Foreign crews on Jetstar, and their conditions

[RooFlyer]

From OMAAT: Jetstar Criticised For Using Foreign Cabin Crew On Domestic Australian Flights

Interesting article. Amongst it:

Unusual crew rosters
Jetstar roster these foreign crews on insanely long swinging rosters, where they will start from their home airport (such as Bangkok), then operate a flight to Australia and they then will operate a flight on to another destination (say Tokyo), and then back to Australia and then on to, say Honolulu and then back to Australia and then a Bali return, and then eventually back to Bangkok.

Financial problems
While Jetstar argues that, compared with average wages in their home countries, their Asian cabin crew are paid extremely well, a problem arises with layovers for these crew, particularly in Australia. Crew will often spend fairly long slip times (the time in between international flights at a destination that is not their home port) in cities like Sydney, which are extremely expensive to spend time in.

While Jetstar provides their accommodation and an allowance for food, drinks and activities, the foreign crews are given a much lower allowance than their Australian colleagues, and struggle to earn a decent living the more time they are forced to spend in cities like Sydney (Tokyo and Honolulu would also be expensive for Asian crews to spend time in).

For each 36 hours they are on the ground away from home, they are only given $60 Australian dollars to live on, which does not go far in an expensive city.

 

[moa999]

Personally don't see the issue, been happening for ages.
Qantas has also had plenty of overseas bases in the past

If we want cheap fares and we want any Australian based international airlines in the future, we have to accept this.

(But of a fight going in in the comments section to the blog)

 

[serfty]

Overseas bases was at the Genesis of JQi with Thai based crew.

ABC had a beat up earlier this week: Jetstar is paying its cabin crew as little as $100 a week

Jetstar responded: Response to ABC Report

Cabin crew get as little as $100 per week if thay are not working. It's $10 per hour additional in flight + allowances.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Personally don't see the issue, been happening for ages.
Qantas has also had plenty of overseas bases in the past

If we want cheap fares and we want any Australian based international airlines in the future, we have to accept this.

(But of a fight going in in the comments section to the blog)

I doubt the payments to crew have much of an impact on fares. It might impact JQ’s profit, but an extra $10 per hour for the crew (divided between the hundreds of passengers on a 787) isn’t going to make or break the fare we pay. Qantas mainline offers similar prices to JQ but pays their crew at Aussie rates.

 

[oz_mark]

Does anyone know which flight operates DPS-DRW-ADL, or ADL-DRW-DPS?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Does anyone know which flight operates DPS-DRW-ADL, or ADL-DRW-DPS?

It doesn't appear to be showing up in schedules as a though flight? JQ's DPS-DRW is the JQ82, operating M/T/T/S, arriving DRW at 525am. A schedule search DRW-ADL shows JQ84 also operating on M/T/T/S and departing DRW at 7am (so looks like the same plane?). The only other flight DRW-ADL is the JQ691 departing at around 2am.

 

[Melburnian1]

Doesn't this JQ practice destroy the QF group's argument against an airline like SQ coming here and (with Commonwealth Gvt permission re cabotage) competing with its own crews on domestic flights?

 

[samh004]

Doesn't this JQ practice destroy the QF group's argument against an airline like SQ coming here and (with Commonwealth Gvt permission re cabotage) competing with its own crews on domestic flights?

I imagine to a certain extent... but then again there are only a few tag flights that operate. They're not using these foreign crews on flights that are purely domestic, are they?

 

[serfty]

They're not using these foreign crews on flights that are purely domestic, are they?

The article implies they are ...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The article implies they are ...

And the flight timings and flight numbers too?

 

[samh004]

The article implies they are ...

And the flight timings and flight numbers too?

On tag flights though, not a pure domestic service that doesn't then continue to an international port.

Jetstar operated a very complex network of ‘tag flights,’ where an internationally configured aircraft (with international based crew) operates a domestic route to pick up passengers before then operating an international route.

I see there is mention of a DRW/ADL service that fell foul of this, but no other details on it. I don't fly JQ often enough, but at domestic airports I get the impression I am only seeing Australian FA's in the terminal.

 

[moa999]

I would've thought these crew are only trained on the 787, so by definition it's tag flights.

Same as the old London crew base for 747.

 

[Melburnian1]

On tag flights though, not a pure domestic service that doesn't then continue to an international port....

They do however convey domestic passengers.

Further hypocrisy from Mr Joyce and his underlings. The almighty dollar rules, even if he pretends otherwise at times with his constant virtue signalling.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

On tag flights though, not a pure domestic service that doesn't then continue to an international port.



I see there is mention of a DRW/ADL service that fell foul of this, but no other details on it. I don't fly JQ often enough, but at domestic airports I get the impression I am only seeing Australian FA's in the terminal.

That’s the thing. JQ is claiming the crew working DPS-DRW-ADL are on tag flights. But given the change in flight numbers in DRW, is it still the ‘same’ flight? arguably not.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I would've thought these crew are only trained on the 787, so by definition it's tag flights.

Same as the old London crew base for 747.

Must be a320 too for dps-drw-adl (do JQ also fly out of PER?)

 

[wandering_fred]

Must be a320 too for dps-drw-adl (do JQ also fly out of PER?)

Yes to DPS - Not flying much domestically I can't list those destinations off the top of my head.

Happy wandering
Fred

 

[juddles]

T..... The almighty dollar rules.....

Yes, it does, and it must. Any non-government airline is a business, which has to make money or die.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Yes, it does, and it must. Any non-government airline is a business, which has to make money or die.

Why an exemption for airlines? I'm sure plenty of businesses would be happy to bring in staff on very cheap wages - both those that are struggling and those that are not (the latter to increase their profits further). But there are rules against that.

 

[juddles]

Why an exemption for airlines? I'm sure plenty of businesses would be happy to bring in staff on very cheap wages - both those that are struggling and those that are not (the latter to increase their profits further). But there are rules against that.

What exemption do you mean? A company has to make money or perish.

And what rules do you refer to? For international companies? Why are almost all call centers now based overseas? Even for companies that only do business in Australia?

 

[samh004]

Why an exemption for airlines? I'm sure plenty of businesses would be happy to bring in staff on very cheap wages - both those that are struggling and those that are not (the latter to increase their profits further). But there are rules against that.

I'm not going to begin to pretend to know the finer details here, but wasn't there a big issue with seasonal fruit pickers being paid below minimum wage at one stage in the last few years?