Cargolux

As you all know by now, one of our colleagues was tested positive for the Coronavirus in ANC and put into quarantine there on Friday.

From the very beginning we have been in close contact with our colleague and Management to support him and to ensure that proper procedures for dealing with such a situation were put in place.

We are pleased to tell you that the company and local authorities are taking good care of him and that he is in good shape. We have also been in contact with another colleague who is on a precautionary watch in ORD.

We maintain a close dialogue with management and please rest assured that each employee’s wellbeing, pilots and ground staff, is the companies nr.1 priority. Given the current situation in Europe as well as in other parts of the world it is possible that we will be potentially faced with more cases in the future. This has turned into an extreme crisis that has to be managed collectively so we can weather the storm.

Please continue to observe all recommendations and instructions published by governments, health experts and also the company to minimize exposure and the risk of getting infected. Information on the Coronavirus COVID-19 can also be found in the dedicated “Coronavirus (COVID-19)” folder, which is found in the SCL on the iPad under “Health and Safety Information”.

If you are affected in any way, please contact us via email at cvboard@alpl.lu so that we can provide you with support.

Please find below an update regarding

• COVID-19
• Clarification on payout of Swiss Life Supplementary Pension
• Notification during RES

COVID-19
The ongoing COVID-19 epidemic has an impact not only on our professional life and how flights are being conducted during this crisis but increasingly also on our private lives. Pilot Representatives are monitoring the situation and are closely in touch with EXCOM, the Chief Pilots Office and the OHSE department to ensure that the risk of an infection and the consequences thereof are kept at a minimum.

Please find below 3 letters that were sent to the CEO, the EVP Flight Operations and Chief Pilot since end of February 2020.

Letter from LCGB to the CEO (28 February 2020)
Letter from Pilot Representatives to the Chief Pilot (5 March 2020)
Letter from Pilot Representatives to the EVP Flight Operations (11 March 2020)

We also recommend to read the information provided in the dedicated Coronavirus (COVID-19) folder, which can be found in the SCL on the iPad under “Health and Safety Information” as well as checking the following links for additional information: 

www.government.lu
Cargolux OHSE department

Furthermore, in the January Members Update we provided feedback on Fatigue Warnings that have been issued by Crew Control from various potentially fatiguing Flight Duty Periods (FDP).

Since the escalation of the COVID-19 many flights to potential hotspot areas, such as mainland China, have been adapted by using augmented crew operation to avoid layovers.

Although we welcome this proactive approach of the CPO to minimize the risk for our crews to be exposed to COVID-19, many of you have noticed that the augmented crew FDP lengths are close to the EASA limits.

Even in times of a viral crisis, potential fatigue remains an issue that needs to be safeguarded/mitigated. This is especially true on FDPs including multiple short sectors with resulting marginal sleeping opportunities. Being forced to use discretion in case of unforeseen delays and thereby avoiding a layover in mainland China would also increase the risk of fatigue.

We would like to provide some guidance on how to manage this extraordinary situation and some insight on how these operations are being conducted.

• Augmented Crew Operations
  Please be aware that many of these augmented crew operations (3 or 4 pilots) will be combined with pilots coming from different destinations. It is therefore important to communicate with each other before such demanding duties in order to streamline the expectations of everybody involved and to ensure that ALL pilots are adequately rested before doing these exceptional FDP’s.

  An example of a difficult augmented FDP is ALA-PEK-XMN-BKK. Three sectors with 4 pilots where coordination amongst all pilots is vital to ensure that inflight rest opportunities are distributed efficiently to enable the most rested pilots at the controls when taking off and landing. Such FDP also requires a double crew as per the CWA.

• Potential Fatigue Mitigation
  The initial plan by the CPO to augment the OVB-PVG-OVB FPDs with 4 pilots was now revised to 3 pilots due to the restrictions on crew availability. Many countries are applying various measures preventing full flexibility of the pilot community when operating through e.g. China, Italy or South Korea.

  The data we have collected in the past showed these types of FDPs created potential fatigue hotspots because these long duties were combined with minimum rests. Planning greater rest-buffers before and after these FDPs allows the possibility to complete these FDPs through mainland China and the following duties in a safe manner.

• Conclusion
  • • Please be mindful of the requirement that ALL fellow crew members need to be adequately rested prior to the commencement of any FDPs that are potentially fatiguing.
  • • Inflight rest is not the same as rest in accommodation where temperature, noise and light can be managed.
  • • Obtaining the maximum possible sleep as close as possible to the wake-up call for ALL pilots is fundamental due to the potential need of using FDP discretion to avoid layovers in mainland China.
  • • If additional rest is required before the commencement of an FDP or after an FDP please communicate and coordinate in a timely manner with your fellow crew members, local station, crew control and always submit an Air Safety (Fatigue) Report (ASR).
  • Air Safety (Fatigue) Report (ASR) must always be submitted when fatigue has been experienced on any duties.

As always if you need further guidance please contact cvboard@alpl.lu

Clarification on payout of Swiss Life Supplementary Pension
We would like to correct our statement in the February Members Update in regard to the Swiss Life Supplementary Pension pay out options, where we stated that it will not be longer possible to have the vested rights payed out when the affiliated person is still employed with Cargolux.

In general, complementary pension plans are only paid out once the employee goes into retirement or reaches retirement age.

However, as the Swiss Life Supplementarey Pension Scheme for crews is limited to age 60, the payout can be executed “immediately” at age 60 with the approval of the IGSS (Inspection Générale de la Sécurité Sociale).

According to Cargolux Payroll Department, every month the names of employees leaving Cargolux or pilots reaching age 60 are communicated to Swiss Life. Those will then be contacted by Swiss Life via postal mail to start the payout procedure.

Notification during RES
As it is not specifically defined in the CWA, which type of notification should be used, if a crewmember receives a duty during a Reserve duty, please note that crew control sometimes only sends an email to the affected crewmember without calling by phone.

To ensure that the newly assigned duty was noted and to clarify when the notification time of 18 hours starts, it is our opinion that crew control should call the pilot by phone in these cases.

This has also been communicated to the Chief Pilots Office.

With great sadness we mourn the passing away of our former colleague, member and friend Captain Henri Stephano

The Know Your CWA page has been updated by adding information regarding Scheduling Rules for Standby and Contactability.

Click here or on the ‘CWA’ menu item to access this page.

Please find below an update regarding:

• SwissLife
• TZC Court Case
• V-Days

SwissLife
We would like to give you a summary concerning the Amendments to the Regulations of the Supplementary Pension & Death & Disability Insurance Scheme valid since 01/01/2018.

Please click here to download the document that was signed in March 2019. Below you will find the respective endorsements.

In total three Endorsements have been signed by CV management after consulting the Employees Delegation and the Pilot Representatives in 2019. These are:

1. Endorsement
   The Affiliate acquires his/her rights to the Supplementary Pension Benefits after a Vesting period of 3 years, instead of 4,5 years (Article 21)[LINK].
2. Endorsement
   Due to a change in the Luxembourgish Law, the Paragraphs 23.2. and 23.3. had to be adjusted to reflect the new law related to the pay-out options [LINK].

   Since August 2018 it is only possible to have the value at leaving date of his/her Acquired Rights paid out immediately

• if the Affiliate is changing activity and is no longer affiliated to the Luxembourg health insurance, or
• if the accumulated savings do not exceed 3 times the minimum monthly social salary for an unskilled worker aged at least 18.

In other words, this means that by law it is not possible anymore to have the money paid out above age 60 as long as someone still is employed with Cargolux or any other company affiliated to the Luxembourg health insurance.

3. Endorsement
   The method of calculating the yearly employer’s contributions has changed. From 01 of January 2020 onwards not only the year of birth but also the month of birth will be taken into account for the calculation of the Annual Net Investment Contributions under Article 20.2.1. [LINK]

   This reflects the change of the formula that was suggested by the IGSS (Inspection Générale de la Sécurité Sociale) in a letter received on 25 October 2016, after the ALPL Divisional Board has asked for clarification in regard to a possible discrimination of affiliates based on their age at the renewal date. Unfortunately, it was not possible to back-date this amendment, which means that only future calculations will be affected by the new formula.

TZC Court Case
Since the implementation of the EASA FTLs the ALPL is active in contesting the interpretation of CS.FTL.1.235 (b) (3) (i), an article that determines the minimum number of local nights required for time zone compensation after completion of a rotation.

Although we were able to clarify the correct calculation of the maximum time difference in the recent negotiations for the new CWA, the main issue, calculating the “time elapsed” for determining the minimum local nights of rest at home base, remained unsolved. Applying the, in our opinion, incorrect interpretation of “…for the first FDP in a Rotation involving at least 4-hour time difference…” occasionally leads to absurd results, awarding different numbers of local nights of rest to pilots who crossed the same time zones during a rotation.

Since the DAC-L does not share our point of view and therefore did not intervene, we finally decided to take the issue to court. FTLs are a European legislation, therefore our aim was to involve the European Court which has the final authority in interpreting any European legislation. To initiate the proceedings, we had to start at a national level by contesting the DAC-L interpretation of this rule at the administrative court of Luxembourg. Ultimately, our goal was to enforce a preliminary decision by the European Court, which would have been binding for all EU member states. 

Unfortunately, the lawsuit, involving ECA, EASA and various legal specialists, was not successful. In our opinion the court fundamentally misunderstood the legal issue behind the problem and violated European law, by not involving the European Court to obtain a preliminary decision. 

Since all legal means on a national level have been exhausted, the only possibility to reverse this decision would be the initiation of breach-of-contract proceedings against Luxembourg, which only can be done by the European Commission.

We are currently still analyzing the situation with our lawyers in order to prepare further steps involving ECA, EASA and the European Commission. 

V-Days
In a meeting with the Chief Pilot on 06 February 2020 we discussed the reviewed V-Day allocation. It is worth mentioning that the data that was provided by the Crew Planning Department and published in the February edition of the Chief Pilots Office Newsletter in general matches with the data that we collected and that the individual success rate went up. However, these rates are still far from the approval rates of previous years.

We again highlighted the original purpose of the V-Days, namely, to assist colleagues with relative low seniority to have the off days connected to a short vacation period to give them an opportunity to plan vacation already well ahead of the monthly roster publication, which was acknowledged by the CPO.

It therefore was decided to start exploring different ways to achieve higher approval rates in the future and to have the current bidding and allocation process reviewed. This will be done in close collaboration with the ALPL Vacation Committee.

The Know Your CWA page has been updated by adding information regarding Standby and Reserve.

Click here or on the ‘CWA’ menu item to access this page.

Please click here to read a letter in regard to raised concerns and suggested precautions when operating flights into China during the coronavirus epidemic. This letter was sent on Friday, 7 February 2020, to the Chief Pilot, EVP Flight Operations and Head of Occupational Health, Safety and Environment.

Additional information including CDC risk level, travel advisories and routine preventive actions can be found on the OHSE intranet page.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at cvboard@alpl.lu should you have any question.

The Know Your CWA page has been updated by adding information regarding Rest away from Home Base, Recurrent Extended Recovery Rest Periods and Increased rest requirements due to disruptive schedules.

Click here or on the ‘CWA’ menu item to access this page.

During the Joint Delegation Meeting on 05 February 2020, the current situation regarding the Corona Virus was discussed with management.

In this meeting, the Pilot Representatives were informed that it is planned to avoid all layovers in PVG, CGO, PEK, and XMN.

According to management pairings will be changed to operate OVB – PVG – OVB and OVB – CGO – OVB with a double crew. Management is considering a similar solution for PEK and XMN but no final decision regarding these pairings has been made.

For the time being flights to HKG remain unchanged.

Your Representatives addressed your stated concerns regarding possible commercial positioning into and out of China. Additionally, we asked management to provide all pilots with regular updates regarding the operation and layovers in China.

Please send an email to cvboard@alpl.lu, if you have any questions.

In May 2018 we provided information regarding fatigue warnings issued by Crew Control. These fatigue warnings are based on a mathematical model and are triggered when the calculated alertness level exceeds a predefined score. In fact, your actual alertness level could be higher or lower, depending on your personal sleep/wake cycle.
 
In the recent Fatigue Safety Action Group (FSAG) meeting it was announced that if pilots do not respond to a fatigue warning Crew Control must alter the departure time to ensure the fatigue scores are below the predetermined thresholds! Please also refer to the  “Boxed Items 4/2019“, “Take Note” Section on page 10, published on 22 January 2020!
 
Legal uncertainty of civil or even criminal nature after a possible accident or incident, where the company and individuals could personally be held liable, was one of the main reasons for this clear direction.
 
According to EASA ORO.FTL.110 – it is the initial responsibility of the operator to manage and mitigate fatigue. It is in the first place the responsibility of the operator to schedule flights already in the planning stage so that rosters are sufficiently free from fatigue. A transfer of this obligation to the respective pilots to decide whether or not they would be able to operate a specific flight cannot be seen as a relief from the principle obligation of an operator.
 
In the case you receive a fatigue warning in advance of your next duty or series of duties, we strongly suggest applying a very high and professional standard in determining your capability to safely operate any subsequent flight. This is especially important for rotations involving highly demanding airports like MEX,  UIO etc. Please remember that you might possibly face a situation where you have to justify your decisions. Therefore, please do not hesitate to ask for more rest should you require it!
 
As we have indicated in the past, maintaining a sleep log from the beginning of a rotation will assist you in making a professional and informed decision. Also, do not forget to file a proactive fatigue report when asking for additional rest, or a reactive fatigue report, if you experienced high levels of fatigue during a flight. In order to effect any change in crew scheduling and rotation planning,  fatigue reports by pilots are the most valuable and required data. Guidance on how to report fatigue can be found here.
 
In this context it is important to remember that commander´s discretion (ORO.FTL.205) in OM-A, chapter 7, section 8  is not a one way street to extend a FDP in unforeseen circumstances but also a tool that can be used to further limit the maximum allowable FDP with the aim to mitigate accumulated fatigue.
 
To better understand the hazard of fatigue, EASA completed a study on Night and Disruptive Schedules in 2019. Click here to see a summary of this study that is relevant to our operation.