Pilot shortage at Brussels Airlines ?

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RemoteControl
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Joined: 20 Jun 2007, 20:56

Post by RemoteControl »

It's friday, last day of the month...

Wondering what this months score is.. and the questions of teddybAIR are good ones and not answered yet either..

Just curious, very curious.
teddybAIR wrote:This topic has been going on for quite a while now and I wonder whether anybody got a clue on the current status for Brussels Airlines:

- How many pilots have left the company since the beginning of this year?
- Do you know something about the split between the different levels (FO's vs Captains, short/medium/long haul?
- How many airplanes have already been grounded temporarily
- How many planes have been leased with crew to compensate for the loss in capacity
- Action plan for the future?

Thx in advance!
Tom

flyavro
Posts: 37
Joined: 17 Aug 2006, 09:57
Location: belgium

Post by flyavro »

ok here's what I have:

2 more FO's last month.

when looking at the seniority list as given 18th of june 2007 we were able to cross of:
cpt Airbus: 4
FO airbus: 4
cpt avro: 14
FO avro: 15

still waiting for a starting date: 8 that I know of but most certainly more, these guys are already confirmed su going to leave withing the next few months.


there is a flightlease 146 as from september to do some of our flights and a few park aviation pilots taking the captain seats.
I wonder how many copilots are going to be happy flying with guys who earn 5 times their salaries.

Oh yeah plan for the future: none. Just to keep on training new guys fast enough to keep up with the outflow. How they're going to replace the captains is a mystery for me as the fo's left don't have the hours required and the ones with the higher hours are leaving.
Management's position is: if air france is hiring our pilots there's nothing we can do about it, bummer. But no way are they going to raise our salaries. They hope to keep us here by improving the communication and telling us it's the fault of the government.
runway in sight, going for the visual

flyavro
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Post by flyavro »

oh yeah it's not because the seniority list came out in june that all those people left since then, some where already gone before that or doing their last few days.
runway in sight, going for the visual

Coppelia
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Post by Coppelia »

Hello Flyavro,

I have one question :

If Park Aviation pays 5 times the salary of SN, why don't Avro CPT's go there and work back for SN on flightlease ?
Tame birds have only longings. Wild birds fly

FLY4HOURS.BE
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Post by FLY4HOURS.BE »

I think that SN has an agreement with them not to hire ex-SN pilots.

Jeez, this is all very bad!!

Why don't you guys just go on strike? No wildcat, though, please.
We all know that you're doing your best and care for your airline but this goes way too far!!

It is time to build a decent seniority program at SN...
Fly4hours, making the path to airline pilot affordable to all

FlightMate
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Joined: 15 Mar 2007, 14:39

Post by FlightMate »

Heard the management doesn't want to increase the salary, as 10% of increase would mean half the profit of last year.

Furthermore, their major argument seems to be: even with the same salary as AF, we cannot compete with them (career, network, ...)
So an increase in salary won't stop people from leaving to AF.

I seem to recall they wrote in a newspaper that our problem comes from the fact that AF decided to hire many people on their waiting list.


Am I wrong or... nobody left for AF yet?

flyavro
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Post by flyavro »

You are wrong on that count: 2 pilots already left for air france. :wink:
But there are a few who are only waiting for their starting date (and management knows their names)
So yeah the Air France excuse is a pretty lame one. I just looked at the seniority list again (yeah we do that a lot in the cockpit as that's the only thing that seems to be changing in this company): most people left (or are leaving) for Cargo B, where the pay isn't that spectacular.

Now they prefer to pay for PARC-pilots, wetleases, training of new pilots and temporary ex-sabena pilots instead if investing in their own pilots. Sad.
I wonder how much of our profit that will eat up.

Heard a rumour that the seniority list will become even more useless because they plan on no longer using anciennity when giving upgrades. Every bidding the candidates will be judged by a panel of instructors and management pilots on their last few simrides and whatever those guys think of the pilot. I guess I know a few guys who'd better leave the company because they will NEVER upgrade. Seems that our management wishes to take their "vriendjespolitiek" one step further. :evil:

They keep on finding new reasons for people to leave.
runway in sight, going for the visual

fly
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Post by fly »

for your info and without getting into detail, cargoB salaries are a lot better than SN salaries.

Pikey
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Post by Pikey »

a lot is a lot exagerated. I heard conditions are not that good. Taking your rest on board of the aircraft fe... Notice that you have to be VERY flexible when you fly cargo on the long haul...

Cheers

fly
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Post by fly »

we do not take rest on board the aircraft except when we fly double crew but until now there are no rotations doing that , we are very flexible (at SN I was also very flexible) , my salary is double.... , crew atmosphere is a lot better and the aircraft well... lets say its the queen of the skies....

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buck
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Post by buck »

flyavro wrote:You are wrong on that count: 2 pilots already left for air france. :wink:
But there are a few who are only waiting for their starting date (and management knows their names)
So yeah the Air France excuse is a pretty lame one. I just looked at the seniority list again (yeah we do that a lot in the cockpit as that's the only thing that seems to be changing in this company): most people left (or are leaving) for Cargo B, where the pay isn't that spectacular.

Now they prefer to pay for PARC-pilots, wetleases, training of new pilots and temporary ex-sabena pilots instead if investing in their own pilots. Sad.
I wonder how much of our profit that will eat up.

Heard a rumour that the seniority list will become even more useless because they plan on no longer using anciennity when giving upgrades. Every bidding the candidates will be judged by a panel of instructors and management pilots on their last few simrides and whatever those guys think of the pilot. I guess I know a few guys who'd better leave the company because they will NEVER upgrade. Seems that our management wishes to take their "vriendjespolitiek" one step further. :evil:

They keep on finding new reasons for people to leave.

Dear Flyavro, is training new pilots not the biggest investment for a company ? Didn't you have to start as well? So lets give a chance to young pilots who are eager to fly and find a job.

apu-on
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Joined: 27 Jul 2007, 17:35

Post by apu-on »

You can look at SN's problems 360 times you will always end-up with one clear conclusion: This company has a total lack of long-term management and vision.. And the results are well known by everyone here.
Hiring Parc aviation pilots and wet leasing BAe146 is ONE OF THE aspects of this going nowhere policy.

SN Air Holding is only looking at one strategy: to sell the company.
But what's SN assets today ?? Some very old BAe 146 and a "kind of" know-how on some tough african countries ??
I'm not sure that DR Congo and Liberia are viewed by Aviation giants as the future African tigers... But many people at SN still think they are the kings of Africa !

Whatever, many SN employees (all categories) deserve better than this.
It's time to give this company to people who KNOW about aviation and not to people dealing with power, water or supermarket business.

flyavro
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Post by flyavro »

don't get me wrong: giving a chance to new pilots to start flying is great! But it becomes a problem when you're training all you can to fill up the huge loss of experience.
A company needs to have an inflow of new pilots otherwise they will get a problem later on. But it should never be that you have more unexperienced copilots than experienced ones. And experience means 2-3 years on the line.

The way they are training at BA now is just too much: they don't have enough instructors to give a thourough training and release them online when they shouldn't be yet. (once again: doesn't count for all of them!)

An airline needs experience: to let FO's become captains and to make sure everything goes well when things get though during a flight.

And for those people who think we're just busdrivers: things DO get though once in a while. And you need only that once.

So sorry if I'm not that enthousiastic about the amount of trainings they give.
runway in sight, going for the visual

flyavro
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Post by flyavro »

and about the salary at CargoB: salary is the thing you take home every month even when you're on holiday or sick. So don't count all those basket-type special salary constructions in it. They are fun but don't count when it really matters.
runway in sight, going for the visual

fly
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Post by fly »

I know its what you take home, although the extras are very welcome I was not talking about them.
In the end what matters is that evrybody is happy at what they are doing with SN or with cargoB or with cargolux.......

The little experience I have with cargoB now , is that it is a fun company, fun people and with lots of experience and they realy want it to succeed something I never experienced with SN, maybe because the latter was so big and cargoB is so small, anyways ... I love it and that goes for the company and the aircraft...

flyavro
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Post by flyavro »

you are completely right of course. My apologies.

Good luck and have a great career!!!

p.s. I certain CargoB is going to make it because of all the motivated and professional people they have on board.
runway in sight, going for the visual

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Vinnie-Winnie
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Post by Vinnie-Winnie »

flyavro wrote:
p.s. I certain CargoB is going to make it because of all the motivated and professional people they have on board.
Yeah well many businesses started like that and failed afterwards!

So yeah hoping that customers will come! Same applies to Brussels Airlines btw let's hope that yields and profits will improve!Don't care about whether the bflex blight concept works or if they have to change it as long as money starts to come in you pilots should be able to share the rewards!

FlyA330
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Post by FlyA330 »

Today, there was another article on the website of the newspaper "De Morgen" about pilot shortage at Bru.Air http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/geld/econo ... =homeArt11 (unfortunally in Dutch)
The management is in panic because the last 3 months, more and more pilots are leaving. Due to this, they have to cancel flights. In the article, they compare the Ryanair salary with the Bru.Air salary for a pilot who lives in Belgium. According to Bru.Air, a Ryanair pilot will earn 37% more. Philippe Vanderputten, the big boss, will ask the government to give the pilots a special tax agreement...

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sn26567
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Post by sn26567 »

Also available in French here.

Interestingly, Vander Putten declares that Brussels Airlines might join an alliance in the medium to long-term.
André
ex Sabena #26567

FLY4HOURS.BE
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Post by FLY4HOURS.BE »

A bit the same but different info, stating VEX and B.air merger and folllow-ups:

http://www.hln.be/hlns/cache/det/art_62 ... =homeArt14
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