizon at last!

BD

I think that I made it clear that I won't be going.

Yeah, who would want to earn 69K a year when they can struggle at home with nothing coming in:ugh:

Flightmech,

Yes, in your case (or whoever doesn't have a job - no offence if you do) it makes sense.

My point is, it's another poorly paid Captain job which is just bringing our industry terms and conditions further down.

If you've got no job, then great!! If you have, you wouldn't be leaving for that kind of money. That's my point. It's a poor deal.

Good luck if you like it though.

Of course, the quid pro quo is that if the job is underpaid, people will leave in droves once the economy turns.

If they intend to shoot themselves in the foot, so be it - it will be their loss...unless they have the market rates measured correctly!

Stansdead is right about the pay. However the others are right too. Based at LGW for a UK carrier as opposed to nothing............. Hum let me see.
Truth is thats the sort of money thats out there now.
6 or 7 k euros in Europe , $8000 in Nigeria or a bit more in India!!!!

Hence my comments elswhere regarding those already in work. :ok:

Rainboe,

Don't bother trying to put my opinion down. You are nothing but an old time "boy done good" who's only on here because he's drawing some sugar soaked and unbelievably (unaffordable) pension from BA, or wherever it was that you worked.

The money's crap for a LGW Command on a modern and complicated jet like an A320, and you know it. So, don't bother trying to justify downward trends and "worse than 1973" recessions. You don't know that for a fact. No one does. We will find out if it is worse or not when it's over. You are no economist. In fact, all you are is a bit of a blow off merchant who needs to get out and spends his Airways Pension Scheme.

The way you carry on it almost makes me wonder if you're a Director of Astraeus. But then I realised you aren't that smart.

Stop talking down the industry that you've benefited from.

Stan

p.s. I have worked in the UK all my life. I know the score.

Aer Lingus are looking for Gatwick based A320 Captains, I doubt any of the Easy 96K a year mob will apply, but for those unemployed on £64 a week if you can afford the pay cut to 75K a year go to Lingus!

Having listened to both sides of the debate, I have to say I back those who are deriding the Astraeus contract. I am an Airbus Training Captain and cannot conceive of any circumstances that would make me leave an airline to work for them - other than unemployment! Ultimately we will all take a job rather than no job, but we should be wary of the 'supply and demand' argument. If ever there was a time for protecting pay and conditions this was it. Where does the 'take any job' you can argument end? If they are offering £25k a year for an Airbus captain, should the proud recipients of such an offer not be happy and honoured, lest they be on the dole instead? I would suggest we all know the answer to that quesiton. There is clearly a point at which we recognise that the pendulum has swung too much - the question is where to draw the line. My personal view is that Astraeus are a two-bit company with two-bit management whose possible success is a threat to our whole industry. I frankly do not want Astraeus and their fellow travellers to succeed - I wish to seem them well out of the Airbus market. They have nothing to add to our industry and have done a great deal to destroy people's futures. I genuinely feel sorry for the unemployed - but not sorry enough to tell them to take these jobs.

Fletch I think you missed your calling, see you at anger management! Now the issue of pay is completely different to that of wanting to see an airline fail. The management at Astraeus may or may not be as you describe, however failure impacts the normal cabin crew, office staff, and flight deck whom may not have the luxury of choosing where they work. Agreed pay should be realistic, but if you use agency staff, you are getting stitched up for about 20% on top and at the end of the day the operational costs to the airline will be the same, the alternative, short term contracts can be as expensive, you are paying for flexible staff. Any growth, on any fleet is good for the industry and none of us should wish ill will on these ventures.. ok Ryanair is fair game!

That is not far off the money I am currently on as a year 1 A320 Captain in S. America (65Kish all in).....and yes that is right, in a 3rd world country and no its not an expat contract. As far as I am concerned that is pretty sh1te money for an Airbus captain in the UK.

I agree with Stan, insulting to say the least and I particularly liked NSF's argument, well put sir.:D

OW

Salaries
 

Yes the salary is low but it is BETTER than some other companies pay for similar work in Europe. Also Rainboe is unfortunately right, contract rates have gone down to doldrums in the last 6 months. Companies are using the bad economy to cut T&C left and right.

If unemployed accepting low salary and bad conditions could be the only viable way to stay current and wait for the better times. Certainly some of the companies would not be even considered during better times by anyone even remotely employable.

When the economy hopefully some day comes up again El Cheapo operators will be losing pilots in hordes to companies that have better offers. Until that we are, I am sad to say, Fudged beyond all hope.

Hang on guys!(Gentlemen is too generous)
Rainboe in your enthusiasm, like so many others on this site, to `get stuck in` under the cloak of anonimity, you missed me point completely.
When I said Stan was right about the pay I meant his figures were correct. I heard the same numbers from a very reliable source.
THATS ALL!
Why cant we raise questions about T&Cs and possible recruitment etc without people (yes, usually with a good job already) jumping in and slinging insults and childish abuse at each other.
For Christ`s sake we are supposed to be professionals not spoilt teenagers with nothing better to do but sit at our computers and post insults on forums!!!!

As it happens I think this money is disappointing for a UK based Airbus Training Captain but as per the rest of my post, things are tough. Whats more there has been no mention here of training pay which presumably would be on top of those figures mentioned. Astraeus is still in business and it is hiring pilots!!Good for them!
Again....Nigeria $8000 pm 2 months on 1 month off, India $9300pm 6 weeks on 2 weeks off. Both of course provided you are under 58 years of age!!!!! 6 months ago with the dollar at just over 1 to the £ great! but now, and what in 6 months time?

Whilst it may be a "low salary" I agree with KG, don't wish ill on the venture it's all UK aviation after all. I expect we will see a load of Eastern European Captains working here, the pay is better than they get nowand they will probably enjoy the work. Look at the History of the AEU pilots.. Germans, Bulgarians, Dutch, South African, Icelandic,Greek, Cypriot, Australian... Most on off-shore contracts, their NET is equal to a higher gross, only guy missing out is that Pr**K Brown! Good luck to them.

midnight cruiser
 

At the very least, their willingness to work after 55/60/65 for often little more than beer money is instrumental in dragging down the market rate, not to mention clogging up the promotion structure for people who are working their way up in the normal way, where the lower rungs are considerably less comfortable than they encountered as SFOs in BA.


My, my. A little bit of thread creep, methinks.

Midnight cruiser, I'm not sure where you work but permit me to tell you, as a Captain well into his 60s and earning the going rate, I don't feel I'm instrumental in dragging-down the market rate. If anything, I'm living proof that there is life beyond 55/60 and that the salary scales don't suddenly fall off a cliff at what was considered to be normal retirement age. We also have a number of ex-Big Airlines Captains working beyond age 60 very happy to take the going rate every month. The last thing these pilots would want to do is denigrate those of us who are "working their way up in the normal way".

I have spent many years in and out of various recessions/pilot surpluses/redundancies/overdrafts etc trying to gain a foothold on the bottom rung of a decent, seniority-structured airline. And even when I managed it, events sometimes conspired to knock me off what I thought was a comfortable perch and I had to endure periods of unemployment/relegation to the RHS etc. I suspect my experiences reflect those of a large part of the pilot community of a certain generation. Believe me, I have no intention of working for anyone for little more than beer money.

Nothing much has changed over the years except that employers are getting cannier at taking advantage of aspiring pilots. Retired BA pilots or simply old ones, such as me, are not instrumental in the erosion of Ts and Cs over the years. That old soldier, market forces, is mainly to blame.

Plus ca change.

The stark reality is that the airline industry is like any other in that it suffers cyclically from the usual market forces/over-capacity/poor management/disasters, natural or man-made etc. We can't expect Ts and Cs to be a never-ending gravy train nor can we expect full employment all the time. I take your point regarding BA pilots but even those are not immune to market forces. What I will say about BA is they have, as far as I know, always had decent roster/lifestyle practices in place and we should, as an industry and a body of men and women, aspire to some of those practices rather that bleating about pay.

I'm afraid I can't join in the fashionable 'newbie bashing' of those who pay employers to gain type-ratings and even pay for Line Training. We should confine venting our bile on to those unscrupulous operators who choose to take advantage of these depressed times. And we should also take issue with our august CAA for allowing operators to behave in this manner. I wish these aspiring pilots all the best in their endeavours. I would do the same in their place, faced with the same choices.

Now, can we get back to Astreus A320 contracts? I hope there are still a few unemployed pilots who are willing to get off their high horse and apply for a job on a A320 at LGW.