Jetstar accused of exploiting cabin crew

[FireFox]

>>>Jetstar airlines has been accused of exploiting cabin crew and demanding they work 20-hour shifts, compromising cabin safety.

Threatened with the sack

Jetstar's Thai-based flight attendants get paid a base wage of $258 a month. Each hour they fly they get another $7 an hour plus allowances.

They do not get paid for sick leave, and have half the annual leave of their Australian colleagues.

While on annual leave they get paid less than normal; that $7 an hour on top of their base wage becomes just $9 a day.

Annika, as she has asked to be called, says foreign-based cabin crew are under immense pressure.

"Asian-based crew aren't unionised and they are constantly threatened with the non-renewal of their contracts should they speak out about anything to do with their jobs," she said.

And there is an extraordinary financial disincentive not to speak out.

If Thai-based crew quit their jobs early or are sacked, they can be forced to pay back up to four-and-a-half months of their base wage.<<<

Article & Video: http://www.abc.net.a...in-crew/2813208

[dagger]

I think you really have to be careful about comparisons with Jetstar.

Air Canada's plan, as best as I can tell, is about flying to sunspots and seasonal Europe destinations using Airbus narrowbodies and 767-300s that are replaced at mainline with 787s.

Air Canada does not, and has never to my knowledge, based crews outside of Canada. So it stands to reason that so long as union contracts require it to use Canadian based crews for mainline and for the LCC, you will not have the kinds of abuses that could occur with a Thai or Malay or Vietnamese or Singaporan based crew.

Jetstar has some unique characteristics that don't have to be copied by AC to get lower costs.

ACPA's first goal - assuming it doesn't want to torpedo any LCC venture that might make AC some money - should be to assure that there is no reduction in mainline flying, and that no current mainline pilot is required to fly for the LCC. Its second goal should be to come up with decent wages and working conditions, and a system whereby LCC crews get first crack at mainline openings and that Mainliners who choose to go to the LCC are credited with their total seniority with the company if they return to Mainline (this would allow those $38,000 guys to go make more money flying a larger aircraft, even a 767, for the LCC, then return to Mainline and leapfrog those hired to replace them when they went to the LCC).

[rudder]

ACPA's first goal - assuming it doesn't want to torpedo any LCC venture that might make AC some money - should be to assure that there is no reduction in mainline flying, and that no current mainline pilot is required to fly for the LCC. Its second goal should be to come up with decent wages and working conditions, and a system whereby LCC crews get first crack at mainline openings and that Mainliners who choose to go to the LCC are credited with their total seniority with the company if they return to Mainline (this would allow those $38,000 guys to go make more money flying a larger aircraft, even a 767, for the LCC, then return to Mainline and leapfrog those hired to replace them when they went to the LCC).

There you have it. CR's opening offer for LCC. And no, I am not suggesting that dagger is CR, just his biggest fan

The only problem is that there is no business case for expanding AC into a market segment with no yields that is already oversaturated. However, there is a business case for making the existing AC operation more efficient without eliminating staff or cutting wages. It's all about difficult but practical decisions vs distractions and sideshows.

[DEFCON]

Dagger

This is just more of the same old anti-labour 'bait & spin' that every legacy employee has heard many times since the dawn of ‘De-regulation’.

Labour is very aware and we've learned; following the word of the 'Pied Pipers of management down the same old road will as a matter of course, produce the same old negative; another downward spiral for labour while management and the other involved high rollers make off with their millions?

[Dork]

Dag,,

AC has an LCC..it`s the mainline with LCC wages already.Just the pension to jetison..how is Bernie... Amazing how we tolerate folks who gush at airplanes flying low and fast then those same desk jockeys demand that they be flown for free. We have real aviation folks..mechanics dispatchers and FA`s who know what it takes.

One bean..two beans....pudknockerland.

Call when we are the workforce for China. A show soon to come to you. Globilization at it`s best...lawndart nation soon to come.

Dork...

Tired of REMF`s