Originally Posted by
giancarlosil
I do not blame anyone, certainly a Junior Cabin Crew with a low salary cannot afford to live in Paris. Not producing enough hours (Pilots and Crew) with AF Old Contracts is a reality that most of us know here, flying Long-Haul 3 or 4 times a month is not possible with the current competition in the market nowadays (U2/FR/EK/EY/QR). Salaries are to be in accordance with the market, the economy of the country and the profits or losses of the company, clearly AF is showing red numbers. Asking for higher salaries and staying with 3 or 4 flights a month is something that will not contribute to the future of AF or any other operator in the Aviation Industry TODAY.
Do you mean "3 or 4
flights" or "3 or 4
trips" (=6-8 flights)?
Let's say on average 3.5 journeys = 7 flights a month. Let's assume an average stage length of 9 hours, that is 63 block hours. Times 12 months a year that is 756 block hours. The legal maximum is 900 hours.
Seriously, if they clock up 756 block hours a year that's pretty decent, considering that they were more in the 550 hours/year range. This calculation is obviously a little too generous as there are also vacations, training, reserve and standby (the latter three count towards the 900 block hour maximum). As a comparison, I have two friends who are Captains at LX, and they do indeed clock up between 850 and 900 hours a year, one on long haul the other on medium haul flights. They earn about the same/slightly more (depending on which exchange rate you take CHF/EUR) than the AF pilots, but life in Switzerland is even more expensive than in Paris - and they work more.
Does anyone have more information on how many hours the AF pilots do a year? The only thing I found was from 2015, and that indeed confirmed that for long haul cockpit staff they were aiming to increase block hours from an average of 685 hours to 780 hours. It would be interesting how much they are doing really.