fade to grey - if you have a problem about my 'continued bleating on about salaries', I suggest you read somewhere other than the 'Terms and Endearment' section of PPRuNe. Strangely enough, a lot of the people reading there are quite interested in that sort of thing.

Also, however difficult the situation may be at East Midlands, your analysis is somewhat inaccurate. Not a single person there will have to go to a job club if they do not want to as they will be offered alternative employment. And if they are currently fortunate enough to earn in excess of £100k (as a number of easyJet captains are), they will still be doing so at their new base. I know you find discussions about salaries unsavoury, but if you feel the need to make remarks on the subject, it is always good to check the facts first.

NSF - fair enough but does it not strike you as ironic to continue to complain about other people's T+Cs when your own employer is not doing so well.

furthermore I am not certain why you are involved in this thread at all - you clearly love your payslip from orange.com, were you expecting Aeu to offer some outlandish figure to lure you from them with your airbus 'expertise' ?

I don't think we have had problems recruiting sufficient people.

Hi Guys,

Does anybody know the likelyhood of Astraeus acquiring a third aircraft and consequently running another COO course?
Have heard rumours of an October course but was wondering how likely that was?

Cheers

SId.

Wht third? They only have one A320 unless things have changed

I`ve heard a rumour that they may be doing more interviews.
We have read here what the pay is from PAS, but does anyone know what the T&Cs are for Astraeus captains? It would make an interesting comparison. :ok:

This topic has been done to death on here, don't mean to be rude, but there is plenty of verbiage on the thread already.PAS pay is tax free, therefore how can you make a reasonable comaprison?

Interesting to note one of their existing dry lease B737 customers, Seagle Air, is making a gradual transition to an exclusive all Airbus operation. Maybe aeu will provide some of these aircraft?

Why? the dry lease was for some old 733s, which must have been surplus to requirements by AEU, I can't see them leasing buses to sub lease out, doesn't make sense..Having said that, if the A320 becomes surplus or the 4 Lingus 320s due to come off line end of the summer, who knows..

Jetman.
I`m sorry you find this boring!

Let me give you a clue ............................Dont :mad: click on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jetman.
Just in case you didnt take my advise..........

Yes the PAS salary is paid gross but, correct me if I`m wrong, I always thought the figure at the top left corner of any pay cheque was gross. The sad, scrawny little number at bottom right is the nett.

Why do I want to do this? Well its simple really...............
She who will be obeyed has a nephew, well actually her sister Deidre (In Wiltshire, keeps a herd of prize Yaks........something to do with organic Mongolian butter.) Anyway, her nephew, young Scroggins Junior, ended up as an A320 driver for some brightly coloured mob. Unfortunately young scrogs fell foul of the jolly old Law.......a small misunderstanding with the management of The Savoy and an inflatable Blonde Virgin hostie by the name of Charlene..........a matter of some diamond jewellery of questionable provenence.......and the long term lease of a Lamborghini Murcialago, the owner of which failed to grasp the finer points of the lease agreement. Anyway, hence the fact that our young hero found himself languishing at HM`s pleasure in the jolly old `Scrubs`.
Displaying his customary enterpirsing spirit he signed up for a rehabilitation course sponsored by none other than the jolly old PM hiimself, our Gordie. The long and the short of it being that young Scroggins had a week of ground school, a few sessions in the fixed base sim and 4 in the real thing followed by an LPC /OPC. Well actually, the OPC was a bit tricky on account of how HM Prisions are a bit short on A320 SOPs!

Anyway..... Young Scrogs is due out any time now. The icing on dear old Gordons Angel Cake is that HMG must pay our chap for a year at the going rate, not working of course!

So we come to the jolly old rub of the matter...does he claim the PAS salary or the Astraeus one??

See, told you it was simple......just like popping off ducks on a pond with Pater`s old Holland and Holland! :O

Jet.man: how is PAS pay tax free??

I understand that to work under PAS, one would be registered as self employed, but would still be liable to Income and NI tax at the end of the tax year.

Albeit this at a more favourable rate, but even so, its still taxable.

Please correct me if i'm wrong?

OK, perhaps I should have said they pay you off-shore and it is up to you to declare the tax on the money..which of course everyone does.:ok:

Yeah I read that somehow the inland revenue can now get records of offshore accounts?

Hi Guys,

Does anybody have any more information on who/which airline the A320 contract is going to be for?

On the flystar website, they released a tw1tter mentioning basing crews in the middle east for winter.

Not sure if that was for existing 737 or 757 aircraft

Any ideas?

any truth to the rumours of more aircraft??
will there be any further recruitment?

It has now been confirmed that the client involved with the A320 is a certain Irish airline sporting a green livery. The scale of the operation still remains unclear but is rumoured to be as large as 6 to 8 aircraft.

As for the middle east. That is a contract for the 757 flying the Hajj pilgrimage and thus is unrelated.

NSF - may i suggest you look at the way easyjet treats its own pilots before you criticise other airlines. The way easy/ctc are destroying T&Cs for FOs is a joke.

Ah Rainboe - and all because you got bumped off an easyJet flight. Life is, alas, full of disappointments - if that is the only one you have then you will have led a blessed life indeed. There is actually some merit in your argument that times have changed. The knack is ensuring that everyone benefits from those changes and not just a few greedy managers.

Airwolf - could not agree more. The outrageous treatment of our cadets is a disgrace. No non-management pilot at easyJet likes it, but at this juncture it is a battle we are struggling to win. BALPA have approached CTC for 'discussions', but CTC is not interested. I trust they will become interested. EasyJet management ranting is basically that we need to reduce crewcosts very quickly or we are all doomed. I am more than a little amused to see that Rainboe agrees.

Rainboe,

Why don't you just go and RETIRE on your BA pension like you were meant to?

You are very tiresome.

Kettle...pot...black
 

Also tiresome, Stansdead.

Rainboe makes valid points, and from experience. I share his experience, and wonder how much you may have gained thus far.

Roy Hudd,

I am an A320 Captain. I have enough experience thanks.

For you oldies to be sitting in Ivory Towers gloating at the lower terms and conditions being offered to others is just plain sad.

I agree it's not my decision when you should retire. But, what a waste of a perk others will never see again.

You're a long time dead, so it would be wise to enjoy your dotage.

But maybe your third wife thinks you are tiresome too, is that why you still work?

This is an economic crisis like no other in the last 70 years. UK is perhaps the worst prepared "developed" economy to meet it. Likely we will see a desperate second leg of the downturn next year for reasons well documented elsewhere. We are really up the creek, with the prospect of a sterling crisis looming ever larger. One failed gilt auction will be all it takes to see the UK shown for the basket case it is. In a market like this, it pains me to say it, any job is a job. Frankly, I dont know why airlines are not ripping up pilot contracts and saying £25k for an FO, £40K for a captain and that's it. I suspect that next year, they will or its a collapse all round as demand evaporates in the face of persistent, deep-rooted, long term unemployment, a need to pay for oil in a third world currency as the pound sinks further, and as various taxes both overt and covert whoever wins the election sap what disposable income there is. We face a national debt on a par with that at the end of WW2, scaled up to todays money, and bugger-all economic growth to pay it back with. UK is going back to the 70's at a searing pace. The next ten years will be absolutely brutal. In my opinion, we all know who we have to thank for that.


APD is a disgrace too, in as much as the rest of Europe does not pay it so we are further hobbling an already crippled UK market for airline travel.

As to our profession, well I had a great time but its finished, really finished. I derive no joy from saying that. A friend of mine told me about a dinner he went to where there was an advisor in economics to the "brightly coloured" airline board, (a social accident - he did not know him before or fix it up, his friends he went with did). He told me that this guy was fascinating. His contempt for pilots knew no bounds and he expounded gleefully on the summer-only contracts he forsaw and the increasing contractorisation of piloting overall, where contractors bid for the work the brand generated and the lowest cost base won. He looked whistfully at Eastern Europe as a great source of cheap pilots and said supply easily exceeded demand for the forseeable future. His view was that flying an airliner was a slightly more sophisticated train driver style job and said, bluntly, that some train drivers now earned more than pilots, which was as it should be in his view, especially for FO's who he viewed as a legal requirement but otherwise woefully overpaid for their contribution. This, he predicted would change rapidly and so, it seems, is the case at the brightly coloured airline, as elsewhere.

He admitted, apparently, that airlines were a pretty cosy club through the various trade bodies they belong to and that they all got together to discuss areas of mutual interest like overhead - particularly staff costs. The oil price makes an airline a price taker but salaries are where they can be a price maker, he said, and that they were all determined to drive the status and salaries of piloting through the floor. It was, he felt, a ridiclous "career" to enter as the specialisation was so narrow and the industry itself so vulnerable to external shocks that it was virtually to condemn oneself to a job where opportunities were increasingly limited and salaries shrinking in real terms every year and with little chance to move outside it at a corporate level unless to manage within it, where the focus would inevitably be on who could deliver the cheapest cost base given the total commoditisation of the industry product. That meant being the best at screwing down the earnings of your own peer group. He felt that this was all fair game and that the market was so easy to rig against pilots come any sign of a downturn in the economy that becoming one was the height of folly, but that, never-the-less, plenty of people kept applying so there was little need to adjust the career to attract the best, they would take what they got. Safety cut little ice because, as he put it, "you lot all want to get home to your families at the end of your overpaid day, so the passengers will be fine too."

Personally, I would have wanted to either walk out or punch him on the nose, but my mate stayed, gripped by the depth of the exposition this economics expert who sat on many other boards of other industries as well went on to over the course of their evening.

Much of what he apparently said has come to pass - Brookfield contract pilots dominate the new entries to R*an A*r, and the FO's at the brightly coloured airline are getting ever more put upon. The economy refuses to re-ignite in the UK in a meaningful way and the clouds are looming.

It seems to me that people need to have back-up plan in this industry, both in terms of what to do if their airline or career come to a halt, and indeed of where to live if the UK becomes as gritty as it is destined to without the utmost care and skill from its economic managers in the next decade. (See much chance of that? Me neither!).

Astreus are somehow providing growth in an economy that is still shrinking. I suspect, although I hate to say it, that their offer will seem quite generous in the years to come.

Sadly Short Final Fred you are right or your erstwhile Economics chap is.

There is going to be blood on the floor in our industry this winter and it will be dog eat dog.......

Short, thank you for a powerful, if rather depressing, contribution. As someone who has spent nearly 40 years in the profession, and set to do a few more yet! I hate to think badly of it.
I`ve seen the pendulum swing, been made redundant several times, trained bright young cadets and retired `flag carrier Capts`. I`ve been paid bucket loads and pittances, but overall I wouldnt trade it for anything. I have worked with some really great people, done some really great things and had a lt of fun. The profession is hugely different now than when I started. The captains I first flew with were survivors of the Battle of Britain and the Bombing raids. What differneces did they see in their span?
Most of us get reasonably well paid, are generally treated with respect, and enjoy it. Thats not a bad place to start.
There is a layer of people in certain companies who have, and aspire to continue, to enjoy pay and benefits that were never ever relevant to the real world. Generally speaking they worked hard to protect their seniority and the benefits they `earned`. If those below didnt do so well, then tough shxt! They will see changes!
At the end of the day, go into it with your eyes open, blame noone for your own choices, and give it your best shot. Be safe...................and enjoy!!!
:ok:

Anyone know anything about Aer Lingus crew (pilots and cabin crew) based in the UK (BFS and LGW) training on the Astraeus AOC and SOP's in the next few weeks? Has Aer Lingus bought Astraeus?

Aer Lingus buy Astraeus?..................

.......Not sure if they have enough cash to buy a bag of crisps in the terminal, let alone another airline........

What a shambles our industry is.:ugh:

stansdead....I second that.....sadly

there is a real risk Aer lingus will run out of cash......

Rainboe,

You are probably not bothered about the money because you are an APS retiree. You don't NEED to be worried!!!

That's the point.

Can't you see how it looks? Expecting others to be grateful for lower terms and conditions in an airline that you are working for at this moment whilst in receipt of pension.

Have you told the wonderful Hamrah that you are happy to have your pay reduced to meet the "market conditions"?

Anyway, where should I leave the bowl of Cream for my favourite fat cat?

The reason I'm asking is that crews from both LGW and BFS have been told they are going to be trained up on the Astraeus SOP's in the next few weeks. so maybe EI haven't bought Astraeus but what's goin on? Anyone know?

Maybe Fengur (assuming ownership of Astraeus has not bounced on yet again) have bought AL?

I thought Iceland had less money than Ireland?

It's a crazy World.......:confused:

Rainboe,
"baking in the sun,bored out my mind" well the first half of that applies to alot of our nightstops, I'm never bored though and as FNA comes into the sunny season it'll be great (they have now imported some cider :ok:)

I don't expect to get £150k a year and I don't care as I can easily live on what I get,and I would certainly trade a few bob for the variety of flying we do :shorthaul, medium haul, scheduled, charter you name it.

I certainly would not trade it for a loco lifestyle where you are burnt out in a few years or bored to death,

Right, when does my airbus training start ?:}

hey Rainboe, that will be the same 'market' that lets bankers keep their fat salaries and pensions when the company they work for is bust.

Oh if airline pilots had such luxury......

Clarification
 

Stansdead,

What are you on about?. I have had one wife, have lost 2 airline jobs due to collapse of company and the greedy gay guy from Donington Hall, and have no pension of any merit to look forward to.

I work both to pay the bills and my kids' uni education, and also because I still enjoy flying.

Apologies for insinuating you didn't fly for a living. I was wrong there.

No further insults to be traded.

- aha! But who said the money was in Iceland? Iceland would certainly have preferred that, but it is 'elsewhere' in all its glory.

One nicely timed strike and said adviser would be looking for a new career too!

D and F :8

Roy Hudd,

Truce.

Anyone know if it's true that Astraeus are no longer inviting applications for Airbus crews and if so, why?

I guess it's true, until the next A320 arrives (if she arrives) cause the positions are now fulfilled

For some clarity on the whole will they/won't they get another airbus issue - I think the point is being missed. The company have not recruited pilots to only fly the Airbus wholly owned by themselves. In fact, that is only a side issue.

The intention is that the entire Shamrock operation from Gatwick will now be crewed by AEU crew. This will consist of those recruited directly for the purpose and those working for Shamrock already. Therefore the extent of recent recruitment has been to crew all current and immediate future Shamrock Airbus' based at LGW.

The Airbus on AEU books is joining the ad hoc fleet. Whether this aircraft will also join in on the Shamrock operation remains to be seen.