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How Australian is Jetstar?

Philip van den Heever

by Philip van den Heever

22 Dec 05:35am

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Filed under: Airlines, Jetstar, Pilots, Qantas, Safety, Travel

158 comments

The key take out that everyone in Australia got from the recent Qantas incident in Singapore is that pilot experience is critically important. 

As Aussie as Powderfinger ... or is it?

As more and more information filters about just how serious the situation was with QF32, pilot training and experience are being widely acknowledged, from the CEO of Qantas down, as having arguably made the difference.

Given the travails of Qantas over recent weeks, you would think that Jetstar would think twice about its absurd plans to put less and less experienced pilots in the cockpit of its aircraft.

Until now Jetstar have employed pilots with a minimum of 2000 hours flight time and in fact, most, if not all, have more than 2000 hours flight time experience.

What the company, however, is proposing to do in the near future is employ cadet pilots with as little as 200 hours total flight time.

Whilst the 200 hours will be supplemented by a further 1000 hours “supervised training”, what it neglects to mention is that some of this “supervised training” refers to actual flying time with fare paying passengers onboard.

That effectively means that pilots with a minimum of 200 hours total flight time experience will potentially be cutting their teeth with fare paying passengers onboard in an operating environment considered to be complex and demanding of even highly experienced pilots.

These cadets will pay up to $180 000 out of their own pockets for their training with no guarantee of employment at Jetstar. If they are indeed employed by the company they will be paid wages that are proposed to be less than half that of a regular newly recruited pilot at Jetstar.

In fact, their proposed salary is well below the Modern Pilots Award, which sets the minimum standards of employment in Australia.

Despite the cadets huge training debts they will be “bonded” to the company for up to 6 years and during that time will, based on my information, earn approximately $42,000.00 (New Zealand Dollars) a year, less than most secretaries or factory workers (before making the payments on their huge debts).

The people who are really paying for Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan’s aggressive cost-cutting strategy could be Jetstar’s fare paying passengers. Is a pilot with 200 hours actual flying experience as safe as a 2000 hours experienced pilot? Are you as competent a driver when you had your P plates for 2 months, as compared to now?

You be the judge.

Jetstar’s Australian pilots feel their job security to be coming increasingly under threat as the company moves aggressively to undermine Australian working conditions by creating artificial offshore entities that are able to circumvent the Fair Work Act and pay pilots less than the relevant minimum Australian standards.

The company has recently offered employment to Australian pilots in off-shore entities to operate in and out of Australia and AIPA believes that if this trend is allowed to continue unchecked, the entire Australian Aviation industry could be off-shored using artificial foreign corporate entities to circumvent Australian workplace laws.

This would deprive an entire section of Australian society of their livelihood and irreparably diminish Australia’s reputation for aviation safety and excellence.

Mr Buchanan stated in his address to the National Aviation Press Club on the 15th of November that “Our cost base must reflect the markets we sell seats in and enable us to provide a competitive relevant offering to consumers in each of these markets.

To achieve this we are developing significant local bases with locally relevant network offerings”.

Strategies such as these will see Australian Jetstar pilots, having to move their families to bases overseas, fly in and out of Australia, on third world pay rates.

What is the “regional relevance” of paying a pilot in New Zealand Dollars (less than the Australian Award) to fly an Australian aircraft from Sydney to Fiji or even worse, using these NZ$42,000.00-cadet pilots to operate domestically in Australia?

The passengers on those flights are paying their fares in Australian Dollars. It is Australian flying by an Australian company and they should be paying the appropriate Australian salary. It is not about obtaining “regional relevance”.

This term is merely a façade to justify employing people on third world wages to work for an Australian airline, doing Australian work. It begs the question, how ‘Australian’ is Jetstar? Is what Jetstar doing ‘Australian’?

Australian aviation is at the crossroads.  I understand that everyone loves cheap fares but nothing is for nothing and those who run Jetstar have failed to comprehend the lessons from recent events: experience may cost a little bit more, but it certainly counts for much, much, more – and I don’t think the travelling public will disagree.

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158 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • Jim says:

      07:53am | 22/12/10

      A few weeks ago I flew Perth-Melb-Newcastle…the first leg was Qantas, great - business class, Qantas lounge…. The second leg was Jetstar. I had a 3.5 hour wait at Melbourne, so I went straight to the check in line….HUGE. It took me a bit over an hour waiting in line to get to the counter, where I was informed by a very disinterested young girl, who had a smart mouth on her, that I couldn’t check in until two hours before the flight.
      Fine…I grabbed my luggage (since Qantas and Jetstar couldn’t check anything through). I go back after having a bite to eat, wait in a longer line this time, get to the counter with 45 minutes to spare only to be told check-ins had closed for that flight!!
      I calmly explain my predicament and highlight the fact that it was the second time I’d queued - tough luck. Turns out that flight was delayed by over 3 hours anyway…but they still wouldn’t let me on.

      I refuse to use Jetstar ever again, and it has nothing to do with the pilots!

      Reply

    • Mark says:

      04:35pm | 22/12/10

      Jim - Business class…nice for some! I’m sure if you’d looked at the signs in the HUGE queue you’d have realized it wasn’t your fault. It’s not Jetstars fault you’re a pretentious moron!

    • fairsfair says:

      05:02pm | 22/12/10

      Hold up Mark - nobody calls Jim a pretentious moron!

      I think the issue is that you pay and book for a “qantas” flight and there is a high chance that you end up on “co-carrier” Jetstar. They are chalk and cheese as hilighted by the fact that there is flexibility with Qantas (even in pov pack economy) but absolutely nothing with Jetstar.

      Oh and there is nothing stopping them from getting a staff member out on the floor going through the line for closing flights when the lines are so long. I have seen Qantas and Virgin staff do it in the past. It is courtesy. I know it is the nature of the low budget airfare - but when you select QF when you book your flights and you find you are acutally on JQ - you get the dirts.

    • Jim says:

      09:09pm | 22/12/10

      ...so I’m pretentious because I flew business class? Wow.

      As for the signs…what signs? There was a half a piece of A4 with ‘out of order’ scribbled in lime green highlighter pen on two of the self-check in machines…which don’t really speed things up much anyway as you need to join the same line to drop off baggage.

      What sign exactly should I have been looking out for, oh wise one?

    • Macca says:

      08:39am | 22/12/10

      I’m sorry, but are you serious?

      This is complete spin

      1. “What the company, however, is proposing to do in the near future is employ cadet pilots with as little as 200 hours total flight time” ... “Whilst the 200 hours will be supplemented by a further 1000 hours “supervised training””. So you are complaining because a corporation is introducing a Cadet program so that young pilots can learn their trade?

      2. “These cadets will pay up to $180 000 out of their own pockets for their training with no guarantee of employment at Jetstar.” This is quite normal, because of Insurance, etc. Learning to become a pilot through university is increadibly expensive. I imagine JetStar are attempting to attract university students / graduates and provide them with employment and training, rather than have them do additional flying hours on their own.

      3. “NZ$42,000.00-cadet “, umm, compare this cadet wage to that of an accountant, Electrician, Law Clerk etc. i.e. a university student who is balancing their professional development with their studies and $42,000 is pretty good, even if it is in NZ dollars.

      All I can see here is a Union official struggling for relevancy whilst a MulitNational Corporation attempts to train and develop student pilots. Pretty pathetic really.

      Reply

    • Ben says:

      10:06am | 22/12/10

      You must have been paid by a pr firm, to write that. That is the most ridiculous and agressive rant against a sensible argument I have ever heard! 6 years at $42,000 nz whilst carrying a $180,000 dollar debt is ridiculous, if it was good value it would be legal in Australia, but it’s not so no company should be able to dodge it!

    • I am Serious says:

      10:26am | 22/12/10

      I’m Sorry Macca, but are you serious?

      This is not spin, did you have to pay up to $180 000 for even qualify for your job, without a job to go to?  The “Corporation” that you speak of so highly will MAKE alot of money with his scheme, by indebting their employees for years to come. Thats if they even employ them! Would you feel happy about having to pay off $180 000 wilst your unemployed because Jetstar didn’t employ you. Before you say that won’t happy to me… how many people to you think Jetstar will dangle a carrot in front of,  just to make $180 000 out of them??

      Have you ever observed a crew in the cockpit working as a team? It can be a thing of beauty, but replace the experienced First Officer with a Cadet and watch it descend into frustration, and quite possibly confusion. Mark my words… this will happen on a bad weather day will low fuel and a cadet on their first supervised flight, ie receipe for incident/accident….and you Macca will be the fare paying passenger asking “how could this possibly happen in Australia??”

      P.S   NO I am not a memeber of any Union.

    • Alfred says:

      11:20am | 22/12/10

      This is called “indentured labour” - one step up from slavery. The British banned slavery and replaced it with indentured labour.

      I strongly advise any of these suckers who pay $180,000 to get to fly an aircraft and then get low pay for 6 years to try and work out what will happen when the oil supply starts running out. I mean, the IEA has finally now acknowledged that Peak Conventional Oil took place in 2006. You cannot have cheap frequent flights if oil is expensive or unavailable. I suggest you find another profession!

    • Bomb78 says:

      11:35am | 22/12/10

      The ‘cadet’ wages of accountants are a bit better than this - try getting a decent graduate for less than $50k. And they might have a $30k education debt.
      I simply don’t see this scheme working - supply and demand will always generate it’s own level. When they can’t supply enough pilots to fly their planes at this terrible wage point, they will pay more.

    • Macca says:

      11:37am | 22/12/10

      @Ben and IAS, the $180,000 does not go to JetStar, it is the cost of the university course; HECS, insurance etc. That is what it costs to become a pilot. It is a not a sheme to make money for JetStar.

      JetStar will then pay the Cadet a wage to learn with the company. Univeristy Students who are not employed by JetStar will not receive this wage.

      In other words, JetStar is employing Students to learn on the job and provide them with a wage. The alternative is to not have a job, and do the additional hours (2000) required to become a pilot privately, through additional studies or through the Airforce.

      It will not be their first supervised flight, they will have >200 hours experience before they can even join the program.  That is not 200 hours of study, or training, or flight simulation, it is 200 hours flying, which will take time and knowledge.

      You don’t become a Pilot overnight, here we have a company providing young people with a sheme to do this and you whinge about inexperience people causing deaths and the employer ripping off the public.

    • Macca says:

      11:57am | 22/12/10

      @Alfred & Bomb78, Please see Matt and Byron’s comments below to understand how you have completely missed the point.

      @Bomb78, An accounting graduate may earn more than $50K, but a Cadet will not. Even at a top tier accounting or law firm, students (cadets who are studying) will not earn more than $40K as a starting salary.

      @Alfred, that is the debt required to become a pilot. Maybe they should look at alternative employment, but to call it near slavery is sensationalist nonsense

    • The Facts says:

      12:14pm | 22/12/10

      Macca, I’m sorry but it is plain to see you have no idea what you are talking about. 

      These cadets do not go to university as you suggest, nor do they graduate their course with any tertiary qualification. They pay 180k for a Commercial Pilots Licence.  Call your local flying school, choose the most expensive one, and I think you’ll find that the cost of the training will be WELL less than $180k. In fact I’d be surprised if you had much less than $100k change for your efforts.

      Jetstar DO NOT employ you whilst you are a cadet, so you are not getting paid to study.

      Fact is, it is a rip off!  I’d think twice about borrowing $180k to gain the qualifications for ANY job that is going to pay me $42k a year.  Could you even make the repayments?  What about living costs?  I’m not placing myself onto an aircraft driven by pilots who won’t be up to the job because they can’t afford to live, let alone be in a fit state to operate an aircraft…and that’s before we get started on the value of experience…But then nothing ever goes wrong does it…

    • Adam says:

      12:19pm | 22/12/10

      @Macca, you can’t compare a cadet accountant out of high school to the cadet pilots you yourself state already have 200 hours experience. As for University fees / HECS (same thing) and insurance, the most that the university hecs fee would be is $50k (there is a cap on cost) and that is absolute maximum. A business degree costs around $25k and a medical degree around $50k. A cadet that has a couple years experience (but still effectively no where near capable) is earning the equivalent of these cadet pilots who are expected to co-pilot a commercial passenger aircraft…

      Seriously, where is your hidden association with Jetstar if you know exactly where the $180k fees are going to?

    • I am Serious says:

      12:27pm | 22/12/10

      Macca I know first hand that you don’t become a pilot overnight because I hold an ATPL. That’s an Air Transport Pilots Licence, which requires more study than a Commercial Pilots Licence, but I suspect you already know that.

      “It will not be their first supervised flight, they will have >200 hours experience before they can even join the program”  200 hours is what it takes to complete the training, this means the cadet will have 200 hours of flying training….but how much “experience” will they have?

      “In other words, JetStar is employing Students to learn on the job and provide them with a wage. The alternative is to not have a job, and do the additional hours (2000) required to become a pilot privately”

      *Jetstar does not guarantee a job.
      *It does not take 2000 hours to obtain a private licence.

      ” you whinge about inexperience people causing deaths .” I said it has the receipe to cause an incident/accident, who mentioned anything about people dying?

      “This is not the case at all. No Pilots are losing their jobs here”  I know pilots that have had to move overseas in order to keep their job with Jetstar, otherwise they would have been out of a Job.

      P.S I do not work for Jetstar/Qantas and I do not know the Author of article.

    • Alfred says:

      12:50pm | 22/12/10

      “Alfred, that is the debt required to become a pilot. Maybe they should look at alternative employment, but to call it near slavery is sensationalist nonsense “

      Macca,

      How will they pay off the debt when highly-experienced pilots will have to sit at home? It is happening already in the USA - do a search.

      More money has been lost on airlines than on pretty well any other business in the past 50 years and anyone running an airline knows that. Youngsters don’t have a clue and make these daft “investments” of $180,000 because they don’t know any better.

      Please tell me how far you can fly on an empty tank? By the way, Australia is already importing 70% of its oil and that will rise to 90% by 2020. Where will this oil come from in 2020?

    • B says:

      01:21pm | 22/12/10

      The problem with Jetstars cadet program is that all it is, is a new idea by management to make more money. There are some serious problems in the Aviation industry when pilots make NZ$42,000 (AU$31,000) and then have to pay roughly AU$10,000 back to the company each year and yet check-in agents, baggage handlers etc make about $45,000.

      Australia has a general aviation industry where fresh 200hr pilots do the mail runs etc and eventually make it to the airlines when they have appropriate hours and experience, and as some in the industry see it - done their time out bush. For the most part, cadet schemes are not necessary in Australia.

      Implementing a cadet scheme doesn’t necessarily reduce safety, if it is done right. Airlines such as Qantas, Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines all have cadet programs. The difference is that once a cadet has completed training (and in Qantas’s case done 2 years of ‘work experience’) they start as a Second Officer. This means no take-off or landings until you have a couple of years (sometimes 4-5 years) sitting in the jumpseat watching and learning. Note: they do get paid for this, and significantly more than the new Jetstar First Officers. Where as with Jetstar you are doing take-off and landings (with paying passengers on board) just weeks after finishing the A320 endorsement.

      The Jetstar cadet program is going to make Jetstar into a training airline for young pilots. They are bonded for six years and in that time payback jetstars training costs. At the end of the six years i’d be willing to bet that almost every cadet would be applying to every overseas airline that they could think of. If you still had a FEE-HELP debt of 90k (because your probably going to be earning below the repayment threshold as a Jetstar pilot) I’m sure you would try and leave too. Eventually there is going to be no ‘wealth of knowledge’ within the ranks of Jetstar, and thats whats going to lead to some serious problems down the track.

    • Andrew says:

      03:21pm | 22/12/10

      Macca

      1 - How about you come clean and tell us what you position is in Jetstar
      2 - If this is Jetstars attitude to safety and quality, it will be a cold day in hell before I get on one of their flights

    • Snr Flight Instructor says:

      06:25pm | 22/12/10

      @Macca

      I work closely in a flight training organisation, you obviously have no idea what you are talking about in regards to this situation.

      You are either not involved in the industry at all or, you work for Jetstar PR…....

      Either way your rubbish rant is not worthy of getting worked up over.

    • Peter says:

      09:09am | 23/12/10

      I agree with Macca… it costs $180K and a cadet only gets paid $42K… that’s tough. Commercial pilots are paid far too much. Paying pilots more will not improve air safety, so how will paying pilots less reduce air safety?

    • sarah says:

      11:19pm | 07/01/11

      And sooooo unsafe!  They already have the cabin crew from cheaper countries with training that is not up to scratch.  I know someone who works for Jetstar and if there is a “medical” onboard, the foreign crew go get an Aussie to deal with it cause they dont know what to do.  But what happens when there is no Aussies left?  I was on one of their flights a couple of months ago and as far as I could see, none of the flight attendants were Aussie.

    • Global says:

      08:53am | 22/12/10

      Hark, do I hear the melodious tinkle of a vested interest, in his role as representative of Qantas Group pilots?

      Reply

    • Andrew says:

      09:05am | 22/12/10

      This is a great article…letting the public know just what these low cost airlines do to keep the fares low.  As a pilot myself…I hope this never comes back in a accident investigation that the pilots had insufficient training…. Roll on with Joyce and Buchanan and it might!

      Reply

    • Macca says:

      09:19am | 22/12/10

      Wow, it’s a bit shallow that the author managed to get one of his mates to back up his article with such a meaningless comment that is full of contempt that someone junior is offered an opportunity and with a nice portion of tall poppy syndrome for the bosses.

    • Blampa says:

      12:35pm | 22/12/10

      Macca you’re a fool.
      I lloked into this program and was going to do it, up until I saw the financial requirements.  A large part of the cost is due to simulator training in the A320 which is only done after your CPL, and then you’re flown to Singapore to do some actual flying in an A320 (about 10 - 20 hours).
      After successful completion of your CPL, ATPL and your A320 endorsement, then Jetstar decide whether they have a job for you or not.
      This program is a scam.  BTW Macca, are you AJ’s lovechild or something?

    • Michael says:

      09:13am | 22/12/10

      The problem is, who the heck wants to pay $180k to become a pilot and then earn way below the minimum wage for 6 years?  They must really love the job, as they’re definately not doing it for the money.  It’s an atrocious wage for someone who literally has the life of those aboard in his or her hands.  The other problem is experience.  If Jetstar (and presumably Qantas) only want to employ pilots with 2000 hours of experience, then just where are the pilots meant to get that (presuming they are not ex army pilots)?  Who is meant to be the guinea pig passenger for those 2000 hours?  Or are the pilots meant to fly full time, 9 to 5, for an entire year in empty planes to get the experience?

      Reply

    • mjr says:

      12:41pm | 22/12/10

      This is the norm in the industry today.  You need to have 1500 hours flying experience in order to be granted an ATPL, required to act as pilot in command.  The early life of a pilot is a never-ending search to obtain paid work to get your hours up - instructing, charter and freight flights, out west, up north.

    • Glenn says:

      09:17am | 22/12/10

      This is why I wont fly with them.  I dont trust anything they do.

      Reply

    • James1 says:

      12:14pm | 22/12/10

      I don’t fly with them, or Tiger, because of the bogans.

    • no thanks jetstar says:

      09:21am | 22/12/10

      ahhhh no thanks jetstar i’d rather walk than fall out of the sky.

      Reply

    • matt says:

      09:21am | 22/12/10

      most of the International Cabin Crew for Jetstar are all based offshore, and not on Australian Conditions either. On my flight to Hawaii recently most of the crew were from Thailand, and they told me on they were forced to share a hotel room, and were paid much lower wages than their Qantas counterparts on the same flight - SYDNEY-HAWAII

      Reply

    • Ross says:

      09:31am | 22/12/10

      Macca 08:39am:

      You have no idea what your talking about.  These aircraft are 2 pilot machines…meaning it needs both pilots in there full capacity to operate safely.  Would you or the travelling public like it if there is one real pilot up the front, and one who is “learning the trade” when the weather is bad or something goes wrong?

      I can tell you, when something goes wrong and one of the pilots is dragging the chain through lack of knowledge or experience, the job becomes exponentially harder and the risk of accident is huge.  Would it take one of your family members to die in an air crash for you to understand this?

      Sounds like you either work for Jetstar management or are a weekend warrior with no idea.  Also, would you like it if you rocked up to work one day to find out your job is now outsourced over seas…for less than half the price?

      Didn’t think so.

      Reply

    • Macca says:

      09:57am | 22/12/10

      @Ross, 1. Just because the aircraft are 2 pilot machines does not mean the cadet pilot is the 2nd pilot. Nor are you aware of the training routine that these pilots are required to undertake. Of that 1000 hours, 500 hours could be as a 3rd Co-pilot, where the role is mostly observational with occasional real experience, whilst bot full-time pilots are on hand. We don’t know this, its all speculation. if they were required to pilot the plane on their own, this would be a concern. However we are not provided that information by the Author, we are simply given some rubbish about JetStar being “UnAustralian”.

      2. I resent your use of emotion in your argument, “your family members to die” etc. I have family members who were in the 747 that was required to turn around in Singapore a few weeks ago. The efforts of the Qantas pilots and Qantas as a whole cannot be understated, however we have a media only interested in sensationalism rather than giving the corporation a pat on their backs for what was an increadibly professional response to a highly irregular and dangerous situation.

      3. I’m going to take the points this time as your argument has resorted to attacking the man, accusing me of either being in-the-know “Jetstar management” or “having no idea”, both completely contradictory arguments. Then you state that my job was being outsourced. This is not the case at all. No Pilots are losing their jobs here, they are introducing new training roles for University cadets.

      Now, if you would like to present something logical to explain why an organisation training up University students to become pilots is a bad thing, I’ll be welcome to hear it. If not, keep the emotional rantings to the Tea party

    • Muttley says:

      11:27am | 22/12/10

      OK Macca, you want an explaination why this is bad, i’ll give you one. I’ll even use small words. Do you not see that this company is merely looking for a cheap labour source to reduce costs or is that beyond you? And while i’ll let an apprentice hair dresser have a crack. After all, if they screw it up it’ll grow back, i’ll pass on getting on board with a work experience pilot. But i dont have that choice do i, unless i avoid Jetstar, which is exactly what i and i suspect many others will do.

    • Macca says:

      11:54am | 22/12/10

      @Muttley, Please see Matt and Byron’s comments below to understand how you have completely missed the point

    • Blind Freddy says:

      12:12pm | 22/12/10

      I think your arguments here indictae you clearly work for Qantas Macca. Own up mate

    • befuddled says:

      09:43am | 22/12/10

      More like Jetstarve than Jetstar.

      Reply

    • Mervyn Morris says:

      10:03am | 22/12/10

      How does Jetstar compete with Air Asia flying Bali to Darwin for $85.  Certainly not with an Australian flight crew on Australian wages.  I don’t get people buying the cheapest airfares then complaining about the plane or the service.  At some stage you have to work out you get what you pay for.

      Reply

    • Dave says:

      01:08pm | 22/12/10

      Well said mervyn. You know what you get when budget airlines when you but your ticket. Don’t complain if its late or poor service. Its your choice.

    • Michael says:

      10:21am | 22/12/10

      So I guess we can say the same thing about a stadium that is wired, a bus that is repaired or any of your homes that was probably, in part, worked on by an apprentice.

      The truth is, many industries have young, inexperienced people who work under the supervision of those who have the skills and qualifications to do.
      so.  Have a look at the wage of an apprentice chef, builder or mechanic and you will find that the wages are a hellof a lot less than 42,000

      I dont always agree with what Jetstar does, but many other airlines around the world employee cadets and theyre not “falling out of the sky.”

      A storm in a teacup really.

      Reply

    • Maccaa says:

      11:38am | 22/12/10

      @Michael, thankyou for seeing the light.

    • Adam says:

      12:24pm | 22/12/10

      but its not an apprentice civil engineer designing the structure and checking the building to ensure it is safe for use. Apprentices are usually used for tasks that are simplistic. When apprentices do work that they are not qualified for, you end up with fatal situations (see Federal Insulation program)...

    • tsuoc says:

      12:30pm | 22/12/10

      no one flew my house into the ground at 800kms. apples and oranges mate

    • Kristina says:

      12:49pm | 22/12/10

      Bus repaired wrong by apprentice mechanic = Breakdown of bus
      Home worked on by apprentice builder = shoddy work & repairs
      Food prepared incorrectly by apprentice chef = Food poisoning
      Plane flown incorrectly by apprentice pilot = Fiery death

    • Sean says:

      02:57pm | 22/12/10

      I think the point is being missed here Michael, a position as a First Officer is not an appropriate entry level job for a fresh Commercial Pilot. It would be like promoting a med school graduate to a Lead Surgeon position.

      Even Qantas’ own cadet program includes a two year period for cadet pilots to gain industry experience and thats prior to a 2-5 year stint as a Second Officer learning the tools of the trade prior to getting a First Officer position. Thats 4-7 years of additional training when compared to the Jetstar scheme! Not to mention the differences in financial outlay and salary.

      Almost all qualified airline pilots are warning you. Just read Chesley Sullenberger’s address to the US Congress, or Joe Eakins comments for some publicly available examples. Why is it that managers think they know better on this issue than qualified airline pilots?

    • frankly says:

      10:25am | 22/12/10

      Not sure what the problem is - people who can’t afford private medical insurance get a trainee doctor ‘specialist’ more often than not. Sometimes you survive the operation, sometimes you don’t. On the other hand airline cadet schemes for pilots were around in the ‘80’s, and many current qantas captains are a result of these programs, and they are amongst the world’s best pilots. Reality is that not enough new pilots are coming through as it’s far too expensive to train yourself with no guarantee of employment. Perhaps the traveling public would prefer asian baggage handlers trained up as pilots to work in australian airlines?!

      Reply

    • anthony says:

      09:22am | 23/12/10

      Frank, having been a graduate of one of those cadet schemes and now a Qantas Captain I can tell you that what J* are proposing to do with these cadets is a very different scenario to what Qantas has ever used for their cadets. There is a very big difference between being a Second Officer for a few years and developing experience that way compared to jumping in the front seat straight up. I know that when I graduated my cadetship (which was far more robust than the proposed Oxford scheme) that there was no way I was ready to be a First Officer.

    • Peter says:

      01:23pm | 23/12/10

      Now that’s apples and oranges… but I have no problem with Asian baggage handlers replacing Australian baggage handlers, as I have no problem with Asian pilots replacing Australian pilots.

    • Mike says:

      10:26am | 22/12/10

      Great idea. 


      Now let’s replace the Jetstar CEO with a business grad on $40K.


      Better still, let’s replace him with an iPod running a $4.00 Management Consultant Application.


      The Board will love that.


      It will have a massive impact on the bottom line, and, it will be vastly improvement management at the same time.

      Reply

    • Kristina says:

      12:51pm | 22/12/10

      Love it Mike!  Great idea!

    • Peter says:

      01:36pm | 23/12/10

      1. Jetstar are NOT replacing captains with cadets.
      2. If you were seeking a cadet to support the CEO, then you would get your pick of the very best business grads from around the world for the position.
      3. Jetstar does recruit business grads for internships and lower pay positions, and they make a meaningful and substanial contribution, and rise through the ranks to assume senior positions.

    • Meh says:

      12:13pm | 30/12/10

      Better still, why not outsource Jetstar management to the Thai and Singapore based crews? They all hold at least one (in many cases multiple) degree, speak several languages and are happy to work the 17+ hour days that JQ management require them to do for under $700 per month. That’ll help jetstar meet it’s KPIs!

    • Kika says:

      10:28am | 22/12/10

      I have absolutely no doubt that JetStar are plainly trying to recruit foreign pilots rather than investing in Australian pilots. Regional salary? Yeah right. We don’t we factor in average incomes from all over the Pacific to calculate all of our incomes? Because the income made by a fisherman in Fiji is entirely relevant to my job here in Australia. Whatever. Offshore companies? Please. They are all just tools to recruit pilots from Asia. In no way am I critisizing Asian pilots. I love Singapore Airlines and they do a great job. But I’ve heard most of their pilots are ex military.

      I would never fly Jet Star and after learning about this, would never fly again. Much is to say about their parent company in allowing this sort of business management.

      On a side note - could anyone enlighten me as to how a cadet pilot usually earns their flight hours? If they aren’t up there flying, how else are they doing it? Do they take commercial flights?

      Reply

    • Macca says:

      11:50am | 22/12/10

      @Kika, I guy I went to studying to become a pilot, tthey can acheive roughly 500 hours a year at University, plus private time on top of that if they have access to a plane, trainer etc.

      4 years, 500 hours = minimum requirement of 2000 hours. JetStar will simply employ Cadets whilst they are at Uni to do some of their learning in their aircraft rather than in some second-hand Cessna out at Blacktown.

    • Sean says:

      03:24pm | 22/12/10

      Macca,

      No pilot would pay there way through 500 hrs. Most build hours in entry level positions such as light aircraft scenic flights, charter flying, freight, fire spotting ect.

      You’re comments are repeatedly misleading and demonstrate that you have no expert knowledge of the pilot training industry.

      Kika,

      A new pilot will typically gain experience on smaller less complicated aeroplanes before flying airliners with 170 people on board. Jetstar’s argument is that simulator training can replace this experience. Whilst simulator training is very good at instilling flying skills, it fails to impart real world experience, an explanation of why would be too long winded to post in this forum.

    • Scared says:

      08:47am | 28/12/10

      Macca,

      You have no idea. I am currently at uni and can tell you that there is no way we could fit in 400 hours a year into our course load. I’ve been lucky to rack up just over 60.  Where will I be when I graduate? flying similar planes to what I am now for 6month - 2 years, then slowly extending myself onto more complex types, then hopefully down the track an airline job… not at jetstar.

      It scares me to think in 12 months time (yes it only takes 18 months total) the first of these cadets will be behind the controls of a complex airliner.

    • Kate says:

      10:35am | 22/12/10

      Matthew - do you realise how much pilots get paid when they finish training? As if they are not doing it for the money - they can get paid more money in a week than I earn in a year if they work holidays/days off etc. Don’t get me wrong they deserve the money as they have responsibility, paid for training etc but it’s still a great deal of money.
      As for some of the other comments, do you realise that no-one could afford to become a pilot if pilots had to spend 2000 hours in an empty commercial plane training, that would literally cost millions of dollars.

      Reply

    • Abacus Master says:

      11:33am | 22/12/10

      Do you realise how much pilots get paid?? My first year as a pilot I earned $23 000 GROSS. I’ve been in the industry for 10 years and have yet to earn over $65 000. Not all pilots are on the money that the public conceive they are.

      “they can get paid more money in a week than I earn in a year if they work holidays/days off etc”.........Please provide evidence, I certainly don’t have this in my contract.

    • Broke! says:

      03:48pm | 22/12/10

      My 1st 2 years I earned $20,000 then a big pay rise to $28,000 for 2 years. Couldn’t afford a car and lived on bread and butter. Public perception is unbelievable!

    • Captain G. Jones says:

      10:41am | 22/12/10

      Crapstar before….....Crapstar still.

      see how much they save when they stack one of their tin birds due to lack of pilot experience.

      Reply

    • John Ray says:

      10:51am | 22/12/10

      This is a union point of view.  It does however overlook the environment Jetstar is operating in.  Jetstar could well cease to exist if it has to pay much higher salaries than its Asian rivals.  Jetstar offers cheap and nasty travel.  If people want better service and greater safety Qantas is positioned to offer that —though whether it actually does would seem moot

      Reply

    • Wally says:

      11:01am | 22/12/10

      Ah, amazing what you can stir up with a dose of liberal exaggeration and vested interest - sadly, in the process, some important issues are compromised.  On the other hand, as Michael says:  how is a pilot to learn?
      Finally, to “no thanks Jetstar”, try walking from Darwin to Adelaide!!

      Reply

    • Matt says:

      11:14am | 22/12/10

      Nice one Philip van den whoever.

      I joined Qantas as a cadet myself 10 years ago.  I had less than 200 hours at the time.  Qantas have taken heaps of cadets since me and will continue to do so.

      The Jetstar problem is off-shoring pilots, not employing cadets.  All the reputable airlines employ cadets - Singapore, Cathay, Emirates, British Airways etc. etc.  Why don’t you write about employing cheap pilots from NZ and Asia instead?  This has been covered recently in the media when one brave Jetstar pilot finally questioned it publically.

      But you clearly are clueless.

      Reply

    • Pilot says:

      12:54pm | 22/12/10

      Matt, perhaps you should read the entire article - from midway onwards it deals exclusively with the offshoring issue!

    • anthony says:

      09:46am | 23/12/10

      Matt, as a cadet who joined QF 16 years ago, I can tell you that you don’t know too much about the J* scheme. It’s very different to what you or I went through.

    • Byron says:

      11:16am | 22/12/10

      Just for everyone’s information; Qantas was running a Cadet Pilot programme long before Jetstar even existed! It was approximately $120k self sponsored (8 years ago so add inflation for relative price now), no guarantee of employment upon successful completion of the course (same as Jetstar) and those who were employed became 2nd Officers on the 747 fleet, with approx 200 hours experience, flying long international flights with 100’s of paying passengers on board (more than any aircraft in Jetstar’s fleet).

      This is an absolute beat up! Airlines have been running Cadet Pilot programme’s for a long time; Cathay, Etihad and REX are all employing cadet’s at the moment and have for years.. This is nothing new, get your facts straight! And a pilot with 200 hours experience is a lot safer flying a highly automated, modern jet with a highly experienced Captain next to them, SOP’s and checklists, rather than flying single pilot charter operations through bad weather in a clapped out 20 year old turbo-prop that they may have never flown before!

      Reply

    • A Real Pilot says:

      04:40pm | 22/12/10

      “$120k self sponsored (8 years ago so add inflation for relative price now)”
      $130K according to the Qantas Website.

      You imply that the Qantas 200 Pilots are allowed to actually fly the aircraft, not true, they sit behind the Captain and First officer for all Take Offs and Landings and whenever anything goes wrong. They do this for about 4-5 YEARS!! before a First Officer spot comes up on a smaller aircraft (737, maybe 767) and then they get to have a go at landing. Even then they are not allowed to land with cross winds greater then 20kts.

      I am not to sure where the clapped out 20 Year old Turbo prop comes in, a 200hr pilot would be lucky to have flown more then 3 aircraft in their whole training. So any aircraft from 747 at Qantas to a Clapped out old Turbo prop would be be something they have never flown before.

    • Mira says:

      10:18pm | 22/12/10

      Byron, mate Qantas cadet’s on a 747 or an A380 etc, I can tell you right now they do not get to manipulated the controls ie take off and landings until they get promoted to a first officer position which is around 5+ years as a Second Officer. Thats 5+ years of observing and supporting the Captain and First Officer. As well as the requirement that those long haul operations require three or more pilots for the 17 hour flight to LA or London, due to crew rest and fatigue limitations. That is why Qantas do not have Second Officer’s on 737 as they are short haul flights between Melbourne,  Sydney and Perth etc.
      The comment you made about the Jetstar cadet being next to a highly experienced Captain. That Captain would’ve started out getting his valuable experience flying single pilot charter throughout Australia or some other part of the world before the days of gps in all sorts of weather then he would’ve have moved into more complex aircraft, ie Flying Doctor Service, Instructing, Freight aircraft , Corporate jets, International medical retrievals, Fly in Fly out operations in BAE 146, Fokker 50 or Dash 8 aircraft.  And those companies he flew for would have had SOP’s Checklist’s just like Qantas does, Qantas and Jetstar are not unique in this area, its a CASA requirement for all operators to have this.
      Fortunately for the traveling public and yourself you just cannot jump into a 20 year old or what the age turboprop and not having flown it before. Its requirement by CASA to have passed a type rating/endorsement with hours in a simulator or the actual aircraft with an instructor before operating any turboprop or turbojet aircraft for the first time with you being the pilot in command, thats the law. This is all about getting cheap labour and cost down for the airline and as for being a selected university graduate, the Universities are just a middle man taking a slice of the pie, what a load of sh$%#

    • SaZz says:

      12:55pm | 24/12/10

      Byron - A Qantas cadet will not be bonded to Qantas for 6 years on 42k NZD!!! They will be a SO on a 747, A380, A330 etc in about 2 years time and earning upwards of 90k after having completed sufficient work experience. This is more than worth the initial investment.

    • Les says:

      11:33am | 22/12/10

      Using trainee’s on sectors instead of qualified FO’s will reduce costs for the airline. Basically this is Jetstar taking on the GA mentality in order to rip off the pilots and put passenger lives at risk. Example: If you want to rent a single engne cessna most companies will ask you to have atleast 100 hours logged for safety and insurance. And if you want to fly a turbine or jet then they want 1000 hours or more to fly solo. So what needs to be considered is if your captain with 5000 hours is not feeling well then your FO is in command. And that means that a guy that most insurnace companies would not trust in a turbine is now managing the lives of many. Its a very stupid idea.

      Reply

    • Carly says:

      11:35am | 22/12/10

      If the training was thorough and responsible, it may be a good option. As for wages, truly I’m ignorant as to a fair salary… but if Jetstar aren’t garunteeing employment for trainees, is it fair to require them to be bonded to the company?

      Reply

    • Dave G says:

      11:37am | 22/12/10

      Macca - your comments are absolute rubbish my friend!! This has got nothing to do with Jetstar trying to do a favour to up and coming pilots, simply them trying to cut costs to the bare bones. Young pilots should of course be given opportunities to hone their skills, however, there is a time and a place for this and it’s certainly not sitting up the front of a commercial aircraft. I would be keen to hear your thoughts if you lost a loved one in an air crash due to an inexperienced, wet behind the years 25 year old at the controls??

      Reply

    • Deepak says:

      11:39am | 22/12/10

      If I have to choose between parts falling apart due to cuts in maintenance and cuts via Pilot training I suppose I choose the later. But both are ridiculous as both makes us less safe on air. There should be more stringent laws to keep air travel safe. And at the same time keeping the competition in control so that they don’t have to resort to steps like these to make more money.

      Reply

    • Richard says:

      11:41am | 22/12/10

      The proposed pilot experience requirements is almost like modern day employment slavery being bonded for training to the value of 200K + and then getting paid a pittance 42K a year. Sure their wages will go up as they progress but to be stuck with one employer for life is a raw deal.  These poor young cadets will be working forever trying to pay this debt off.  Aviation careers are no longer worth the effort with the many hoops would be pilots have to go through.

      Reply

    • James1 says:

      12:17pm | 22/12/10

      The market will take care of that.  If people are not becoming pilots due to low pay, the number of pilots will decrease.  Once there are less pilots, competition to attract pilots will increase, and higher wages will be offered.  Because of the higher wages, more people will become pilots, and the pilot shortage will end, leading to decreasing wages for pilots…

    • John says:

      11:43am | 22/12/10

      QANTAS “The Spirit of Australia” - QANTAS Group (it’s plastered on the sides of Jetstar) but there is NO “SPIRIT OF AUSTRALIA”  at the executive levels of Jetstar or indeed their QANTAS masters and board..

      Reply

    • Aussiewazza says:

      11:46am | 22/12/10

      Australians are proud of QANTAS and its safety record.

      This is due to top quality Australian maintainance and crew.

      But now QANTAS is a ‘for profit’ business everything works around just that; profit.

      QANTAS has always paid top dollar to ensure its reputation is maintained and as staff were recruited they went onto the good rates and the unions and associations ensured that they were paid in accordance with the agreements negotiated.

      You will note how many routes are no longer services by QANTAS but now Jetstar.

      I am told that QANTAS no longer recruits staff; Jetstar does. Jetstar staff, not under the same contract umbrella are paid much less. I am told QANTAS staff are being dismissed (due to lowering business) but are then offered jobs (the same) with Jetstar but at the lower Jetstar rate. ” So sorry but we have no option but there could be jobs at Jetstar, see the man at that desk over there”.

      Gently, gently apart from a few token routes QANTAS will disappear.

      No more confidence, no more frequent flier points, no more food, no more drinks, no more movies, no more pillows or blankets; unless of course you pay ridiculously high prices.

      Reply

    • airline bandit says:

      04:50pm | 23/12/10

      Your information is incorrect as an employee of QF. QF have and are currently recruiting staff under the QF corporation. Jetstar and Qantas are seperate when it comes to employment. Different contracts & different pay structures.Not to mention we fly on completely different Aircraft.  Whilst Jetstar are flying on some routes that we previously QF, there still needs to be a premium product as 70% of business comes from Platinum FF. My advice, choose your flights carefully & investigate aircraft type & potential codeshare flights to avoid dissapoinment.

    • Jen says:

      12:04pm | 22/12/10

      Good to know… not that I was ever going to fly jetstar again anyway. Once was enough.

      Reply

    • ad says:

      12:13pm | 22/12/10

      I no longer fly Qantas or Jetstar. I would rather pay more. Perhaps if they spent more money on pilots and maintainence locally rather than overpaid bulldust spin merchants - spokesmen and women, they might get some respect from the flying public. Qantas and Jetstar care only about profits.

      Reply

    • Jim says:

      12:34pm | 22/12/10

      Cadet pilots, meh. I’m more scared jumping into a cab when old Mustafa is driving, 2 days after getting off the boat!

      Jetstar sucks. I don’t need a union hack to tell me that.

      Reply

    • Pete C says:

      12:40pm | 22/12/10

      Macca comes across as a Jetstar management stooge. Anyone that refers to an aircraft as a ‘plane’ is more likely to have a degree in bean-counting and spin rather than any degree of professional aviation knowledge.

      When it comes to flying Jetstar - never have, never will!

      Reply

    • Sustainable growth says:

      12:46pm | 22/12/10

      Our economy works on profit which must be sourced from paying customers. There is a limit to how much customers can purchase and pay for though and once this has been reached, new ways of increasing profit must be found. If the number of passengers remians the same, then the only way to get more profit is to cut expenses, so it makes perfect sense to use cheap pilots.

      Reply

    • scott says:

      12:58pm | 22/12/10

      helicopter pilot training costs about 80k, even then you’ll probably have to work for free someplace to get your hrs up or pay $800p/hr. I don’t see how this is that bad of a deal considering at the end you’ll have 2000hrs and have been earning any kind of a wage. once your 6 years are up you can start earning the big dollars.

      Reply

    • Be warned! says:

      01:14pm | 22/12/10

      This is a money-saving-scheme by Jetstar. A poor sap gets bonded to the company for 6 years and once his training is complete, his contract is not renewed. He is replaced by another sap (cadet) and the process is repeated. This means that the second pilot in a Jetstar plane is always a ‘learner’. Jetstar saves money by compromising on safety!!!

      The usual way of building up flying hours (experience) is to start of flying relatively simple piston engined light aircraft. Once the pilot has gained experience he/she moves up to more sophisticated aircraft and eventually on to airliners. These cadet schemes only benefit the companies involved. The travelling public and the saps (cadets) get ripped off!!!

      Reply

    • bananabender says:

      01:23pm | 22/12/10

      Airliners are not flown by pilots. They are fully automated machines flown by computers.

      NASA has already declared airline pilots to be redundant. The only real reason for having airline pilots is legal liability and to reassure the public.

      An A380 (and any other modern airliner) can take off, fly to it’s destination and land safely without the pilot touching the controls.

      The credit for the recent QANTAS landing is 99% due to to the Airbus software not the pilots.

      The amount of hours accumulated tells very little about the pilots skill. RAAF fighter pilots fly less than 100 hours a year.  There are also many very cowboy charter pilots with thousands of hours gained on light aircraft.

      Reply

    • Pilot says:

      02:03pm | 22/12/10

      You obviously haven’t read the ATSB report into the QF32 incident! Perhaps you should do so before making stupid statements…

    • Foolhunter says:

      02:37pm | 22/12/10

      “The credit for the recent QANTAS landing is 99% due to to the Airbus software not the pilots. “

      Why of course, all they had to do was their 1% which would have been to push the Uncontained Engine Failure Half Hydraulics Lost Fuel Streaming Out Of The Wing Aircraft Becoming Unbalanced Endless EICAS Messages Auto Land button!

      This has to be a troll right?

    • Sean says:

      03:03pm | 22/12/10

      Bananabender,

      Would be curious to learn what qualifications or experience you posess to have made such a statement. As an airline pilot I find you’re comments to be grossly incorrect and disrespectful, particularly of my colleagues Richard de Crespigny and Matt Hicks.

    • Amazed! says:

      04:01pm | 22/12/10

      That’s interesting. Didn’t realise the Airbus I fly took off without me touching the controls!! Silly me!

    • Dash Trash says:

      04:48pm | 22/12/10

      “An A380 (and any other modern airliner) can take off, fly to it’s destination and land safely without the pilot touching the controls. “

      You obviously have no idea about how a modern aircraft works… at all.

    • Ross says:

      11:37am | 23/12/10

      Just so you know, airliners cannot take off by them selves, and have never been able to do so.  And the A380?  The software made the pilots job harder on QF32 due to system malfunctions not allowing them to balance the aircraft correctly for landing, amongst other things.  Also, if you read the factual report, the autopilots were no available after the engine took out most of the automatic systems on the aircraft.  What would the computer do then genius?

      I don’t understand why people who don’t fly airliners and know little to nothing about the industry feel the need to make comments and embarrass themselves.  The ignorance is mildly entertaining I suppose.

    • Paul says:

      01:26pm | 22/12/10

      A PUI (Pilot Under Instruction) is not permitted to take the controls of ANY aircraft with passengers let alone a aircraft that requires a Airline Transport Pilot License. A pilot with 200 hours won’t have a endorsement to fly as PIC (Pilot IN Command) in ANY commercial aircraft - Definately not in Jetstar aircraft. CASA hasa 1500 hour MINIMUM and that includes some onerous requirements such as 750hr on thet type as well. So lets not assume anyone with 200 hrs flight time is getting anywhere near a jet. They wouldnt be able to operate the aircraft let alone commend it.  Hence, there is no way that person will be flying passengers. I’m going to suggest at 200 hrs thye may be flying single and twin props for some time.  Nice beat up.

      Reply

    • B says:

      02:11pm | 22/12/10

      I think you fail to understand that cadets are employed as First Officers, not Captains, and all you have done here is outline the requirements a Captain (and very poorly I might add). To be a First Officer all you need is the appropriate endorsements and licences. First Officers in Australia generally share the load with the Captain, on the first leg the Captain is the Pilot Flying and on the next leg they swap etc. The Captain is always responsible but on one leg he might be doing the radio calls and making appropriate calls but its the First Officer with his hands on the controls landing the aircraft.

      Nice try, but next time try to have a little understanding of how things happen on the flight deck. And go and read the CAOs, if you know what they are that is.

    • Aussiewazza says:

      01:27pm | 22/12/10

      Just like the duck flying around in ever deminishing circles until it disappears up its own behind.

      Cut the standards and customers move away, so offset the profit loss by reducing the standards—ad infinitum; except there is an ending.

      PREDICTION: Down and down it goes until QANTAS sells out to S.A.L. or some Arab —- All the maintainance done in Pakistan.  Goodbye another Aussie icon.

      Reply

    • Steve says:

      01:31pm | 22/12/10

      People insist on a low cost airline..so do not complain when they do what is necessary to provide you with what you want.  If you want a full service airline fly QANTAS instead.

      Reply

    • bananabender says:

      01:37pm | 22/12/10

      “What the company, however, is proposing to do in the near future is employ cadet pilots with as little as 200 hours total flight time.”

      This is how military pilots have always been trained.

      The RAAF Super Hornet pilots have less than 200 hours total flying time by the time they are qualified. They spend much less than 100 hours a year actually flying.

      Reply

    • Pilot says:

      02:08pm | 22/12/10

      You’re a genius mate!

      I didn’t know the RAAF provided public transport to fare paying passengers on their Super Hornet aircrafts - that’s incredible news! How much is a return fare from SYD to MEL?

    • anthony says:

      10:07am | 23/12/10

      The training through the RAAF system far exceeds that offered through any cadetship. The oversight and ‘fail rate’ during training is a testament to that.

      The supervision, development, and feedback to newly frocked RAAF pilots far exceeds that which occurs in airline flying.

      The briefings that RAAF aircrew undergo prior to every training mission far exceeds that which occurs in airline flying.

      In short, that you choose to compare the RAAF pilot training program with this airline cadetship shows your ignorance of botch schemes.

    • Dave says:

      02:20pm | 22/12/10

      Your story is wrong in several ways. But most significantly it shows that you have not even read the terms of the cadetship program - specifically in regards to the cost that is bourne by the cadet.

      If the enter as an ‘ab initio’ candidate they will have around $87K to cover. Of the remaining ~$85K - 21K is given as sponsorship, and the remainder is paid off over a period of 6 years once employed.

      If a candidate enters with a commercial license already, and with up to 1000hrs experience, they have no up front costs at all - but still repay they 64K over 6 years once employed.

      I could rant about other things you have wrong with your ‘story’ - but perhaps recommending that you just go back and doing some research before you write in future.

      I am a Flight Instructor, and in no way associated with Jetstar, but I can see that this program can be of a huge benefit to some pilots in an industry that really does not make progression and the gaining of experience easy.

      Reply

    • SteveP says:

      02:29pm | 22/12/10

      Seriously guys… you understand that accepting these poor employment conditions is optional right?... if you don’t like it, DON’T TAKE THE BLOODY JOB! Go to the other airlines that do pay a decent salary (Qantas, Qantaslink, Virgin etc), or stay on the little Baron in the bush… If you accept the job, well you’ve made your bed, now lie in it. No point whinging about the “un-Australian-ness” of it all, when you belatedly figure out you’ve been played for suckers.

      Reply

    • Pilot says:

      03:15pm | 22/12/10

      I absolutely agree with you SteveP - as long as the fare paying passengers know the facts too!

      I think that what this article attempts to do is to inform the public of these practices! Off course the author is a ‘union hack’ (he certainly doesn’t hide the fact that he is) and off course he may be promoting an industrial point of view, but the reality is, this is something the public needs to know before buying that ticket! And if the union get some industrial leverage out of it, I say ‘good on them’ - because the fare paying public has the right to know and I thank them for letting me know - because I know Jetstar won’t!

      PS: Somehow I don’t think “Lowest fares. Lowest experience. Everyday.” will cut it as a marketing campaign!

    • Luke says:

      02:58pm | 22/12/10

      Jetstar are a Joke they love to cancel your flight the day before. But my latest example is this. As a parent with a child living in another state I could not book the flights for myself and my daughter instead I had to get her to book them then I got told that my Ex COULD not at her in Brisbane board my daughter and wait at the gate that I would have to get of at the airport rush through and board her through myself make sense nope same day flights 25 minutes between flights yep good one Jetstar you and your stupid rules.

      Reply

    • Richard says:

      03:06pm | 22/12/10

      Whilst I generally look for the best deal or convenience when booking a flight, I made a conscious decision a while ago never to fly Death Star…I don’t think this article is likely to change things!

      Reply

    • Sean says:

      03:14pm | 22/12/10

      As a low cost airline CEO, with targets to meet and bonuses to reap, what do you do if you see the possibility of losing all your pilots to well remunerated airlines where they take care of there staff?

      Increases wages? Start showing some respect to your workforce? Or;
      Create a new market of pilots bonded to the airline who fly for even less and can be trained up in very short lead times?

      Why is this different to other professions? A poorly experienced lawyer will immediately lose cases. A poorly experienced pilot may roll the dice for years before bending an aeroplane, by then the CEO has long taken his golden parachute and moved on to bigger and better things.

      As an airline pilot I strongly condemn Jetstar’s actions in establishing this cadet scheme.

      Reply

    • Biggles Mig 21 says:

      03:29pm | 22/12/10

      A close friend of mine flys for a well respected Airline of out Hong Kong.To get there he worked his hours up as an instructor in Sydney ( nearly got killed numerous times by overseas students even before getting off the hard stand!) for 5 years.Then went to remote parts of the world for several years to work on endorsement ratings and hours in multi engine aircraft, turbo prop and jet engines.He still says everyday how lucky he is to be where he is ,even though he worked his backside and almost his life off. On top of spending a fortune to be there .The other way is through the military and about 5 to 7 seven years of your life.200 hours? Your dreaming.

      Reply

    • Gary says:

      03:36pm | 22/12/10

      This scheme Jetstar wants needs to be nipped in the bud now. It works for long haul companies such as CX who have an excellent cadet pilot scheme where the cadets do a solid 1 years training in Adelaide before joining the airline in a multi crew role. But in an airline that predominately flies with only 2 pilots like Jetstar is proposing it is not on. With 2 crew jets when the going gets rough 1 pilot has to not only handle the flying work the radio, throw in a technical problem and bad weather and he is still required to monitor what the other pilot is doing. Even for an experienced training or check captain in the left hand seat (as what is mandated because a normal line pilot is not allowed to train)  it is taxing their experience to the limits with a low houred unexperienced pilot is in the right hand seat. I have over 18000 hrs in 3 crew (2 pilot 1 engineer) environment and it got real busy when things went pear shaped and that was with 3 very experienced persons 2 of whom worked together to solve the problem and the other soley flying the aeoroplane and working the radio. No thankyou to what Jetstar has in its’ wish list ! Glad I’m retired, 2 crew aircraft do not grab me one little bit. People praise the QANTAS pilots as to their handling of the QF32 incident and rightly so but if that same scenario had occured with only 2 persons in the cockpit unlike QF that had extra experience sitting there the outcome may well have been much more serious.
      Time to balance safety and dollars and let the dollars take the back seat.
      Costs were the reason us Flight Engineers were taken out of the equation. Now its the First Officers turn to feel the heat. What will be next? As we used to joke it will get down to one pilot and a dog. The dog is there to bite the pilot if he touches anything and the pilot is there to feed the dog.

      Reply

    • Bondi Boys team says:

      03:43pm | 22/12/10

      I don’t fly Jetstar and I wouldn’t if they gave me free tickets and anybody that flies in a plane with a cadet pilot needs to see a phyco doctor.

      Reply

    • 1stardogz says:

      04:04pm | 22/12/10

      Wonder if they will experience the same dramas as the turboprop operators down the road, who regularly see the cadet pilots unable to land the aircraft properly and have to have the more EXPERIENCED pilots step in and take control.
      Alot of information doesn’t get passed onto the travelling public but thats OK because the cadets are all safe =P we can trust their experience behind the wheel.

      Reply

    • Felix says:

      04:32pm | 22/12/10

      Next they’ll put monkeys as pilots to fly us around the world and all we have to do is to bring some bananas along to exchange for our tickets

      Reply

    • Leah says:

      04:41pm | 22/12/10

      “Whilst the 200 hours will be supplemented by a further 1000 hours “supervised training”, what it neglects to mention is that some of this “supervised training” refers to actual flying time with fare paying passengers onboard.”

      I’m cool with that. If it’s supervised training, that’ll mean there’s still a fully qualified pilot on board, right? Fine by me. For short-distance domestic flights, at any rate.

      Bondi Boys team: and apparently, you need to see an English teacher. It’s “psycho”, not “phyco”. I virtually always fly JetStar and have never had any problems.

      Reply

    • Apilot says:

      06:39pm | 22/12/10

      It’s a matter of numbers…a couple of days ago a jetstar plane lost and engine, mix that with a captain falling sick and you may have an accident to deal with…..with Jetstar purchasing more and more planes there will be more and more flights and it will only be a matter of time before the ‘holes in the swiss cheese’ will line up!

    • Jetstar once - never again says:

      04:49pm | 22/12/10

      You get what you pay for.  You pay for a cheap flight, you get a cheap service.

      Only flown Jetstar once - never again!!!!!

      Reply

    • Martin Roberts says:

      05:26pm | 22/12/10

      Profit before safety and service? Qantas has dropped the ball, via their last and current CEO’s. Passengers nervous or not rely on the quality qualifications that Qantas used as a standard to be a top airline. The continueing bad press correct or otherwise will turn peple away from Qantas. They have a lot of ground to make up against the Asian airlines.

      Reply

    • Phil says:

      05:28pm | 22/12/10

      Don’t know if this deal is right or not. All I know is I fly Jetstar about 3 times a year, round trip, and to be honest I have never had any reason to complain about anything. The staff have always been polite, normally I board about 20 minutes before takeoff and arrive at my destination within 5 minutes of the scheduled time. Nope I am more than happy to fly Jetstar.

      Reply

    • .... says:

      05:39pm | 22/12/10

      I will never fly Jetstar.  I used to work in their outsourced call centre and know firsthand all about their cost saving tactics.  Most of the call centre is in Malaysia, and soon to be the Philippines. Even if their fares are the cheapest, I would rather pay more for a company that treats its staff with respect and fairness.  I hope the general public think long and hard about what the cost is for these very cheap air fares.

      Reply

    • BigSean says:

      05:43pm | 22/12/10

      200 hours or 2000 hours.. you still need to be rated to fly the aircraft. Just as a car, truck or bus licence, the road rules and driving in general is all the same. Just the layout is different. Flying is all based on the same principles if your flying an A320, A380, 747-400, 757 or a 777-300. Who would the whinging union recommend pick up the cost for a pilot to accumulate 2000 flying hours before he can work and actually make a dollar as a pilot ? It is the same unions and media outlets that were not so long ago complaining that we do not have enough training places, apprentices, skilled workers and the fact we employ many overseas pilots. As a commercial pilot with over 12000 flight hours i congratulate Jetstar on taking an initiative to create a cadet programme at a time when most airlines are cutting staff almost on a daily basis. As for Gary above, the QF32 incident occurred in an A380,  had 5 crew onboard as it was a check flight. A380 requires 3 man crew minumum, flight engineer is not a luxury that can be cut to save costs, it is a requirement for the A380. Jetstar has a fleet of simple planes that fly simple routes, loaded with the latest technology to make the job as easy,foolproof and safe as possible.  It does not get any easier to train up pilots using a cadet system such as this. The reason i came to Europe to fly is because of all this crap and union hype we see everyday back home in Australia.

      Reply

    • Sean says:

      08:21pm | 22/12/10

      BigSean,

      There is a big difference between passing an aircraft endorsement simulator check-ride and being an experienced pilot. Any quality training system would be able to train a fresh Commercial Pilot with all the skills required to be licensed on a transport category aircraft. However, would they have the critical reasoning skills? the mental mindset? tried and tested decision making and problem solving skills? ie. Would he/she be able to provide effective support for the Captain in an emergency on a jet transport category aircraft? I would suggest possibly not, that stuff comes with experience.

      2000 hrs? There is plenty of ways to gain experience that doesn’t involve 170 unknowing participants and a highly sophisticated 80 tonne Jet. I’m certain a man of your experience would be aware of this.

      With reference to the A380 the minimum operating crew is two, not three. Whilst I respect that you may be highly experienced in aviation, most airline pilots would be aware of this fact. It is after all an article on airline pilot employment.

    • A Real Pilot says:

      09:31am | 23/12/10

      “A380 requires 3 man crew minimum, flight engineer is not a luxury that can be cut to save costs, it is a requirement for the A380. “
      The A380 does not have a flight engineer. It has a Captain, First Officer, and on long haul flights a Second Officer (For flight and duty reasons).

      There are plenty of guys and girls already in the industry with well over 2000hrs who are being passed over for these jobs because they would have to pay them more. These are pilots who have experienced the different types of weather that a fresh CPL would have only read about. They have had to make the hard call of when to divert with an angry mob of passengers in the back. I would also imagine that a good lot of them would have had something fail on them at some point in their careers as well, and lived to tell the tail. This is the sort of experience that you can’t just train into someone.
      There are plenty of jobs for a Fresh CPL holder to pick up in GA, no one should be just paying a newby pilot to fly around for 2000hrs.

    • Jasmin says:

      06:03pm | 22/12/10

      “bonded with $180,000 debt” and getting paid NZ$42,000pa for 6 years???  I thought servitude was illegal in Australia!????

      Reply

    • St. Michael says:

      06:05pm | 22/12/10

      I admit I’m not fully au fait with how the system works for when they let cadets become First Officers on a major airline, but the record of the Korean airlines has an interesting bearing on this case.  (The reference is the book “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, 2008).

      The Korean airline crash rate was 17 times that of a standard carrier’s crash rate (United Airlines, for interest’s sake.)  In particular, in the following cases—

      Korean Air Flight 801 (1997)
      • Korean Air flight shot down over Russian air space (1977)
      • Korean Air crash in Seoul (1979)
      • Korean Air crash near Sakhalin Island (1982)
      • Korean Air crash in Andaman Sea (1987)
      • Korean Air crash in Tripoli (1989)
      • Korean Air crash in Seoul (1989)
      • Korean Air crash Cheju, South Korea (1994)
      • Three-Mile Island 1979
      • Avianca Flight 052 (1990)

      —in each, one of the major reasons for the crashes was because the co-pilots, or First Officers, were required by Korean culture and Korean Air corporate culture to be extremely deferential to pilots. Pilots would physically slap co-pilots when they made a mistake. Co-pilots had to perform such servile activities as cooking the pilot’s dinner and serving it to him during layovers.

      That deference caused or contributed to air crashes because the first officer did not have the moral gumption to speak up when the pilot was seen as making a mistake.

      I’m not for a moment suggesting Jetstar has or would implement such policies.  But the issue remains: suggesting that one puts a raw cadet in the First Officer’s seat rather than the pilot’s seat is potentially just as dangerous as putting him in the pilot’s chair.  A plane has two pilots for a good reason: it’s one of the most complex pieces of machinery ever created by man, and that complexity requires two minds on it to fly it and *check* one another’s conduct.

      It seems to me that if you start putting a uniform batch of green cadets in First Officer chairs, you encourage a culture where the pilot’s the font of all knowledge and the FO is just along for the ride.  That has a potential risk of an accident, as the Korean air disasters show.

      Would the pilots/FOs/folks who’ve considered that book like to comment on that?

      Reply

    • Andrew of Newcastle says:

      06:18pm | 22/12/10

      It’s time the field was levelled, and it’s up to the Federal Government through CASA to do so. Australian flights = Australian pay and conditions = Australian maintenance = level playing field for all operators. Maybe the government could also introduce a 99cents in the dollar tax level for any income over say 2 million dollars, that will get rid of all the Ralph Norris’s, Alan Joyce’s and Gordon Gekko’s of the corporate world out of Australia. They can all go and practice their greed is good creed elsewhere.

      Reply

    • Professional Pilot says:

      09:51pm | 22/12/10

      Well everyone want’s cheap airfares so guess what boys and girls this is but one of the consequences.  Deathstar is going to cut costs to the bone any way it can.  The reason they employ cadets is because they become what the industry refers to as professional gear, flap and radio operators.  In other words, it will be a cold day in hell before they will have sufficient command time up to obtain a full air transport pilot licence (ATPL) and therefore command.  So basically the airline has a captive pool of minimally qualified pilots who pay the equivalent of a small African country’s foreign debt for the priveledge and who are totally useless to even fly a charter in a light aircraft in outback australia.  In the meantime, the Captains not only have to perform their role in command of the aircraft, they have to baby sit and change nappies on these wet behind the year spoilt rich kids.  Never have flown Deathstar and hopefully never will.  A train or bus would be more attractive than that outfit.  But hey, I guess they do fit a certain part of the Australian market.  Thank god, I’m not part of it.

      Reply

    • Joe Airline Pilot says:

      10:20pm | 22/12/10

      If the CEO of jetstar Australia can reduce costs by 10% a year then he gets a fat bonus. That’s the only reason for this.

      Reply

    • PeterC says:

      09:14am | 23/12/10

      Yes, Joe this is the real reason. It is a corporate culture disease spread by MBA graduates that has affected much of industry, not just the airlines. These people are now mostly young, and mostly with no life or relevant industry experience or qualifications. If the CEO does not carry out ruthless cost cutting and social engineering, he/she will be replaced by someone who does. Morals and decency are not part of the selection criteria for a CEO.

    • pilot of perth says:

      10:25pm | 22/12/10

      Wow. If this isn’t a well aimed article written by the pilots union.

      For starters, this practice of cadet pilots has been happening for years (decades) around the world. To fly for an airline, you need to learn with an airline.

      Singapore Airlines operates a Flying Training School at Jandakot WA. The students there have little or no aviation experience when they arrive, but at the sucessful completion of their training course they are deemed to be junior airline pilots.

      These pilots after their 200 or so hour training then spend time in simulators in Singapore, and flying ‘route’ on airliners, and after enough time, and flight hours then become first officers.

      China Southern Airlines also operate out of Jandakot and do the same.

      I know of a couple of pilots that were general aviation commercial pilots who went to the USA and brought their Boeing 737 endorsements and came back to fly with Ansett & Qantas back when there was a pilot shortage.

      Stop beating up on the airlines - and the pilots. This is a bit of scaremongering by those that see this as a way to limit salary growth for the Captains of the fleet.

      @St. Michael
      How can the shootdown of KE007 be a pilot/copilot issue? The Russians shot down an airliner!

      Philip van-den-heever - I just wonder how much research went into this article, or did you just rehash a press release from the pilots union?

      This seems to be very typical of News.Com.Au these days - too much media beat-up, not enough sensible research & reporting.

      Reply

    • St. Michael says:

      01:31pm | 23/12/10

      The principal reason KE007 was shot down was apparently because it had strayed into Russian airspace (leaving aside the conspiracy theories).  Part of the reason it went into Russian airspace was because the FO didn’t have the gumption to stand up to the pilot and tell him they seemed to be off course in the first place.  Shouldn’t have happened, not when the airspace it wandered into is some of the most heavily ‘guarded’ and militarised in the world.

    • Perth Pilot says:

      09:37pm | 23/12/10

      I guess you are one of the schmucks who signed up for Fast Track or WAAC?  This morning I had a chat with a B717 captain and at their level, they are also very concerned about this trend.  Of course those who chose the fast, easy ride to the RH seat of a large jet will argue in favour of the program.  I, as a regular passenger and also having a damn good idea of what is involved will not buy a ticket with this dodgy outfit.

    • Rob says:

      08:37am | 28/12/10

      The difference with those schemes you mentioned was they don’t move straight into a FO job after their training, like the Qantas scheme they move into a more junior Second Officer (or Junior First Officer for SQ) role that is a monitoring/cruise relief role.

    • Realsit says:

      09:02pm | 28/12/10

      Big difference between becoming a second officer and a first officer straight off the bat. We’re also talking of a low cost airline that already works people to the bone with little resources or back up. I think the Jetstar Captains have enough on their plate already.

      Quoting overseas examples isn’t a good idea. For starters they don’t have a zero hull loss record and secondly they have real facilities.

      Of course if you are happy to see a few Boeings and Airbuses crash now and again its fine.

    • Aussiewazza says:

      10:48pm | 22/12/10

      Seventy one last birthday and had a good haul. Pretty broke now but worth a fortune dead.

      I’ll take a chance with anyone and it’s a win win situation.

      I have, and will even fly with female pilots. Even blond female pilots.

      Death wish? Well not really, but.

      Reply

    • William says:

      11:41pm | 22/12/10

      Bring back the flight engineer.

      Reply

    • 900kmh crash says:

      01:01am | 23/12/10

      Why don’t we get Surgeon’s to do operations with 200 hours experience?  We could have a senior surgeon looking over his or her shoulder in case anything went wrong. We could also pay them 30k a year and make them pay back $180,000 in training costs so there would be a huge saving to the government and thus the taxpayer. Sure we would attract the best and brightest hat way.
      Perhaps the public deserve someone experienced when our lives are in others hands like the recent Qantas emergency proved.

      Macca you claim that similar schemes exist in other professions.
      Name me one university course that costs $180,000 and then pays $35,000 Aud per year, that is also in a safety critical job. An Airbus 320 costs $38 million dollars and flies at 900 kilometers an hour. It’s not a plumbing job or a panel beaters. I’d imagine a crash at 900kmh leaves more than a dent. Sure you have an apprentice to fix it?

      We could also get graduates straight out of university to run the airline for 30k a year. Think of all the executive bonus money saved! It would be in the multimillions!!!! Geoff Dixon earned 11 MILLION dollars for only 5 Months work. The shareholders will be delighted.

      A baggage handler will earn more than a pilot responsible for 180 lives. Do you think you will attract the best and brightest with that kind of a salary.

      Last I checked you need 120 hours to get your P plates. you reckon 200 hours is experience is enough with a 900kmh Airbus jet?
      You must be having a laugh….

      Reply

    • JP says:

      02:47am | 23/12/10

      Everybody wants experience, but no-one is willing to offer up the opportunity to gain that experience…. Kudos to Jetstar for at-least trying to offer up opportunities for pilots to gain experience. This may not be the best way to go about things, but everyone has to start somewhere, and a bad idea is better than no idea at all…

      Reply

    • anthony says:

      12:05pm | 23/12/10

      The place to gain ‘experience’ is NOT the front seat of an RPT jet.

      There are many opportunities for pilots to gain experience. It’s called ‘General Aviation’ and ‘Regional Airlines’.

      A bad idea is a bad idea, particularly when there are MANY other options on the table.

    • dexter says:

      05:37am | 23/12/10

      Just one more reason why I will not fly Jetstar - I avoid it now anyway, and will rather change schedules than fly with them ....no faith in that airline at all

      Reply

    • paul says:

      06:24am | 23/12/10

      The worst airline I have ever traveled on is jetstar, I don’t care how cheap they are never ever be seen checking in to fly this company.

      Reply

    • norma says:

      06:29am | 23/12/10

      Will the Qantas chairman, whoever he/she is, stand up,respond and be counted on the current flurry of operational issues beseiging our airline.

      Reply

    • norman says:

      07:03am | 23/12/10

      i drive a truck and my offsider makes more then $50000
      a year

      Reply

    • William says:

      08:50am | 23/12/10

      For those that want to fly it isn’t a job it’s a love affair. Aviation is their mistress(or master).

      Now that airline bean counters are aware of this they want to use it against the pilots to bring down salaries knowing full well that there will always be someone willing to sell their soul to fly a “jet”.

      Reply

    • Les says:

      10:41am | 23/12/10

      I have no problem with the idea of Cadet’s co-piloting planes, but I do have a massive problem with Jetstar’s approach. If they were really interested in developing good pilots the cadet scheme would be more like a scholarship, where the airline pays the cadet’s fees, rather than a training school setup where the cadets pay. It seems Jetstar has no interest in developing pilots, rather just trying to find another revenue stream.

      Reply

    • Tripper Smurf says:

      11:57am | 23/12/10

      To all those who fly with Jetstar and then complain about the shoddy experience of it all.

      You get what you pay for.

      Funny how something that was once generally considered to be plain common sense is now approaching profound wisdom!

      Reply

    • Smythe says:

      01:11pm | 23/12/10

      Qantas did offer the opportunity to train on the job, funnily enough with their own cadets scheme. Under the Qantas cadetship you finished the course with 200hrs, but then were employed as a second officer and spent 4-5 years ‘in the back seat’ gaining the necessary skills, experience and hours to attempt first officer training. The training costs were paid buy the trainee, however these were no more than if the done at any other training school. Also when employeed the second officer earned the same as any other second officer. These two facts meant that Qantas had a large pool of applicants to cherry pick from.
      This Jetstar scheme that’s replaced it has tipped that on its head. Applicants must come up with well over the cost of doing their training elsewhere. They then have to be based in NZ, and only allowed back to Australia by signing a contract that not only is far less than current Jetstar first officers, but actually below minimum wage, so probably not the way to get the best applicants. They are then put in the front seat from day one. Are they going to be able to handle complex emergencies and work as an effective team(QF32)? Say no to a captains unsafe decision(KLM Tenerife)? Handle a situation without the captain (BA5390)? Maybe. Would you be willing to bet your life on it?
      To say that modern aircraft are different and don’t need two pilots is naive at best. Much like a new car the computers make things a lot nicer day to day, but when they fail your left with 2 wings, 200 people and no kurb to pull over to…
      This is a way for Jetstar to have a captive, fully flexible and cheaper workforce than the already lean one they have, nothing more. It’ll look good come bonus time, but to dress it up as some new way for Jetstar to give career opportunities is having a lend. And anyone who thinks it won’t effect safety and will happily fly with them knowing this needs their head screwed on properly…

      Reply

    • john says:

      02:52pm | 23/12/10

      I know the industry very well…....and most poor bastards, as I did, overlooked the first golden rule of this business at their peril, everyone knows the old saying in the aviation industry…...:
      The only way to make a small fortune in the aviation business, is to start with a very large one.

      I feel sorry for the wreckage of tens of thousands of people who sent themselves to bankruptcy or ruin trying, the industry is loaded with sharks preying on those aspiring to become airline pilots. Including the current offer in regards to what this thread is about, that has a fake carrot {airline job}.....and at the other end of the rod is a flying school reeling them in for their $$$$$, can’t you guys see a scam in front of you?

      Think about it…many training organisations do the same thing, remember those IT ads on TV for example? Very few if any get results from these scams.

      I know I have been aspiring for 20 years and nothing came of it. Keep clear of this industry. $180,000 is a deposit for a couple of houses. IMHO Aspire elsewhere.

      You many also want to keep in mind Universities are beginning to behave the same way.

    • Simon Westaway, Head of Corporate Relations, Jetst says:

      02:18pm | 23/12/10

      It is disappointing that AIPA continues to promote a series of mistruths around our operations.

      Why we are rapidly growing our business and our brand across Asia?

      Because Asia is today the world’s largest and fastest growing aviation market, and it is where Australia’s primary economic links and future lies.

      Our long declared pan-Asian strategy is a unique strategy – and no other Australian airline has taken this approach to growth by building an airline business across Asia.

      We are already a true pan-Asian regional airline. By example this means we are now the largest low cost airline in the region
      .
      Practically speaking, this means flying within Australia and New Zealand and from both these countries into numerous Asian destinations (currently numbering 52) and increasingly flying between Asian countries served from our large Singaporean hub.

      There is nothing artificial about it. We are growing sustainably but quickly throughout Asia because that is where the fast growing markets are - and therefore we need Asian operational bases, and Asian-based aircraft and crews.

      Quite obviously, Asia genuinely presents opportunities for Jetstar employees, no matter where they are currently based, including those based here in Australia.

      The often stated AIPA position is that current Australian pilots taking up a future opportunity in Singapore will receive substandard pay rates.

      This is wrong. Our pilots based in Singapore can achieve a better take home pay in comparison to our Australian pilots.

      Jetstar offers our pilots the opportunity to participate in both current and future international growth.

      By example in recent times we have offered over 20 additional Command (Captain) positions for our Australian operations – linked to our strong growth during this financial year - delivering significant remuneration benefits and career escalation for these individuals under our collective agreement.

      Since June 2010 Jetstar has had a Cadet Pilot scheme delivered by Oxford Aviation Academy (operations based in Melbourne) and CTC Aviation Group (operations based in Hamilton, NZ), two world leading Pilot training suppliers.

      The Program and ‘partnership’ complements Jetstar’s other pilot recruitment activity and will assist in some of the supply of our airline’s future requirements initially for A320 pilots.

      Cadet Pilots are a proven pathway around the world, and they offered tailored training and a consistent set of operational standards.

      And it has been specifically tailored, through these suppliers, to deliver well trained pilots into a career flying modern jet aircraft.

      Jetstar’s Cadet Pilot Program provides deep training on a standard operating procedure with Jetstar, delivering a consistency in approach in terms of high skill training and development into a commercial airline pilot.

      And it is this standard operating procedure and ‘consistency in approach’ to flying operations, safety and application, that will in the future deliver even higher safety outcomes.

      In total Jetstar Cadet Pilots receive 1000 hours of training and close supervisory flying, followed by 18 months of further close supervision.
      Notably the Jetstar Advanced Cadet Pilot Program will directly access Pilots with significant experience of up to 1500 hours and in a majority of cases at least above 500 hours prior to entry into the Program.

      Our as mentioned conservative approach will see Cadet entrants receive about twice as much training as the industry norm.

      So it is simply not representative or meaningful to imply ab initio pilots receive “200 hours training”.

      For the record Jetstar has currently not offered employment to any of our existing Cadet Pilots in Australia – as our existing small group of Cadets are currently employed by Jetstar New Zealand.

      When Jetstar does offer contracts to Cadets in Australia, the contract will either need be our Pilot EBA or an alternative arrangement in accordance with modern award provisions.

      Those Cadet Pilots who have now joined our workforce have an exciting and rewarding career ahead of them with very realistic promotion opportunities based on merit and time in service.

      In conclusion, the alternative to our pan-Asian strategy is we leave these Asian markets to existing and future foreign competitors.

      This will mean less growth, fewer jobs, fewer career opportunities, and over the longer term, a more vulnerable Jetstar.

      For Australian pilots, our expansion is about more opportunity and more jobs not fewer.

      David Hall
      CEO – Australia / New Zealand, Jetstar

      Reply

    • john says:

      03:14pm | 23/12/10

      Well done spin doctor, now everyone can google Jetstar’s overall current & history of operational problems, that is longer than coles’s shopping list for a party and make up their own minds. Perhaps even compare itself to Qantas!

    • Sean says:

      04:03pm | 23/12/10

      David,

      You continually refer to AIPA as a third party, perhaps you could tell us what percentage of Qantas group pilots are AIPA members? Many AIPA members use AIPA as an intermediary to discuss / canvas / respond to the company on issues that affect the profession or safety of the airline. AIPA are your pilot’s, and they are telling you that they DO NOT endorse the cadet program in it’s current form.

      I note your statement to the affect of the cadet’s undergoing 1000 hrs training, perhaps you may wish to qualify this further? How many actual flying hours will the cadets have when the first take the controls of an A320 with 170 passengers onboard? I would be highly surprised if this was any more than 250 hrs. Yes, I know, it will be with a highly experienced training captain, this does not mitigate the threat of a highly inexperienced crew member in the control seat, learning the ‘tricks of the trade’ with 170 people on-board.

      There is a big difference between reaching competency in the simulator and having sufficient real world experience to be a competent F.O. under all normal and abnormal situations that may be faced. Perhaps you may wish to read Chesley Sullenbergers US senate address on this matter.

      You point to cadet pilots being a proven pathway around the world, this is not the entire truth. It is highly dependant on the quality of the training program and experience of the candidates, there have been some spectacular blunders too. Besides, the Qantas group markets itself on being of the worlds highest safety standards not the worlds most accepted lowest common denominator standard. Did the US senate find cadetships to be a proven pathway when the introduced the FAA extension act?

      I note that the structure of the Qantas cadet scheme is very different. Including an adjustment made to the program some time ago, to incorporate a two year industry experience period, the documentation on the Qantas careers website notes that Qantas found that this system produces a higher quality and more well rounded cadet, if Qantas mainline found this, why does Jetstar disagree?

      As for your pan-asian growth strategy, perhaps the Qantas group may wish to consider injecting some ethics into the push for further globalisation. Creating Asian growth by using the brand reputation formed by your staff and then outsourcing their jobs and reducing wages is nothing short of wrong.

      David and Simon, I look forward to your reply.

    • Joe Airline Pilot says:

      06:22pm | 23/12/10

      “This is wrong. Our pilots based in Singapore can achieve a better take home pay in comparison to our Australian pilots.”

      It’s just too bad about the substantially HIGHER COST OF LIVING. These Pilots will be the lowest paid expats in Singapore.

    • Pilot says:

      08:49pm | 23/12/10

      So Jetstar; who actually wrote this little PR reply? David Hall or Simon Wetstaway - I’m a bit confuse?

      Nevertheless, the US Congress recently passed legislation stating that no commercial jet aircraft shall be operated by pilots with less than 1500 hrs flying experience. Now, why would they do that? The reason is that the report into the Colgin incident (wherein 48 people perrished) found low experience and to a lessor extend, low terms of conditions of employment (which lead to fatigue (over worked)) of the pilots were contributory factors to the accident.

      If you haven’t read the NTSB report into the incident perhaps, as people responsible for the safe air transport of the travelling public, you should spare some free time in between marketing your Pan Asian strategy, to do so!

      But, the fact however remains that under current legislation, Jetstar can get away with this. The question is: will the Australian government wait for a serious incident before they act or will we learn from the US and be proactive?

      David, will Jetstar support such a move? Somehow I think not - but I’ll be delighted to be proven wrong!!

    • Realist says:

      06:44pm | 24/12/10

      “It is disappointing that AIPA continues to promote a series of mistruths around our operations.”

      Nothing to do with AIPA David. Every thing to do with the fact that your entire business model is based on continual cost cutting (10% per year every year wasn’t it ?). Your whole motivation is off shoring of Australian jobs and circumventing the EBA which YOU formulated and signed.

      “Asian operational bases, and Asian-based aircraft and crews.”

      Flying Australian aircraft on Australian routes. Just like the impoverished flight attendants that you have operating on domestic sectors (is that legal?). They look rather tired how long have they been awake? 18 or 24 hours straight?

      “This is wrong. Our pilots based in Singapore can achieve a better take home pay in comparison to our Australian pilots”

      Stop playing stupid. We all know living in Singapore is significantly more expensive than living in Australia. If that was the case why not pay them Jetstar Asia rates which are more than Jetstar Australia rates? Just another fraudulent and false argument to justify circumventing the EBA.

      “Cadet Pilots are a proven pathway around the world, and they offered tailored training and a consistent set of operational standards.”

      This is another complete misrepresentation of reality. Cadets have never before in this country gone directly to the right hand seat of a Jet Aircraft. This is an Austraian first.

      Cadet pilots are necessary in Asia and Europe where General Aviation is very small. Most cadets in Europe go from ILS to ILS with the Autopilot engaged all the time. Good luck doing a visual approach at night into Launceston. Hold onto you hat Magda!

      You have plenty of pilots to choose from here in Australia, we have a massive GA sector. This is just another one of your money making schemes and methods to lower your costs and reduce wages.

      “Jetstar’s Cadet Pilot Program provides deep training on a standard operating procedure with Jetstar, delivering a consistency in approach in terms of high skill training and development into a commercial airline pilot.”

      Which would be best complimented by 5 years in General Aviation before sitting up the front of a Jet with 180 people on board. In theory I could leave grade 12 and be flying into the Gold Coast on a dark and stormy night with just 12-18 months of intensive training. Must be some pretty special training to replace years of experience. You should contact the Australian Medical Association and let them know of these techniques. Perhaps they can fast track a few high school leavers to heart and brain surgery positions.

      “In total Jetstar Cadet Pilots receive 1000 hours of training and close supervisory flying, followed by 18 months of further close supervision”

      In other words :Training wheels with full fare paying passengers on board.

      “Our as mentioned conservative approach will see Cadet entrants receive about twice as much training as the industry norm.”

      Conservative? No, they’ll be wet behind the ears with no experience and the whole outfit will be worse than single pilot operations. Most direct entry pilots have been training for years and years. As they say in the industry: A commercial licence is a licence to kill yourself and others..,,now go and learn how to fly. These guys will learn with 180 people on board.

      “Those Cadet Pilots who have now joined our workforce have an exciting and rewarding career ahead of them with very realistic promotion opportunities based on merit and time in service.”

      Those cadet pilots are in debt to the tune of nearly 200 grand and are getting paid less than the people that clean the aircraft. This smells of revenue to me. Upper management are happy with bonuses all round. What was Bruce Buchanan’s pay rise again 43%?

      “In conclusion, the alternative to our pan-Asian strategy is we leave these Asian markets to existing and future foreign competitors.

      In conclusion all you care about is rapid growth, cost cutting and EBA trickery.

      “For Australian pilots, our expansion is about more opportunity and more jobs not fewer.”

      For Australian pilots your strategy means lower wages, less opportunities and a reason to take our experience where we’ll be remunerated and treated properly: Virgin or Overseas.

      Finally David who are you kidding? You don’t fool the pilots and some would say you aren’t fooling too many of the general public either. Since when does training replace experience. Unless the human brain has been rewired in the last 12 months your theory is complete rubbish. Safe practice is the training you talk of plus significant industry experience perhaps a university degree and then reasonable renumeration. Instead you choose misrepresentation and mistruth as your method to sell your argument to an aviation naive population.

    • Disengaged says:

      09:32pm | 26/12/10

      Some of us in the industry a getting a little tired of the lies / spin propagated by the likes of Mr Westaway:

      “Our pilots based in Singapore achieve a better take home pay in comparison to our Australian pilots.”

      Lets have a look shall we:

      Jetstar A330 (SIN):
      Guaranteed Annual base salary of SGD$120,000 (SGD$72,000 for First Officers). Based on 150 block hours / quarter.”

      Jetstar A330 (AUS) (1st Jan 2011)
      Capt: $180,871
      F.O (level 3): $117,565

      Granted the above figures are adjusted for allowances, overtime, tax rate variations etc.

      We understand that you have a business to run and reducing the cost base on everything is your prerogative (if the pilots don’t like it we can leave). But, please (for your own credibility) lets keep the B.S to a minimum shall we…

    • Scared says:

      08:50am | 28/12/10

      Stooge

    • Realsit says:

      08:49pm | 28/12/10

      Sean the Qantas cadet scheme does place cadets in the industry for 2 years but then puts them in the back seat as second officers for years and years.

      At Jetstar not only will they not do industry experience they go straight to a control seat.

    • Fiona says:

      02:23pm | 23/12/10

      If you think jetstar is bad you haven’t experienced Vietnam Airlines.
      I booked a flight 3 months prior to my flight only to be told at check-in that the flight had been overbooked by 20 people and I couldnt get on it. They then told me that the next flight was 72 hours later. the flight home was also a disaster, the flight was late, the meal was disgusting and in the inflight entertainment didnt work (for a 10 hour flight). I have experience late flights with jetstar but nothing compares to the incompetent staff I encountered at Vietnam airlines. I have also written a complaint letter to their office in Sydney and of course I have not received a response back

      Reply

    • David says:

      07:08pm | 23/12/10

      The point is I have a choice. I don’t want to fly on an aircraft with pilots with just 200 hours. I don’t consider that safe for when the workload goes up. Also I flew jetstar a few months back & was told the cabin crew were flying on offshore conditions & were required to work in excess of 24 hours & that was a normal thing. That is certainly not safe & very un Australian. No thanks & Qantas has no right to get the fare paying public to endure these conditions. No thanks

      Reply

    • Jezabel says:

      07:06am | 24/12/10

      When my Mum died in WA last year my son & I, who live in Melbourne, flew with JetStar. NEVER AGAIN. The plane was 6 hours late & there was no apology from JetStar….just some smart mouthed comments from the bimbo waitresses that call themselves air stewards. Written complaints were ignored. It was cramped & uncomfortable. I flew with Virgin a month later & its was very comfortable. The staff were great.

      Reply

    • Realist says:

      10:11am | 24/12/10

      YOU get what you pay for. YOU want low fares? YOU get learner pilots and third world cabin crew. YOU take the risk.

      Fact: QF32 A380 and 400 passengers all alive today for one reason. Experienced Pilots.

      If things go wrong do you want to be sitting on a plane with a Savings Brand strategy a learner co pilot and an overloaded captain?

      The clock is ticking…

      Reply

    • Matt says:

      05:21pm | 28/12/10

      Macca,
      Would you be happy to have your extended family on an aircraft suffering a problem or massive failure whilst the cadet tries to learn his trade, either well, or very badly? I would not.
      Further more, what happens if the Captain gets food poisoning? has a heart attack, would you be comfortable knowing a cadet is now in charge of the aircraft with no Captain, learning his trade by himself, hoping nothing goes wrong? I would not. There is a reason there is Two experienced pilots up the front or a complex airliner, just like there is a reason for 3 hydraulic systems, 4 electrical generation feeds. seriously Macca, look at the bigger picture

      Reply

    • Matt says:

      05:29pm | 28/12/10

      And no, the A320 sports two pilots, not a 3rd pilot. It is a 2 crew aircraft. As such, yes if you read the Jetstar press release it nominates the A320, and the cadets flying in NZ and now AU are operating as a two crew environment. With regard to any inference about family, I was merely suggesting a scenario that I would not put my family in too boot!

      Reply
 
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