The recent reports about staffing levels at Cargolux are alarming and could risk the airline’s future development!
On 27 November 2017, the LCGB held a press conference about the insufficient staffing levels at Cargolux. The official LCGB press release is available here. Several newspapers as well as TV and radio stations were present and showed interest in the fact that Cargolux, while forecasting a three digit Million Dollar profit, is operating at minimum staff levels.
On 24 November 2017 these problems were already addressed in a letter sent to the CEO.
It was reiterated that considering legal limits as planning targets is neither safe nor sustainable and that hiring new employees, pilots and ground staff alike, has to commence immediately.
Since – given the current competitive market conditions – it will most likely not be possible to fill the budgeted positions by offering the current contracts, it was emphasized that both working conditions and remuneration packages need to be adjusted. Especially the importance of additional flight time limitations that were included in the previous CWA and the necessity to implement safety recommendations, which were issued by the Cargolux in-house safety department was pointed out.
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What are the current facts?
The recruiting of new pilots is going to be an issue. We see all regions around the globe in a similar situation.
There is no short-term solution to our problems. Even if new pilots are hired, even if the Company is able to fill budgeted position, due to many extra flights and additional pay by the hour aircraft we will have to fly these extra flights.
Furthermore, given the fact that other airlines offer stable rosters and respect their contracts, pilots leaving Cargolux may become a real concern in the near future. If you analyze the numbers carefully, you will find that in the past two years the net gain of flight-crew is only 8 recruited new first officers. Additionally, recruitment has previously been stopped several times for various reasons, e.g. at the height of the last CWA negotiations in 2015.
With this net gain being so low the obvious pressure has been placed on the pilot group resulting in unstable, unrealistic and at times the legibility of published rosters could be questioned. The numbers we are seeing are close to 65% of the published rosters in the high season not resembling the actual flown rosters. The CWA is being eroded and interpretations are at the benefit of the company.
Following our last update on the 22 November 2017 we see that the flights are now crewed two days in advance. The result of this is that the problem has been shifted further down the line. We see that flights requiring augmented crews do not have the third pilot and some flights have no crew altogether.
This will continue to disrupt rosters even more, as they will try to fill the gaps.
Every pilot must consider these disruptions on the line and determine if it is affecting their sleep opportunities in order to be fit for the next duty or series of duties. Please bear in mind, that according to the OM-A, we have to be able to plan our rest in advance!
Solutions through negotiations will be one avenue. In the short term, these problems will have to be dealt with professionally by each crew member on the line by constantly assessing her/his alertness level, in order to protect the health and safety from potential fatigue. Please use our additional guidance on proactive fatigue reporting to assist you in making your decisions.
As always please email us with your concerns at cvboard@alpl.lu
