hereandthere

Gidday

Was wondering if anyone could tell me what has happened to the Freedom Air Pilots. Do they lose their jobs in March and therefore make it harder for me to get into Air NZ as 30 - 40 extra jet pilots are now floating around.

KoruPilot

No. They are being allamgamated, if you will, into Air NZ mainline. As there will be no change to the amount of flying that we will be doing we will still require the same amount of pilots; more really. From what I have been told by the union guy's and the management hiring people we will still be looking at a couple hundred more pilots by, I think, 2010. There has been maybe 40 drivers hired in the past five months.

Some guy's are going to be ticked off as the Freedom people are allready in our seniority list, and I can't see the skippers being downtrained to make a slot for someone more senior; just likely won't happen. But at the moment freedom pilots don't fly with mainline drivers, even though the entire thing is marketed as Zeal 320, if you can imagine. So, the two groups will be flying together in short order, and that might cause some tention in the cockpit. Hopefully we are all big boy's and girls about it and realize that pilot's don't make the decisions, they just live with them.

What's the likely hood of that though?

KoruPilot

I was flying with a fairly senior guy and he thinks that the Freedom guy's who are out of seniority and in the left seat will be bumped back to a position that fit's their place on the list. In most cases this will be as a cruise pilot.

This is not confirmed and it'll be a mess either way I imagine. If it happens therer will be 28 left seats open on the A320, making for about 80 seat changes to sort it out.

phantom menace

Making the post expensive S/O's in the world, as their salaries are protected. Although, the upside is a number of A320 commands opportunities for mainline F/O's.

KoruPilot

The letter we just received from management says that there will be 90 seat changes due to the agreement. I'm so far down the list it has little effect, go or bad, so what the heck. I have my doubts that many of them will take SO seats; perhaps some of the FO's.

ChinsFive

Any update on this?

KoruPilot

It appeared to be moving fast and furious for about a month, with three courses of four A320 right seats, some left seats plus a couple courses of B744 SO's and B733 FO's (they went to new hires). There were a very few B744 FO slots as well, plus the odd skipper slot that just went to over 60's coming back from the right seat. I have not seen a new positions post for about three weeks, but I kind of expect one, likely for new hires on the B777 as we are flying over 90 hours per month on average (that equates to quite a few day's away from home for us, and I have spoken to more than one SO lately who is talking to Dragonair etc. when in the Orient; away that much one might as well be landing the thing. . . is the general consensus).

So, still a bit of movement and still hiring at a reduced pace.

ChinsFive

Why not just move to a "window" seat on the domestic fleet? (737, 320)

Tweet46

Hey Koru,

How's your little project coming along?

Cheers,
JD

KoruPilot

I can't really move to a window seat as the B737 right seat is reserved for new hires at the moment, and I am too junior for the A320 (After doing a number of legs as a LOSA observer I can say that the bus is really not my thing; good bird, but I prefer Boeing's). It depends what you are into though. I had a 'window seat' for 16 years, I've been a training captain at second tier and cargo outfits, and I like my current lifestyle.

JD, I'll send you a PM. Just in YVR at the moment so I'll do it in reasonably short order. Mayfly has some interesting comments on his contract so if you haven't yet, get an email off to him.