Cargolux Board

Following up on our last update many of you have been asked for more details and how each of you can lessen the continuous disruption caused by the additional flying being done without sufficient crews.

Crew Shortage – Roster Stability (or Instability)
It is important to show you the trend of not crewed flights that is occurring two (2) days before the flights are scheduled to depart. What we see from the graph below, is that Cargolux is on average 10 pilots short per day which further confirms that shortage of between 50-95 pilots! You can also see that it is getting worse.

Click on the image to view in full size.

The Back to Back (B2B) issue as we have written in the past is being used as a standby system and again you can see from the graph above the extended use of this. Again, this causes a disruption on your ability to plan your rest and has the potential to cause fatigue on the next duty or series of duties. The Chief Pilot Office indicated that they have approval for this and when challenged to provide the proof, there was no reply!

Please use the ALPL guidance to mitigate the disruptive nature of the B2B after you have departed from Home Base.

As ALPL and as Delegates we have made this clear to the CEO and Chief Pilot Office about the respect of the CWA. No rectification has been received so far which has now required the LCGB to act. A letter was sent on Tuesday 21 November and will be followed up with the Inspection of Labor (ITM). If this does not resolve the problem, it will be taken further through the appropriate authorities.

What can you do?
No doubt you are receiving multiple roster changes. It does not help you by continuing to view the PBS or the iAIMS application and by accepting these continuous changes.

Home Base

• Once you have complied with the requirement to view the roster, there is no further need to do so.
• Your obligation then is to manage you rest before the scheduled flight.
• If you get a delayed report message from Crew Control, check that your legal FDP limits are respected.
• Politely inform Crew Control of any discrepancy

Downroute

• Same applies. Do not keep looking at the PBS or iAIMS for changes.
• The company has the obligation to inform you well in advance of any roster changes through the delayed reporting system.
• If you are sleeping for an upcoming duty when you receive this notification, assess if this delayed reporting will impact your fitness to operate the next duty.

The reason we provide this guidance is that once you accept any additional change, Crew Control moves on and possibly gives your flight to another pilot, and this continues, on and on, almost never-ending and probably coming back to you with a further change.

As always, please email us on cvboard@alpl.lu if you need further guidance.

Joint Venture Airline (JVA) – Henan Cargo Airlines
You may have heard through the media that yet again the JVA has been postponed until 2019 and with more uncertainties of how it will be crewed.

In late September and late October follow up meetings were held together with the CEO and the management pilots who are responsible for this project.  These meetings were foreseen after the issue we faced with a non-type rated Captain, earmarked for the JVA and planned to get his flying experience with Cargolux First Officers.

This individual issue was resolved and this pilot is no longer employed in Cargolux due to several reasons, one being the delay of the JVA commencement.

In these two meetings, an overview was presented on how and possibly when this airline would commence. The offer to train as Captains and temporary post (minimum three years) 15-18 First Officers from Cargolux Luxembourg to the JVA was still on the table.

However, the preferred aim still seems to be to employ pilots with wide body experience, type rate them on B747 and (which is still the most controversial point) to integrate them thereafter in the operation of Cargolux Luxembourg for the sake of getting line flying experience.

Although management stated that this path will not create any “negative” side effects for Cargolux Pilots, our concerns are as follows:

• Any external entry Captain will affect a First Officer in Cargolux waiting for his/her upgrade by extending their waiting time and subsequently delay a financial improvement during this time.
• Any external entry Captain will delay the internal upgrade process at Cargolux and therefore just shift the apparent problem of being understaffed just down the time line.

We asked and received clarification on what the hiring and training plan would be for Cargolux Luxembourg and the JVA.

When we as an ALPL Board met in October to discuss this issue we came up with very clear principles which were communicated at the last meeting; being

• All commands for Cargolux Luxembourg need to be completed prior to any training commencing for the JVA
• Training under supervision for non-type rated pilots can be completed in Luxembourg, however no flying the line at Cargolux Luxembourg
• Training for the Cargolux First Officers to be Captains at the JVA will mirror the then non-type rated pilots

Another concern affects those First Officers with temporary contracts awaiting to start at the JVA and whose contracts will expire at the end of 2018. What will be the plan thereafter to employ the required numbers for the JVA? How many temporary contracts will we see at Cargolux again, which are not at all solving our permanent understaffed problem?

Finally, in the aviation industry where news travels fast, disturbing facts are being received that the information being promised to these non-types rated pilots is contrary to the above principles communicated. A letter was sent to the CEO asking to confirm or deny these rumours. Please click here to view this letter.

We will keep you informed on the outcomes of our communication to the CEO.

Please find below an update regarding:

• CWA Noncompliance
• ALPL Website
• OM-A Delayed Reporting away from home base
• FDP Hotspots

CWA Noncompliance
After the “URGENT Member Update” email from 27 October 2017 we received even more reports from members regarding CWA noncompliance issues with their rosters.

The most widely reported issues are:

• the failure to comply with the roster publication limit of 30 min less of the maximum FDP limit for standard crew in case of new publication of a roster due to a change or an amendment.
• the unilateral decision to schedule a crew member into the CODs without requesting an agreement from the concerned pilot as is clearly stipulated in the CWA.
• the unilateral decision to schedule a crew member into the VAC days
• Business class travel not being booked when business class is available

A shocking discovery is the suspected manipulation of the EASA FTLs:

• the change of reporting times in AIMS to stay within the EASA FTL limits
• the planning of unrealistic turnaround times to artificially shorten the FDPs to remain within the EASA FTL limits
• allowing AIMS to display FDPs outside the EASA FTL limits with the possibility of the affected pilot to confirm this illegal change via the “Acknowledge Changes” button

These reports underpin ours concerns, that due to the failure of hiring enough crews and simultaneously introducing another power by the hour aircraft on the network the situation of an already unstable flight operation got even worse.  This is no surprise as Cargolux Luxembourg operation has 23 aircraft, with an average 23 to 25 pilots per aircraft means we would need 529 to 575 pilots. While the current seniority list is at 480!

It appears, that scheduled deviations from the CWA and the supported exceedance of duty and rest time limitations are being used as a “solution” to run an operation above capacity during the busiest period of the year.

Intentional deviations from the CWA made unilaterally by the company represents not only a lack of respect against the pilot community, especially when accompanied by the well-known intimidating statement “if you don´t like the change, contact your chief pilot”, but also a breach of contract.

Whilst the ALPL/LCGB are preparing legal steps against this highly questionable practice, every pilot is tasked to act responsible in his own area when defending his/her legal rights. We therefore urge everybody to inform crew control of any unilateral deviation from the CWA performed by the company and be extremely vigilant accepting roster changes exceeding the FLT limits. A polite email asking that the CWA be respected is the best form of communication and maybe required more than once.

This “planning to the limits and beyond” situation has also increased the fatigue levels of many pilots. Since crew fatigue impacting or potentially impacting their ability to perform safely their flight duties requires a mandatory report (Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/1018), we urge every pilot to carefully evaluate a roster change situation under these considerations. Any doubt about the safety of a flight affected by fatigue, should be taken into account by requesting a different flight or crew augmentation or increased rest. In any case, a fatigue or pro-active fatigue report must be filed to Aviation Safety Department.

We, the ALPL board, would like to reiterate our call to bring any noncompliance from the CWA and EASA FTLs to our attention under cvboard@alpl.lu.

In case of any doubts, questions or need for help do not hesitate to contact us under the before mentioned email address for guidance. We will do our best to respond as soon as possible.

ALPL Website
We would like to invite and encourage everybody to visit our newly developed ALPL website and login in under “MY ALPL”. Please check your email from secretary@alpl.lu dated 9 August 2017 for access instructions.

Regarding the above-mentioned compliance issues and the self-interest to be planned according CWA, we have created to assist all members the “Know you CWA” series, which can be found under “PUBLICATIONS / Cargolux Board”. Not only that this series is a compressed recap of the “Work and Rest” chapter in the CWA, it provides examples of how to apply the different paragraphs in realistic scenarios.

Further information, especially in connection with the EASA FTL and their developments, can be found under “PUBLICATIONS / Executive Board” and “ECA Cockpit News”.

The “FORUM” represent a useful tool to share information amongst the pilot community, including board members, and to enter an open dialog with other members.

OM-A Delayed Reporting away from home base
After almost one year after the audit finding from the DAC-L that the “Delayed Reporting away from home base” paragraph in the Cargolux OM-A is not in line with the EASA FTLs and the recommendation to amend this paragraph accordingly in the OM-A revision we are still at status quo. Although the recent OM-A revision represents already a second revision in 2017, there was no change to the procedure so far.

Since our disruptive operation can quickly lead to a severe fatigue issue, e.g. when the delay happens during the rest of a concerned crew member without any possibility to amend the sleeping phase anymore, we recommend dealing very cautiously with this situation and consider informing Crew Control, copying in Dispatch, the local station and your fellow crew members with the request to amend the flight or increase the rest. Keep the request short and to the point and informing them that you will be sending a pro-active fatigue report.

We will definitely keep the pressure up on DAC-L to order Cargolux the implementation of an altered “Delayed Reporting away from home base” procedure, but in the meantime, every crew member is required to act responsibly by its own, when safety is in doubt.

We have also been informed that the delayed reporting procedure is also not being adhered to out of Home Base in some instances. Please inform us of these deviations so we can approach the authorities.

FDP Hotspots and EASA Live Data Gathering
With the large number of delays of flights, we see FDP hotspots extend to other flights such as;

• LUX – OVB planned as two pilots for a mid-morning departure, now departing after 1600Z with a FDP greater than 11 hours.
• PVG-OVB-LUX planned augmented three crew, departing during the day with startup slot times of nearly 2:30 and additional taxi times of more than 45 min, meaning the maximum 16 hour FDP would most likely be exceeded.

As a reminder to our previous updates, the hotspots where FDP’s are causing the, most amount of fatigue reports are

• Two sector augmented crew flights near the maximum FDP
• Standard Crew FDPs that operate to and from PANC and
• Standard Crew FDPs that approach the legal FDP limit and/or encroach the WOCL

To guarantee that a sufficient amount of quality data is collected within an operation such as the Cargolux one, we strongly recommend that you participate in the live data gathering. This is a great opportunity to potentially contribute to a change in European legislation affecting Flight and Duty Times.

Please contact the Cargolux FRMS team at frms@cargolux.com, in case you would like to take part in the data collection.

We have received numerous reports by our members that the Company is in violation of the CWA, both in the planning stage when rosters are published as well as during flight operations. We therefore would like to ask you to report ANY NON-COMPLIANCE to cvboard@alpl.lu. 

In your E-Mail please include as much evidence as you can. This will enable us to take action in the near future. Confidentiality will be assured if requested.

In his recent letter regarding the profit share, our CEO stated his concerns regarding staff numbers, safety and efficiency of our operation. What Mr. Forson might have missed is the fact that this has been our main concern since the beginning of the year.

Although these key issues have been pointed out by ALPL over and over again, he and Flight Operations Management failed to timely put measures into place to prevent a further deterioration of the situation. Furthermore, we have seen another aircraft placed into operations despite lacking crews to operate the current fleet.

In the past months, numerous recommendations made by the Aviation Safety Department in respect to;

• Two sector augmented crew flights near the maximum FDP
• Standard Crew FDPs that operate to and from PANC and
• Standard Crew FDPs that approach the legal FDP limit and/or encroach the WOCL

have been ignored. In addition, rosters are changing daily, further hindering every pilot’s ability to plan their rest. Also, Crew Control is sending block SMS messages to pilots on off-days asking whether they would like to work on their days off.

The CWA, with all its misgivings with an obvious advantage to management, is not being respected and flights are either planned into the CODs without the consent of the pilots, planned to arrive less than 12 hours before the first VAC day or rosters are changed without respecting rest or flight time limitations.

We are addressing this with Human Resources and asking them to ensure that the CWA is respected.

At the same time, it came to our attention, that members of EXCOM are appearing at the recurrent ground school, telling pilots, that they are not working enough and that management will try to align the old CWA working conditions with the new conditions in order to gain more efficiency. This gives an indication about the real focus and concerns regarding the staff and the actual disdain for the work carried out.

While other companies tried to counteract this pilot shortage by significantly improving pilot conditions with major two-digit salary increases, more time off and other benefits, this demeanor further deteriorates an already critical situation. The fact that even road-shows fail to raise a sufficient number of new First Officers who are willing to take on the challenge flying for Cargolux under the “new” conditions is an indication that we might have reached a tipping-point with respect to pilot work-load, CWA conditions and competitiveness of our remuneration package.

We ask you to remain vigilant. If you notice any roster non-conformity please send a polite email to Crew Control asking them to modify your roster to respect the CWA before you accept any changes.

Please also log into the new ALPL website where all relevant documents and Debrief videos have been uploaded for your reference. As always, if you have any questions we are doing our best to answer them as soon as we can. Send your concerns directly to cvboard@alpl.lu.

The ALPL Board would like to thank those colleagues who have already participated in the Fatigue Risk Management (FRM) survey. Currently we have received close to 200 responses. The average time taken to fill out the survey is 12-14 minutes.

If you have not participated in the survey yet, we kindly ask you to do so latest until 15 October 2017. The email containing the link to the survey was sent to your Cargolux email account on 22 September 2017 by the Aviation Safety Department on behalf of the FSAG.

Less than 15 minutes of your time are a valuable investment in determining where improvements to managing and mitigating fatigue in our flight operations can be made.

Beginning mid October the Dutch NLR will be seeking volunteers to collect live data for a period of 12 days for the EASA Study on the EU FTLs. We also strongly encourage you to participate in this live data collection. The results will have a direct impact on the EU FTLs and in turn our working conditions.

The following is an update on the data that has been collected from the fatigue reports filed by our crews.

The data clearly points to two key hotspots:

• Long multi-sector duties with an augmented crew, mostly with three pilots
• FDPs approaching 11 hours with a standard crew that encroach the WOCL

To address these hotspots, the following recommendations were sent to the Safety Review Board (SRB) to be actioned by the appropriate post holders.

• Reduce basic maximum daily FDP to 10 hours on the sectors ANC-XXX or XXX-ANC, where EASA would allow 11 hours FDP
• Reduce the rate of long multi-sector FDPs with an augmented crew
• Reduce rate of basic crew duties infringing the WOCL on FDPs greater than 10 hours

Another important issue that your submitted fatigue reports have highlighted is that the fatigue modeling software is underestimating the alertness scores by 20-25%. This means that those flights mentioned above will not necessarily trigger an alert of an approaching fatigue risk.

Again, we ask that you keep a sleep log to serve as a predictor of your alertness on upcoming sectors. If you need additional rest in order to mitigate a potential fatigue risk, please inform the other member/s of your crew, dispatch and the local station of your required new wake up time.

Don’t forget that the CWA does incorporate a measure of protection. The standard crewFDPs must be 30 minutes less than the EASA limits when duties are published (before signing on for a duty). Please refer to the roster publication limits in B1-36.3.1 and insist, that your CWA is respected!

As always, if you need any clarification or assistance please contact your Board at cvboard@alpl.lu.

In our last issue of our series “Know your CWA” we take a closer look at “Vacation”.

Below you find the articles as published in the current CWA. Further below we provide some comments and explanations for these articles.



In general, these rules are applicable for all pilots. Only the number of vacation days a pilot is entitled to is different for pilots, who were employed at or after 01 December 2015 and mentioned in CWA B3-35.4.

Like always it is the obligation of the company to follow these rules and a pilot is entitled to a roster reflecting these rules. However, as a pilot you should know what these rules are. If a pilot notices a none compliance with the CWA it is his right that his roster will be changed to be fully compliant with the CWA.

Vacation is governed by articles B1-37.2, B2-36.3 and B3-35.4.

B1-37.2. Vacation
B1-37.2.1 General Rules
Vacation time begins and ends at the Pilot’s Home Base. The Pilot will be scheduled to be Off Duty for at least 12 hours before the start of vacation time.

In case of ground Duty (any Duty excluding positioning or operating an aircraft) at Home Base, the Pilot will be scheduled to be Off Duty 6 hours before his vacation period.

Vacation during the initial training period is addressed in the individual employment contract.

During the calendar month in which the Pilot is on vacation, his Crew Duty will be regulated as follows for the purpose of calculating overtime:

Each day of vacation time is credited as 8 hour towards the 160 hours limit per 28 day Roster Period. For the calculation of paid vacation hours, 8 hours per day and 56 hours per week will however be taken into account.

B1-37.2.2. Sickness during vacation
If a Pilot falls ill during his vacation, the days during which he is ill will not be counted as vacation if he notifies Crew Control by means of a doctors’ certificate.
 
8 hours per day are counted towards credit hours, but not more than 40 hours per week for sickness of more than 5 consecutive days. This rule applies for sickness during the year.

B2-36.3 Vacation
The annual vacation will be 42 calendar days per year after the first year of service. Vacation for an incomplete year of service equals to number of months employed by the Company times 3.5 days.

* Note: For pilots employed after 01 December 2015 the following article is applicable:

B3-35.4 Vacation
The annual vacation will be 35 calendar days at the date of employment. Vacation in the first year will be pro rata of 35 days. The annual vacation entitlement increases as per below table until the maximum of 42 days per calendar year is reached. No additional vacation entitlement is due during the starting year.

The CWA contains only the general rules outlining vacation entitlements for pilots. The rules how vacation days are allocated are not stipulated in the CWA but outlined in the “Vacation-Bidding-System” document, which is distributed every year at the beginning of the vacation bidding period.

Below you will find some comments and explanations.

• A vacation day (VAC) is defined as a day, which begins and ends at midnight local time. All vacation days will be given at the pilot’s Home Base, which per CWA Part III is “For all Employees at the Company and for the Company itself: Luxembourg Airport.”

• A pilot is entitled to 42 vacation days per calendar year. If a pilot is not employed for the full 12 months of a calendar year, the vacation entitlement will be reduced. In this case the pilot is entitled to 3,5 vacation days per calendar month he is employed by the company.

*Note: For pilots employed at or after 01 December 2015, a spool up of vacation days – from 35 (pro rata) in year 1 to 42 in year 8 – is applicable.

• Before any vacation period, which could be also a single vacation day, the pilot will be free of all duties for a minimum of 12 hours. Only if, the day before the first vacation day consists of a ground duty, such as simulator or ground school, the time free of all duties before the first vacation day is reduced to minimum 6 hours.

Example A:
A pilot is scheduled to arrive back at Home Base the day before his first Vacation Day. The flight is scheduled to arrive at 08.15h UTC (10.15h local time). As the pilot operates this flight his duty ends 30 minutes after arriving back at Home Base, at 10.45h local time. This is in line with Art. 37.2.1 as the pilot “… will be scheduled to be Off Duty for at least 12 hours before his vacation period.”

Example B:
Pilot A and Pilot B have both vacation days scheduled immediately the day after they arrive back at Home Base. Pilot A is operating the flight back from IAH, while Pilot B is only positioning from IAH back to LUX.

Due to a network change the flight is now planned to arrive (Block On) at 09.40h UTC (11.40h local time).

In this case the Duty of Pilot A ends 30 minutes after Block On at 12.10h local time, while the Duty of Pilot B ends with Block On at 11.40h local time. As Pilot A is not “…Off Duty for at least 12 hours before his vacation period.” , his roster shall be changed. Pilot B still is “…Off Duty for at least 12 hours before his vacation period”, as his Duty ends as defined in B1-36.2. at Block On, which is in this example at 11.40h local time.

Example C:
A pilot is scheduled for ground school the day before his first vacation day. This duty should end at 15.00h UTC (17.00h local time), which gives the pilot more than the required “… 6 hours before the vacation period.”

• For each vacation day 8 hours are credited and are taken into consideration when calculating roster period overtime, as per Art. B1-39.5.1.

• If a pilot falls sick during a vacation period he is by law entitled to compensation for vacation days he was on sick leave. To receive vacation days back a pilot who is sick during vacation must provide the company with a sick leave certificate.

Please follow this link to download your copy of the CWA for your perusal on the company provided iPad or any other computer for future reference.

If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact us at cvboard@alpl.lu for clarification.

All parts of this series can be found here in the Publications section under Cargolux Board.

On 22 September 2017 the Cargolux Safety Department released a Fatigue Risk Management (FRM) survey on behalf of the Fatigue Safety Action Group (FSAG).

The FSAG is comprised of representatives from the Aviation Safety Department (ASD), Flight Operations management (Chief Pilots Office), Crew Control and two Pilot Representatives from the ALPL. The survey contains questions seeking general and specific information that will assist the FSAG in analyzing where improvements to managing and mitigating fatigue can be made.

If you have not viewed the Fatigue Awareness and Countermeasures Training (FACT) that was produced by the Aviation Safety Department, please take the time to access it on your iPad via the “CrewPad Player” application.

In addition to the current Cargolux FRM survey a request from EASA to participate in live data gathering for a research study will be released at the end of October. Here is a brief description of this survey:

• The European Commission (EC) together with EASA has set up a research study to perform a review of the effectiveness of the flight and duty time limitations and rest requirements applicable as of 18 February 2016 (EASA FTL)
• The objective is to determine whether the EASA FTL rules provide sufficient protection from potential consequences of aircrew fatigue and, if necessary, to make recommendations for changes to the rules
• This review of the EASA FTL is being performed by NLR – Netherlands Aerospace Centre, in collaboration with Stockholm University, DLR – German Aerospace Centre and Jeppesen

Cargolux has been selected as one of a number of airlines to collect live data for this important EASA study. This live data will be critical in determining the potential need for adjustments to the current EASA FTL’s.

Considering the far-reaching consequences EASA FTL have on our operation and the possibility of demonstrating the necessity for adjustments to those FTL, we strongly encourage all members to participate in the Cargolux FRM survey, which was launched on 22 September 2017 (see your Cargolux email for further details and the link to the survey) and take part in the live data gathering for the research study conducted by the NLR on behalf of EASA. Please note, that these are two different surveys/studies! The live data gathering for the NLR research study will be launched at a later date.

Please find below an update on:

• Immobilized Off days (FFOD)
• Joint Venture Airline in China
• CWA Negotiation Survey
• Rostering of FDP and Rest Periods
• SwissLife Supplementary Pension.

Immobilized Off Days (FFOD)
In January 2017 Cargolux introduced a system to immobilize FOD (FFOD), which principles are laid down in CWA B1-37.1.3. c).

After the publication of Roster Period 10 we would like to take the opportunity to remind everybody to check the receipt of their entitled blocks of FFOD.

Attached is the text of the not yet ratified „FFOD agreement “, which deals with the allocation process of the FFOD and the harmonization with part time, long term sick leave and pilots, who join the company during the year.

In the event of any discrepancies, please feel free to contact us at cvboard@alpl.lu for further investigation.

Joint Venture Airline (JVA) in China
A letter was recently sent to all members regarding the situation of the JVA. Management has provided information that the JVA will most likely commence in the 4^th quarter of 2018. Other than that information nothing has been heard. As your Representatives we have two major concerns:

• Rumors of Direct Entry Captains being approached to be trained for the JVA who do not have a B747 type rating, and
• No plan being communicated on training of current First Officers at Cargolux to be Captains for the JVA on a temporary posting.

Following the letter that was sent a commitment to sit at the table and discuss how opportunities will be offered to First Officers for positions as Captains is now pending.

CWA Negotiation Survey
On 30 June 2017 we asked all our members to participate in a survey to highlight the most pressing issues which need to be changed in the upcoming negotiations.

In the last Divisional Board meeting on 04 September 2017, the result of the survey was presented and discussed. Based on that analysis, further steps regarding the strategy and preparing the negotiations were agreed on and will be communicated to the LCGB.

Without going too much into detail, the main priorities of our members focus, in no particular order, on removing the “B-scale”, roster stability, improving FTLs and salary increases.

Based on these results, this gives the ALPL a clear mandate what needs to be negotiated when the CWA expires in late 2018. A negotiating team has been formed and is now working on preparing all arguments.

Flight Duty Periods (FDP) Published Limits – Standard Crew
We are receiving reports that after roster changes the CWA FDP Roster publication limits for Standard Crews are not being respected.

It is important to know, that the word “published” is not only applicable at roster publication but must also be applied when your roster has been re-published after a change. It remains logical that the FDP you are now scheduled to operate are still bound to conform with ALL CWA limits.

EASA regulations clearly state an operator´s responsibility is to ensure that flights are planned to be completed within the allowable flight duty period. The 30 minutes buffer was agreed upon to prevent pilots always having to go into discretion.

Once a Standard Crew reports for duty, the full legal limits are applicable in case of unforeseen delays.

Please remain vigilant on enforcing your CWA. As always please contact us if you are not sure if your roster is compliant with the CWA.

Minimum Rest Periods
After recognizing an operational delay in AIMS during a rotation and the consequential request to confirm the change, many members noticed, that the related minimum rest requirements thereafter were not published accurately.

In these cases, please send a polite email to crew control requesting a corrected published roster with the correct minimum rest requirements as per the CWA.

SwissLife Supplementary Pension
It was brought to our attention by our members that there are apparently problems regarding the SwissLife Supplementary Pension Scheme. Several were reported, but the most pressing issue is an apparent age-discrimination that could have a serious impact on the benefits of eligible members.

Without going too much into detail, the problem is that the total annual amount of fixed contributions paid by the company is calculated at the beginning of the year at a fixed date while the benefits could vary decisively depending on the actual date of the beneficiary’s birthday.

This effect is further amplified by the allocation any employee to a certain age group which is influenced by the member’s actual date of birth, too. This allocation has in turn a critical effect on the date of migration of a beneficiary to the next higher contribution group and thus directly determines the total amount of money paid into the scheme over the course of time.

Together with interest-effects this could mean that certain beneficiaries could receive a substantially lower pension lump-sum at the end of the contractual period than other employees with the same number of years of contribution.

This discrimination by age was confirmed by IGSS of Luxembourg, which also proposed a different way of calculating the benefits in order to rectify this problem.

Since all employees are affected by the issue we put it on the agenda of the last delegation meeting. Our aim is to amend the scheme with the company in order to get these problems fixed and to avoid discrimination.

On 07 September 2017 members of the ALPL Cargolux Divisional Board, the ALPL Executive Board and the National President of the LCGB met with François Bausch, Minister for Sustainable Development and Infrastructure, to clarify urgent questions about the strategy of Cargolux in terms of Henan Cargo Airlines (HCA) and the possible benefits or disadvantages for Cargolux and its staff.

Regarding the economic situation of Cargolux, Minister Bausch believed a positive outlook was possible for the 2017 annual results. He further assessed the partnership with Emirates Sky Cargo as constructive. He distinctly dismissed any internal rumors that Emirates Sky Cargo wanted to end the partnership.

Cargolux’s zig-zag course concerning the Chinese-Luxembourgish joint venture HCA is, however, irritating. LCGB and ALPL raised various questions relating to the impact on the maintenance center and the pilots. In particular, the ancillary agreements, pilot training and a possible placement of Cargolux pilots at HCA and the possible reduction of the fleet size due to possible aircraft transfers to HCA. As numerous questions remain unanswered, Minister Bausch stated that it currently would be difficult to assess the development of the partnership and the possible contribution options for Cargolux. An active participation by means of transferring 3 aircraft to HCA is just one of many options.

Your representatives made it clear that the current fleet size of Cargolux will have to be maintained even in case of a transfer of aircraft from Cargolux to the Henan Cargo Airline. Additionally, ALPL and LCGB have no doubt that growth must also be generated at Cargolux in order to permanently secure the company’s existence as well as the jobs in Luxembourg.

Minister Bausch assured that due to structural and personnel changes in the HNCA shareholder, no profound changes could be expected for the fleet size before the end of 2019.

It was underlined by your ALPL and LCGB representatives, that urgent solutions must be found and that it is important to send a clear message to the staff at Cargolux. Regular meetings with employee representatives and making transparent important information is indispensable in order to avoid wild speculations and uncertainties.

After we looked at the CODs in the last issue of our series „Know your CWA“, in this issue we take a closer look at the „Floating Off- Days“ or in short FODs.

Below you find the article as published in the current CWA. Further below we provide some comments and explanations for this article.

These rules are applicable for all pilots except for the allocation and entitlement of RBO. The entitlement of RBO for pilots employed at or after 01 December 2015 is regulated differently and was explained in the issue “Off Days – General”.

Like always it is the obligation of the company to follow these rules and a pilot is entitled to a roster reflecting these rules. However, as a pilot you should know what these rules are. If a pilot notices a none compliance with the CWA it is his right that his roster will be changed to be fully compliant with the CWA.

37.1.3. FODays
a) Once the 3 FODays have been published, they can only be changed as follows:
 
i)   They can be moved within the initially scheduled Roster Period as a block, provided that the Pilot receives a minimum of 24 hours notice of the planned change when at Home Base. When the Pilot is away from Home Base, a minimum notification time is not required. 
ii)  If the number of FODays is reduced, or if a Pilot´s ground Duty is not completed by 22:00 local before the 1st FODay, or if the Pilot´s Duty ends whether operating, positioning or dead-heading – 00:01 or later on the day before the first planned FODay, in which cases the Pilot is compensated as follows:

1) For each FODay and/or the 24RBO, a one-for-one day is attached to the CODays of  the following unpublished Roster, carrying the same value as a CODay.
2) In case the entire block of FODays and the 24RBO will be moved into the next unpublished Roster, the Pilot is credited, in addition to 1), with 8 Duty Hours (not counting to the maximum Duty Hours limitation).

b) If the FODays and a block of vacation days are scheduled back to back, only one 24RBO is scheduled preceding this combined block of OFF and vacation days.

c) As of January 01 2017 the Company will introduce a system to immobilize the FODs. Details of this system will be worked out by the JCSC based on following principles:
i) Immobilizing FODays during the roster periods 11 through 13 inclusive is not permitted.
ii) 5 instances per full calendar year. 
iii) FODays that have been immobilized have the same value as CODays. 
iv) The RBOs, as applicable, are not affected by the FOD immobilization and shall be handled as per the general rules applicable to Rest Before Off as set out in the CWA.
v) Not more than 50% of either BC or FO can be on immobilized FOD in any given roster.

Below you will find some comments and explanations regarding Art. 37.1.3.

• Art. 37.1.3. a) i) and ii) permits the company to change FOD any time after they have been published. Changes are permitted observing the following limitations:
  1. FOD can be only moved as a block within the initially scheduled roster period.
  2. It is not possible to move individual FOD away from this block.

• As per Art. 37.1.1. h) a FOD may be planned to start on the day after a ground duty, such as simulator or ground school, if this ground duty is scheduled to finish not later than 22.00 local time. If this ground duty finishes after 22.00 local time, the pilot is entitled to select compensation as described below.

• Art 37.1.3 a) ii) gives the company the opportunity to extend a pilot’s duty into the RBO before the FOD. Paragraph a) ii) of this article states: „…if the Pilot Duty ends – whether operating, positioning or dead-heading – 00:01 or later on the day before the first planned FODay, then the Pilot is entitled to select compensation.“ The „day before the first planned FODay“ is the RBO. Per definition the RBO is not a FOD. If a pilot’s duty is extended into the RBO he is entitled to compensation for this.

Important: According to B1-37.1.1., the RBO can be reduced from 24 hours to 18 hours without receiving any compensation in the event of a delay.

In other words: 
1. In case of a delay, compensation according to Art. 37.1.2 e) is only applicable if the pilot´s duty ends at 06.01h local time or later.

2. In case of a reschedule, e.g. roster change with different return flight, the pilot is entitled to select compensation if the duty ends already at 00.01 h local time or later on the day before the first planned COD.

The following options exists for the company to compensate the pilot:

1. Receive 1 Off-Day for every FOD and the RBO to be scheduled within the next unpublished roster period, attached to the 6 COD block for that roster period. These “owed FOD” will then have the same value as COD, meaning they will be treated like COD in the roster period they will be moved to and all rules stipulated in CWA Art. 37.1.2. for COD are applicable to these “owed FOD”.

2. If the entire block of FOD including the RBO is moved into the next unpublished roster period the pilot shall receive additionally 8 Duty Hours in the roster period the FOD were removed from.

• Art. 37.1.3. c) governs in principle the immobilization of FOD. As of January 2017, 5 times per year between and including Roster Periods 1 and 10, blocks of FFOD will be allocated to each pilot. FFOD have the same value as COD and the same rules according to CWA 37.1.2. are applicable. The details of the system are to be worked out by the JCSC (Joint Crew Scheduling Committee) and the agreement will be published, once signed.

• Please note that the CWA does not foresee a financial compensation for FOD like for COD as stipulated in Art. 37.1.2. e) iii).

• At Home Base the pilot is entitled to 24 hours notice of such a change. While away from Home Base there is no minimum notice required.

Please follow this link to download your copy of the CWA for your perusal on the company provided iPad or any other computer for future reference.

If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact us at cvboard@alpl.lu for clarification.

All parts of this series can be found here in the Publications section under Cargolux Board.