QANTAS Grounds all Flights

[Boggo]

I love the canard often used about maintenance being offshored leading to a reduction in standards. Maintenance is being offshored all around the world, there hasn't been a noticeable increase in incidents from those carriers that have offshored their maintenance. It's just a convenient trick of the unions to play on xenophobia.

Its not so much the quality of the work, its getting the work done when it needs to be done.
There is a current mod on the Roller engines that QF cannot get done because they are at the back of the queue behind the asian operators that should have been done 12 months ago, a few years ago they would have done it themselves.

Just more of the same, get used to it...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-11-06/another-qantas-flight-grounded-after-engine-failure/2326036

 

[Whiskers]

Its not so much the quality of the work, its getting the work done when it needs to be done.
There is a current mod on the Roller engines that QF cannot get done because they are at the back of the queue behind the asian operators that should have been done 12 months ago, a few years ago they would have done it themselves.

Just more of the same, get used to it...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-11-06/another-qantas-flight-grounded-after-engine-failure/2326036

Yes, 'standards' encompasses timing and availability issues, among others, as a function of management proceedures, as well as actual manual labour quality.


Further to...

Originally Posted by McLovin
I love the canard often used about maintenance being offshored leading to a reduction in standards. Maintenance is being offshored all around the world, there hasn't been a noticeable increase in incidents from those carriers that have offshored their maintenance. It's just a convenient trick of the unions to play on xenophobia.

Generalizations are of little help.

Again, it's not just a matter of offshoring, it's a matter of the particular expertise and equipment that your circumstance demands being available and done in a timely manner.

And finally keeping within the laws and regulations of your operation... that the majority of operations be based in Aus. There is some ambiguity of the interpretation of the majority of operations being tested by Qantas. For example Qantas might feel that it can offshore all of it's maintaince operations and still have most of it's operations based in Aus. This is likely to test the original intention of the act which may have been intended to mean each individual function, eg maintaince, must be majority Aus based.

Since maintaince is a critical factor of any operation, it reasonably could be argued that as the national carrier that most or all maintaince should be done in Aus or at least facalities be kept to do in Aus in an emergency like closure of those offshore facilities for any number of reasons from natural disaster, war to financial collapse.

 

[McLovin]

Generalizations are of little help.

Which generalisation? If you have evidence that offshoring of maintenance has lead to an increase in incidents then I'd love to see it.

Again, it's not just a matter of offshoring, it's a matter of the particular expertise and equipment that your circumstance demands being available and done in a timely manner.

I'm sure someone in Kunming can be trained to be an aircraft engineer just as well as someone in Sydney.

And finally keeping within the laws and regulations of your operation... that the majority of operations be based in Aus. There is some ambiguity of the interpretation of the majority of operations being tested by Qantas. For example Qantas might feel that it can offshore all of it's maintaince operations and still have most of it's operations based in Aus. This is likely to test the original intention of the act which may have been intended to mean each individual function, eg maintaince, must be majority Aus based.

Ditch the Sale Act or nationalise the airline. The current situation is not sustainable. You have a government supposedly pro free-trade imposing artificial barriers to trade for a major Australian company. Airlines are a sh!tty enough business to be in, forcing an airline to compete in an open market but imposing restrictions (on ownership and operations) is unfair.

 

[DB008]

Complex situation.

Overheads are very high for QF.
Staff costs are through the roof. I very much doubt that a EK/AF/LH A380 pilot gets paid what a QF A380 pilot gets. Not to mention that some of the middle eastern carriers are also in tax free countries.

Australia is also a end-of-point destination, whereas Asia and Middle East (EK-Dubai), are fantastic transit points on the globe.

QF had to do something to fend off the unions and unrealistic demands they demanded.

 

[McLovin]

Complex situation.

Overheads are very high for QF.
Staff costs are through the roof. I very much doubt that a EK/AF/LH A380 pilot gets paid what a QF A380 pilot gets. Not to mention that some of the middle eastern carriers are also in tax free countries.

Australia is also a end-of-point destination, whereas Asia and Middle East (EK-Dubai), are fantastic transit points on the globe.

QF had to do something to fend off the unions and unrealistic demands they demanded.

Exactly. If the status quo is maintained then QF international will be done in a few years. And "Qantas" will become an amusing footnote on the balance sheet of Jetstar.

 

[startrader]

Complex situation.

Overheads are very high for QF.
Staff costs are through the roof. I very much doubt that a EK/AF/LH A380 pilot gets paid what a QF A380 pilot gets. Not to mention that some of the middle eastern carriers are also in tax free countries.

Australia is also a end-of-point destination, whereas Asia and Middle East (EK-Dubai), are fantastic transit points on the globe.

QF had to do something to fend off the unions and unrealistic demands they demanded.

Overheads are not as high as Qantas management is making out. Staff costs are not through the roof. Do you know how much those overseas pilots get paid do you? I very much doubt it and you are believing the line being fed by Qantas management. For your information an LH pilot is on a similar salary package to a QF A380 pilot. Air New Zealand has similar overheads and staff costs to Qantas and it's doing fine.

Plus, QF did not have to fend off the unions because they were not making unrealistic demands - they're not striking for the fun of it and it's not about more money.

 

[Whiskers]

Which generalisation? If you have evidence that offshoring of maintenance has lead to an increase in incidents then I'd love to see it.

Your assertion that "there hasn't been a noticeable increase in incidents from those carriers that have offshored their maintenance"

That maybe on average, but that is no comfort for one that is below the average and has a serious incident... or increased incidents as Qantas is suffering.

I'm sure someone in Kunming can be trained to be an aircraft engineer just as
well as someone in Sydney.

What I said was, with renewed emphasis...

"Again, it's not just a matter of offshoring, it's a matter of the particular expertise and equipment that your circumstance demands being available and done in a timely manner."

​

Yes new engineers can be trained, albeit experience is an invaluable assett in sophisticated engineering... but my point was you also need the right and enough equipment, which is also not always so readily available or easily obtained and collectively you need it all to come together in a timely framework so that as boggo has already pointed out, you are not languishing in a cue in someone elses workshop where you don't have priority treatment when you need it.

Ditch the Sale Act or nationalise the airline. The current situation is not
sustainable. You have a government supposedly pro free-trade imposing artificial
barriers to trade for a major Australian company. Airlines are a sh!tty enough
business to be in, forcing an airline to compete in an open market but imposing restrictions (on ownership and operations) is unfair.

I don't necessairly dissagree with that... BUT that is the environment atm to which Joyce must conform, unless he can force a law change, hence my mention at the outset of the thread of the likes of Franklin on the share registry and investigations into unusual or suspicious trading in Qantas prior to the lockout.

My point has always been about the effectiveness/wisdom of his strategy in resolving conflict to get a win win solution, as opposed to a win lose solution which aggrevates people you have to continue working with.

I would also reaffirm the point by startrader... it's not really about the so called 'unrealestic' demands of unions. Joyce agreed to give them pretty much what they wanted in monetry terms. The so called unrealestic demands of the unions is wanting some sort of commitment in relation to the majority of work being based in Aus (according the the Qantas Sale Act)

PS: From what I understand the bill before parliament or soon to be, also requires most of Qantas's heavy maintenance of aircraft, flight operations and training to be conducted in Australia.

I haven't heard the gov or opposition position, but Xenophon and the green apparently support it.

 

[McLovin]

Your assertion that "there hasn't been a noticeable increase in incidents from those carriers that have offshored their maintenance"

That maybe on average, but that is no comfort for one that is below the average and has a serious incident... or increased incidents as Qantas is suffering.

But isn't that the most sensible way to approach it. Rather than take specific examples as evidence of flawed maintenance. If the averages have remained stable then that would indicate the level of service is ok.

What I said was, with renewed emphasis...

"Again, it's not just a matter of offshoring, it's a matter of the particular expertise and equipment that your circumstance demands being available and done in a timely manner."

​

Yes new engineers can be trained, albeit experience is an invaluable assett in sophisticated engineering... but my point was you also need the right and enough equipment, which is also not always so readily available or easily obtained and collectively you need it all to come together in a timely framework so that as boggo has already pointed out, you are not languishing in a cue in someone elses workshop where you don't have priority treatment when you need it.

Right, but that none of that changes the fact that what is done in Sydney could as easily be done in China, and cheaper. Obviously the change wouldn't happen overnight.

I don't necessairly dissagree with that... BUT that is the environment atm to which Joyce must conform, unless he can force a law change, hence my mention at the outset of the thread of the likes of Franklin on the share registry and investigations into unusual or suspicious trading in Qantas prior to the lockout.

I agree, but I do think the Act as is outdated. The World has changed an awful lot since 1992.

My point has always been about the effectiveness/wisdom of his strategy in resolving conflict to get a win win solution, as opposed to a win lose solution which aggrevates people you have to continue working with.

I think we have common ground here, I don't think either side has done their cause much help.

I'll add something from a frequent flyer forum that I frequent. It's written by someone who lives in the UK (and is British not Australia) and so gives a bit of an outsider's perspective. I think it's about spot on though...

...there are those who think that Qantas is an eternal Australian icon, which will forever be protected like koalas are. If you subscribe to this view, then Alan Joyce's action was of course utterly disproportionate because there is no threat to Qantas' existence and all there is at the moment is the usual run-of-the-mill industrial kerfuffle, like a disagreement about the length of tea breaks.

I think that the third group [described above] are actually the most insidiously dangerous, because it isn't unreasonable for a rational but uninformed Australian layman to hold this view. Qantas has been a national icon for decades, to the extent that its status is enshrined in specific legislation. It's dangerous because this groupthink could actually affect the way that decision-makers approach the situation. This view completely fails to understand how Qantas is now teetering on the brink and radical measures need to be taken, or else the company will continue its inexorable transformation into "Jetstar Group", a company for which Qantas is merely a historical footnote.

Parenthesis mine.

 

[Smurf1976]

Qantas has being having maintenance incidents for a few years and that is with the current maintenance workforce.
They seem to be having more problems than the Asian based carriers. This may be due to things out of their control, but it does reflect badly on their maintenance personel and or proceedures.
Which in turn dilutes the arguement that safety standards will drop if the work is carried out overseas.

As someone with a background in maintenance and the management of a maintenance workforce (albeit not in the aviation industry), I'd be looking at these likely explanations:

1. The asset itself is being run down through either incresing age and/or reduction in preventative maintenance.

2. Generic faults in particular aircraft type of a certain age. Such issues are common in other fields, and result in huge spikes in failure rates once the critical running hours are reached. This seems somewhat unlikely with Qantas however, given that other airlines operate identical aircraft such that any generic problems ought to be known to the manufacturer by now.

3. The workforce may be distracted and thus prone to making mistakes and/or not carrying out proper fault finding (which with any complex system is a damn hard thing to do at the best of times).

There are other possibilities, but I suspect that all of these apply to Qantas and have done so for quite some time.

As for outsourcing maintenance, it is always a huge liability to not have critical responses in house. Outsourcing works fine under business as usual circumstances but fails spectacularly in a crisis unless you really are the contractor's number one client and thus priority (which I'd expect Qantas isn't). The loss of technical skills in any situation such as this will in and of itself increase costs, no matter what wages anyone is being paid or what country they are from.

I've never, ever seen an outsourcing situation where the contractor didn't cut at least try to cut corners somewhere. It's not the work that they do which is the problem, you can check that, it's the things they don't do because there's nothing in writing requiring it that are the problem. You'd need a barrow load of proceedure manuals to cover everything, and odds are there's still a loophole somewhere.

My own preference for not flying Qantas has nothing to do with Joyce, unions, service standards or the comfort of seats. It all comes down to one thing - safety. It seems to be a regular occurrence that a Qantas flight makes an unplanned landing due to mechanical problems and I know all too well that there's a relationship between the number of near misses and the probability of a major incident. This airline has far too many near misses for my liking and sadly, it won't surprise me in the slightest when I turn on the news someday and hear that a Qantas plane went down.

That factor, the apparent lack of safety, is the reason I don't like flying Qantas these days. I really don't care about seats, food or the politeness of staff but I sure do care about getting from A to B alive. I prefer airlines that aren't in the news too often for this reason.

 

[Smurf1976]

But isn't that the most sensible way to approach it. Rather than take specific examples as evidence of flawed maintenance. If the averages have remained stable then that would indicate the level of service is ok.

I would take (1) the mean average and (2) the worst actual incidents as the relevant measures.

That is comparable to "average return" and "drawdown" in investment terminology. There's no point earning 50% per month if you get a 100% drawdown once every few years and there's no point improving overall reliability if it comes at the expense of an increase in occasional catastrophic failures.

 

[Julia]

Exactly, the problem is that the average travelling public (no disrespect to anyone) are just not aware of what is really going on behind the scenes and the pollies are turning a blind eye.

Imagine the uproar if the WA miners started a fly in/fly out service from Manila or Bangkok instead of Perth !

Actually, I don't think the average Australian would give a damn.
The average Australian just wants to fly on an airline that is safe, sticks to its schedule and can be depended upon.
The unions were making it impossible for the travelling public to have any such assurances.
Why would anyone book a seat on QANTAS in the knowledge that the unions might well go on strike on the day they had booked to travel.
No thanks.
Hence the need for Mr Joyce to do what he did or the unions would be completely running the airline into the ground. That was their stated intention, according to many media sources.

Exactly. If the status quo is maintained then QF international will be done in a few years. And "Qantas" will become an amusing footnote on the balance sheet of Jetstar.

Exactly.

Your assertion that "there hasn't been a noticeable increase in incidents from those carriers that have offshored their maintenance"

That maybe on average, but that is no comfort for one that is below the average and has a serious incident... or increased incidents as Qantas is suffering.

Reasonable point. A few decades ago, one would never have seen the number of 'incidents' that have occurred in the last few years.

Whiskers, given that you are so disapproving of Mr Joyce's actions, how exactly would you suggest he could have resolved the situation?
And no need to go on about dispute resolution skills. We accept that Mr Joyce is hardly a model for demonstration here.

However, his patience has been sorely tried, and the unions are clearly 'out to get him' in a pretty personal sense, plus they obviously want to see the airline stuffed.
How on earth they can imagine this will translate to protecting their jobs is beyond me, but hey, they're unions and have that peculiar mentality.

 

[dutchie]

but hey, they're unions and have that peculiar mentality.

Thats gold!

 

[todster]

Which generalisation? If you have evidence that offshoring of maintenance has lead to an increase in incidents then I'd love to see it.




I'm sure someone in Kunming can be trained to be an aircraft engineer just as well as someone in Sydney.



Ditch the Sale Act or nationalise the airline. The current situation is not sustainable. You have a government supposedly pro free-trade imposing artificial barriers to trade for a major Australian company. Airlines are a sh!tty enough business to be in, forcing an airline to compete in an open market but imposing restrictions (on ownership and operations) is unfair.

I'm sure someone in "Kunming"can be trained to do your job too,
how would you feel about that at a cut price alternative.
Worked on big construction jobs in W.A during boom times when supervisors were telling me how good these 457 blokes were.
They got a bit funny when i mentioned that they have supervisors in the Philipines that are just as skilled as them and can be employed cheaper than there shiny arses

 

[sptrawler]

Smurph you are spot on, outsourcing maintenace doesn't necessarily mean a better outcome. But with Qantas like you say the planes are getting tired and the maintenance appears to be lacking. The incident rate over the last few years is increasing dramatically.
The problem may require a massive injection of capital to renew the fleet. This can be achieved by an increased revenue stream or a reduction in operating costs.
However one thing for sure something has to be done or a catastrophe will happen.

 

[todster]

Smurph you are spot on, outsourcing maintenace doesn't necessarily mean a better outcome. But with Qantas like you say the planes are getting tired and the maintenance appears to be lacking. The incident rate over the last few years is increasing dramatically.
The problem may require a massive injection of capital to renew the fleet. This can be achieved by an increased revenue stream or a reduction in operating costs.
However one thing for sure something has to be done or a catastrophe will happen.

Was on the flight a couple of weeks back that hit birds on take off,not a maintenance issue but bloody frightening when you hear a jet engine of that size detonating and trying to fire at full throttle.
Was issued a $200 voucher for the 14hour trip to Melbourne as compo.
Many crownies in the q club feel sorry for the people who had no access to free beer

 

[IFocus]

I'm sure someone in "Kunming"can be trained to do your job too,
how would you feel about that at a cut price alternative.
Worked on big construction jobs in W.A during boom times when supervisors were telling me how good these 457 blokes were.
They got a bit funny when i mentioned that they have supervisors in the Philipines that are just as skilled as them and can be employed cheaper than there shiny arses

LOL yes its them and us I notice the critics of unions here are always talking about them.

I am sure there are plenty of CEO's that could be trained up as well

 

[Eager]

Whiskers, given that you are so disapproving of Mr Joyce's actions, how exactly would you suggest he could have resolved the situation?
And no need to go on about dispute resolution skills. We accept that Mr Joyce is hardly a model for demonstration here.

However, his patience has been sorely tried, and the unions are clearly 'out to get him' in a pretty personal sense, plus they obviously want to see the airline stuffed.
How on earth they can imagine this will translate to protecting their jobs is beyond me, but hey, they're unions and have that peculiar mentality.

I'll attempt to answer that.

it is important to realise that every action so far taken by the unions involved has been a part of the legal process that they have to comply with to achieve an outcome suitable to their members. They are NOT deliberately sh1tting in their own nests as some would have us believe. Without debating whether industrial law as it stands, or FWA itself, is 'good' or 'bad,' is besides the point - it is what it is and must be complied with. Having said that, the procedure is this: (1) EBA about to expire, and a new one is to be negotiated, (2) unions submit a log of claims, normally comprising improved pay and conditions, after consulting their members, (3) the company submit their wish-list, normally comprising changed work practices to achieve increased flexibility and productivity, to the union, (4) union meetings are held to discuss the issues, (5) union officials and management negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, (6) if stark differences appear in 'the way forward' and compromise is not negotiable from either side the unions ask their members what they want to do, (7) if the membership feels strongly enough about it they vote to begin an industrial campaign to push their cause. During EBA negotiations it is legal to undertake industrial action with 72 hours notice to FWA - striking at any other time is illegal and carries the threat of heavy fines - so this protected action is the last step that can be undertaken by the unions to pressure the company into retreating from their position. It's just a process Julia; your perception of a person vendetta against Joyce by the unions is unfounded. If he did have reasonable dispute resolution skills, which you agree are lacking, and a better appreciation of the processes involved, I doubt whether the situation would have deteriorated to this level. It is not all about union mentality and you know it. There are many workplaces around ther country with a unionised workforce that enjoy a great relationship with their respective employers - for the benefit of all. I'll bet none of those companies have a leader like Joyce though.

In this instance, Joyce could have easily resolved the situation by going to FWA himself for a ruling. I wrote in answer to someone else (I forget who) several pages back, in response to the thought that FWA is union-friendly, that the losing party there is normally the one that gets dragged there. Both parties ended up being dragged there this time; I wonder why Joyce didn't take the initiative this time, unless he already knew that his position was weak?

Qantas management could have prevented all of this by beginning talks with the unions about 'the big picture' the day after the ink dried on the current EBA, getting them used to the idea over 2 or 3 years. Qantas would already be where it wants to be now...

 

[McLovin]

I'm sure someone in "Kunming"can be trained to do your job too,
how would you feel about that at a cut price alternative.

Fortunately, I work for myself.

 

[Calliope]

Senator Brown and Qantas Chief Alan Joyce have at least one thing in common. They both have male partners.

 

[sptrawler]

Was on the flight a couple of weeks back that hit birds on take off,not a maintenance issue but bloody frightening when you hear a jet engine of that size detonating and trying to fire at full throttle.
Was issued a $200 voucher for the 14hour trip to Melbourne as compo.
Many crownies in the q club feel sorry for the people who had no access to free beer

Was that the one over Perth? I was outside when it happened, a huge bang I thought something had let go in the turbine. It scared me enough for me to ring and report it to the aviation authority.