Brussels Airlines : cabin crew strike looming

[Passenger]

On Thursday evening, negotiations between management and unions have failed and the unions have decided that a strike now is the only way to solve the problems. Legally, the unions now have to wait one week to announce the strike, but union ACLVB (a union that calls itself "liberal") already told the press they will do so:

http://trends.knack.be/economie/belga-e ... 424345.htm
http://www.pagtour.net/index.php?option ... Itemid=125

So just a few months after the Swissport strike that has put thousands of passengers into sh.t and that costed Brussels Airlines millions of euro's, another massive loss is announced. And once again, the unions use passengers as plaything to get what they want.

Seems the dispute is about rosters, but who cares? An aviation union going on strike just wants to hurt management and shareholders so bad that next time they ask something, they get it.

[Flanker2]

It will not come to a strike. Brussels Airlines unions always announce strikes but it never comes down to it. They are well-know to side with management. Any elections around the corner perhaps?

On the tarmac in BRU I once happened to pick up a duty roster that a SN cabin crew probably dropped. It was a roster so busy, even students working in the horeca don't work such rosters. I showed it to my friends and family, they were all like: "they don't have a life!".

On the one hand I understand that at SN, CC do it as a career. But honestly, I think that when you accept to work that kind of rosters as a career, it no longer is a matter of vocation or career, but a matter of choice.

If you don't like it, you go out there and look for other jobs in customer relations. A receptionist working 9 to 5 at a front desk makes more than 2200 gross nowadays.

I'm of the opinion that if you don't like a job or a company, you give it the finger and move on, unless you want to march for a cultural change in a company where such change is possible. At SN it's not possible, the unions are very good friends of the management. The management also does not have the skills nor experience to manage such a complex operation in a profitable way. Gustin is the longest serving CEO, but also the most loss-making. In the 5 years he's been here, can we say that there have been any improvements?
I know that staff morale has tanked, the longhaul fleet has doubled but without any perceptible effect on the financials, which are still on a steady 3 degree approach path to CFIT, simply because for a large part it didn't grow where it should have grown, ie in new territories in Africa which are still served only by AF-KL.

Where does SN stand in 5 years? Gustin at its helm, cabin crew still complaining and no money in the bank.
This is my opinion.

[shockcooling]

...
On the one hand I understand that at SN, CC do it as a career. But honestly, I think that when you accept to work that kind of rosters as a career, it no longer is a matter of vocation or career, but a matter of choice.

If you don't like it, you go out there and look for other jobs in customer relations. A receptionist working 9 to 5 at a front desk makes more than 2200 gross nowadays.
...

In the same company even, a young lady, even with low seniority, can decide herself when she comes to work, because of aviation. WTF?! I know it's different work, and not correct to compare, but quite the eyeopener it's to me. My first 2 years at SN I earned just €100 more than her (with a bank waiting for >€120k, that is)

http://www.jobat.be/nl/artikels/het-loo ... uro-netto/
Het voordeel van een job in de luchtvaart is ook dat je je vrije dagen flexibel kunt plannen. Wij werken eigenlijk zeven dagen en niet alleen van maandag tot vrijdag. Daarom kunnen we onze ‘off’-dagen inplannen wanneer we willen

[sean1982]

Maybe they should come and have a look at my roster .... That should stop the complaints

[CTBke]

Maybe they should come and have a look at my roster .... That should stop the complaints

in what kind of sector are you working then ?

[sean1982]

aviation .. cabin crew

[CTBke]

the thing is that time diferences , early to late - late to early , europe flights with early wake up right before long haul flights etc makes its hard...bad conditions for inflight rest for both cockpit and cabin ... so it's not that they are complaining for nothing ... but there is just not enough money to hire more people to solve this ...


and please do , send me your roster ... i'll compare it with mine

[HighInTheSky]

Maybe they should come and have a look at my roster .... That should stop the complaints

Having 20+ hours of overtime each month, 14, 15, 16 nights away from base, switch from early sign in to late sign in,...
I've seen so many rosters that made me wonder how people still have a life at home...

Though I'm not a fan of striking, whatever the company is, I think these people have some valid points to fight for.

[tolipanebas]

aviation .. cabin crew

I don't want to sound disrespectful to you, but you only fly regional sectors, sean.

At SN, the focus has rightfully been on expanding the longhaul network for the last couple of years and so obviously a lot of longhaul flying has been added to the rosters of all crews, so our cabin crew fly what are called mixed patterns, meaning their monthly rosters combine several longhaul flights with a bunch of medium haul flights, yet there isn't a well defined mechanism to alternate between these 2 very different work patterns.

People are often scheduled to fly a transatlantic flight, followed by a mission on Europe comprising of 2 consecutive layover, followed by another transatlantic flight again, followed by a night flight to Tel Aviv, or a similarly yet equally alternating pattern, for instance.

Obviously such extremely 'dynamic' rosters give rise to accumulated fatigue (think jetlag) as well as sleeping problems due to the constantly changing work patterns (constant swap from an early sign in to a late sign in, then a night flight, followed by an early sign in again all within ONE week), not to mention that it has a significant social impact too due to the massively increased time away from home from all that additional longhaul flying which got added to rosters which are still made as if they are still just 'regional' rosters only.

I think it's high time they make a split like they did for cockpit crews, because there are just too many longhaul flights these days to still combine them with a bunch of European flight parings for the rest of the month.

[papysn]

Hi,

After the crash of Sabena,the unions,once so powerfull were accused of the failure of the ex national carrier...wich was inaccurate as the problem was maily political....
The union at Bruair are so weak and loaded with this image that they cannot act to protect in a minimum way the staff....

After all theses years giving and giving (and getting nothing even respect) i think a strike would be necessary.

Regards.

K.

[crew1990]

Maybe they should come and have a look at my roster .... That should stop the complaints

Sean, before complaining about you roster, go to fly for another airlines and see how it is there.

Your roster is on a continious basis, composed of 5 days in early, 2 days OFF, 5 days in late and than 3 OFF. On early you always take off around 6.30 and on late you always land around 22.30. You never have night flight or night stop. Your planed shift never go over 11 hour.

In othe company is not on a continous basis, you can have 7 days flying 2 days off and than again 7 days flying. there is some times night flight, yor 12 hour rest and you are up in the sky again. Sometimes there is some 16 hour shift. In HQ and JAF with the triangle flight to Egypt for example.

In Ryanair you get your roster every Friday wich is nive because you can plan easily your life,even if you actually don't need your roster as you already know when you will be OFF.

In most of the other airlines, you get the full roster of the next month a few days before.

In Ryanair you only have OFF certified, In other comapny there are some OF48 or OFF8 whitch mean that the OFF is confirmed 2 days or 8 hours before. Before this time they can make you flying.

Ryanair have enough crew to operate all the fight and is a very organised airlines, so they never call the employee when they are OFF.

Some other airlines are short of crew and when someone is sick they don't have any stand by to operate the flight and have to call someone witch is OFF, of course this person can say no. But this is negative if this person still on a temporaty contract. This happend to me last time, I'm based in London Gatwick, however I was OFF so I went home in Brussels, OCC (crew control as you call it in Ryanair) call me because one of our cabin crew for our Gambian sister company was sick in London and there were no vaccinated crew available in Gatwick to do the flight. I had 1 hour to be in uniforme, and jump on a SN flight to London Heathrow, cross London to go to Gatwick and fly for my very first time to Africa, it was my first long haul flight. By the ways thanks to the African specialist SN cabin crew of the flight to Heathrow for the "african briefing" about what to do or not in Africa and their advise!

Now about the stand by, you never go over 12hour in a row, in other company you sometimes(often) have 20 hour in a row. You have 1 hour to get to the airport, Jetairfly crew have 45 minute (correct me if I m wrong)

Ryaniar people thing that in other company we don't work that much and that we earn 5000 euros a month and that when we are in layover we have a 5 star hotel in the city center, but this is wrong the good time are gone. And before complaining like Ryanair people do always, and going to the media, open your eyes and see how it is in other company and you ll see that Ryanair is not that bad.

In my personal opinion i'm happy to work now for another airlines because the aviation was a dream for me and I consider Ryanair as the Mac Donald of the aviation. However if there is one thing that I miss in Ryanair this is definetaly the roster which allowed me to have a better social life than I have now.

[sean1982]

aviation .. cabin crew

I don't want to sound disrespectful to you, but you only fly regional sectors, sean.

At SN, the focus has rightfully been on expanding the longhaul network for the last couple of years and so obviously a lot of longhaul flying has been added to the rosters of all crews, so our cabin crew fly what are called mixed patterns, meaning their monthly rosters combine several longhaul flights with a bunch of medium haul flights, yet there isn't a well defined mechanism to alternate between these 2 very different work patterns.

People are often scheduled to fly a transatlantic flight, followed by a mission on Europe comprising of 2 consecutive layover, followed by another transatlantic flight again, followed by a night flight to Tel Aviv, or a similarly yet equally alternating pattern, for instance.

Obviously such extremely 'dynamic' rosters give rise to accumulated fatigue (think jetlag) as well as sleeping problems due to the constantly changing work patterns (constant swap from an early sign in to a late sign in, then a night flight, followed by an early sign in again all within ONE week), not to mention that it has a significant social impact too due to the massively increased time away from home from all that additional longhaul flying which got added to rosters which are still made as if they are still just 'regional' rosters only.

I think it's high time they make a split like they did for cockpit crews, because there are just too many longhaul flights these days to still combine them with a bunch of European flight parings for the rest of the month.

If this is the case ... then I agree 100% with you, they should go on strike tomorrow then.


@crew1990, I'm not complaining about my roster. I don't have 5/2/5/3 roster and I have worked multiple times in my days off already. Furthermore as employee form the "mcdonalds" of aviation, having been around aviation for 11 years and with a partner also working in aviation (as a pilot) I have yet to find the "hof van cleve" of aviation. So if you think you can look down on your former employer just because you're someweher else, I'd suggest you learn what the word respect means.

[convair]

SN's cc, like all others btw, deserve respect and human working conditions. Now, although the winter season only starts at the end of October, isn't the workload going to decrease significantly from September?

[CTBke]

not at all as there are not enough CC's during summer and let's not forget that a lot of temp CC's are also on the LH sector and this sector doesn't decrease during winter ... result no decreasing winter period

[crew1990]

@crew1990, I'm not complaining about my roster. I don't have 5/2/5/3 roster and I have worked multiple times in my days off already. Furthermore as employee form the "mcdonalds" of aviation, having been around aviation for 11 years and with a partner also working in aviation (as a pilot) I have yet to find the "hof van cleve" of aviation. So if you think you can look down on your former employer just because you're someweher else, I'd suggest you learn what the word respect means.

I don't see where I have been unrespectfull towards you, Ryanair or their employee, it's just that you wrote "Maybe they should come and have a look at my roster .... That should stop the complaints " I understood this as "I have a Ryanair roster and the SN probably have a better one so they should stop complaining", sorry if I badly interprated it.

I simply wanted to make a comparaison between a Ryanair roster with the roster of other airlines to show it's not that bad.

About the fact that I consider Ryanair as the Macdonald of the aviation, I'm sorry but Ryanair is not Air France, Brussels Airlines or Etihad. Ryanair is Ryanair the cheapest low cost airlines of europe as O'Leary is saying so where is the problem.

[LoveAviation]

On Thursday evening, negotiations between management and unions have failed and the unions have decided that a strike now is the only way to solve the problems. Legally, the unions now have to wait one week to announce the strike, but union ACLVB (a union that calls itself "liberal") already told the press they will do so:

http://trends.knack.be/economie/belga-e ... 424345.htm

So just a few months after the Swissport strike that has put thousands of passengers into sh.t and that costed Brussels Airlines millions of euro's, another massive loss is announced. And once again, the unions use passengers as plaything to get what they want.

Seems the dispute is about rosters, but who cares? An aviation union going on strike just wants to hurt management and shareholders so bad that next time they ask something, they get it.

(no French media reports available at this very moment)

(edited -> type error)

I can't believe what I'm reading!!!!
You are speculating... And what you are stating make me sick.
Nobody ever told you that if you don't know what you are talking about you have to keep your mouth shut?!!!
A member of that -very proud Liberal- union delegation!

[Oempaloempa]

I say GO, for the CC.

As a sidenote, something that was kept out of the media... Another strike announcement at SN actually expired today. The tech department can start actions now, should they choose.

The so called agreement for the tech department was one with a twisted arm, and the staff is NOT happy with it. Several weeks ago there was allready a wild action from the nightshift, this announcment was the result of that. Also, in the meanwhile, the roster for the nightshift was altered to shut them up, as this is the strongest force within the dept. But the staff on the normal cyclic roster is still taken from behind.
The dept management is focussing too much on numbers without tackling the real problems with are not roster related.

[Flanker2]

Oempaloempa, would you care to develop on your last sentence? Because I have mentioned those issues before but when it comes from me they don't believe it.

[Passenger]

I can't believe what I'm reading!!!! You are speculating... And what you are stating make me sick. Nobody ever told you that if you don't know what you are talking about you have to keep your mouth shut?!!!
A member of that -very proud Liberal- union delegation!

I understand Dutch, French, English, German and Swahili, but not Uniontalk. So let’s remain with the facts, shall we?

fact: the operational result for Brussels Airlines for 2012 was -91.753.866 (source: National Bank of Belgium, public site, company database, free access)

fact: the operational result for Brussels Airlines for 2011 was -86.848.227 (same source as above)

fact: consolidated result SN Airholding 2012: own assets down to -10.438.479 € (same source as above)

fact: “in order to finance its strategic plan Beyond 2012-2013 and to protect its cash position, Brussels Airlines got access to a credit line from Deutsche Lufthansa AG of 100 mio Euro” (same source as above)

Add to that the cost of the recent Swissport strike that will not be recovered (like loss of direct revenue and the loss of many clients) and there is only one conclusion possible: Brussels Airlines is a company in trouble. Every single employee should understand that there is a crisis, and that a strike means another few millions more loss for 2013.

Am I wrong that another strike could lead to Lufthansa deciding to take it losses?

But then, the long term prospect of a guarantueed job is the least concern for a handful of individuals within the union who see the "successful" organization of a strike as just another step in their career planning. Inside the union, not within Brussels Airlines.

[bruteboeing]

i like all the speculating and throwing around with rumours... but some people here really need to stop talking BS and get some facts out... REAL facts....

if you don't know what your talking about, stop talking BS... i'm not gonna point fingers... that's all i have to say.