tris06

Interesting bit of news from Taipei Times this morning.
"Early yesterday, the airline said that more than 100 pilots had reclaimed their certificates and returned to work, even as the strike entered its seventh day."

Sounds to me the union had a couple of demands meet. But majority of the most important issues they did not get.

• 13th months salary... still in negoiation after strike.
• Safety bonus.
• Promotions will be transparent.
• CI will investigate (2yrs) about prioritising hiring local pilots over foriegn pilots. And only if they don't already live in Taiwan. More so Captains and less so co pilots.
• CI will prioritise promotion of local pilots over foriegn pilots if their assessment grades are similar. If the foriegn pilot do live in Taiwan then this rule does not apply.
• Rejected union demand that only pilots that joined the strike benefit from the agreements.
• Union did win that CI won't take them to the court after the strike.
• No mention of relaxing alcohol regulations.
• Obviously union won some concessions on having 3rd pilot on certain routes. The final statement was to investigate with union after the strike over the next 2 or 3yrs about this issue.
• Sacking management for poor relations with pilots will be under investigation/consideration by the airline over the next few months.

Might be some other things I missed but you get the general trend. Strike was a partial failure and many of the agreements are face saving for the union. Also a promise from both that they wont go back to striking ties the union hands and limits its ability to push on the airline.

Of course they could do it but the airline could accuse them of breaking their agreement.

If it is true that around 100 pilots picked up their certs yesterday morning a good 12hrs before the strike ended it is likely the union decided to make a deal as soon as possible otherwise they would lose most of their striking power with pilots gradually going back to work. 600 striking CI could still fly with 85 percent of the passengers to their destination. 100 pilots coming back in would have put that back to well over 90-95 percent.

I think CI did better than we expected. Atleast it was a strike without politicians trying to take out the CEO of the airline.

coolfish1103

According to the press the long wait on the final day was because the government intervened and asked CI to back off so union gets the hour changes and legal process rights waived for potential illegal strike and other activities. Originally CI is going to go hard on everything and the union would only get the hour changes (or even nothing if CI is able to get enough pilots back to work).

Reason given was because they are CI's workers after all so CI should not destroy them, yet the question remains on what will happen in the future. There can always be another strike.

tris06

Your correct it is the government mistake for getting involved. Well eventually the government will learn if the strikes happen every few years at CI. Now best thing CI can do is go through the motions. Eventually dismiss the investigations in their favour. Then make sure at any opportunity possible to get foreign pilots to live in Taiwan and apply for the open job. If CI can limit the union's ability to effectively strike then maybe in the future it will only affect cargo and CI can handle all passenger flights. I know it sounds mean but I see the union of playing nasty and CI being nice to them wont do the business any favours. I am glad that they did not get fixed to not hiring foreign pilots as it gives hope.

hayzel7773

Always good to see politicians come out for a photoshoot for something they weren't even a part of!

coolfish1103

Routes CI plans to cut winter 2019 after the strike:

1. Surabaya via Singapore
2. Delhi
3. London
4. Ontario
5. Brisbane-Auckland, Melbourne

hayzel7773

yvrcnx

These are some major destinations they are cutting. I am surprised by almost of all of them, especially London and the Down Under cities.
Delhi is also quite surprising. Whenever we fly out of Vancouver to SE Asia, there are a lot of passengers connecting to Delhi, probably 30 - 50% of the passengers but that doesn't mean it makes a profit on them since Delhi is most likely low yield.

I wonder if a smaller aircraft like the 787-8 would have been a better aircraft to service cities like Brisbane, Melbourne, London etc., though I am a big fan of the A350.

It's better to cut non-profitable routes than keeping them out of pride like some other SE Asian carriers seem to do.

tris06

Wow if it does happen.
Considering how hard CI tried to reopen or open routes like MEL, LHR and ONT.

hayzel7773

Let's be honest, some of these routes were not opened to benefit the business.

The extra pilot money has to come out of somewhere!

26volt

double post

tris06

I really need to consider my options about transferring to another frequent flyer membership.
I really like the PE though and it is priced low enough for my family to take it.
LHR seems to always have a high LF so surprised to see such an important route ditched.

26volt

Here's an article that mentions the possible cuts.

I know for ONT after their night switch it seemed everything was well with higher LF, so either the Yields weren't great or the damage was already done by wrongly starting the flights during the daytime. Either way, will CI restart operations at LAX or will the costs to pay the pilots prohibit that and only keep their one daily flight and virtually letting BR take over as lead Taiwanese airline in the LA area.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3640681

hayzel7773

LGW doesn't yield well even with high LF. The tour group tickets are simply not sustainable.

coolfish1103

I think out of those mentioned the ones likely would be cut or changed is

1. Surabaya
2. Auckland

Surabaya being a tag flight via Singapore creates a problem where now TPE-SIN-SUB will be very close to exceeding 8 hours of pilot schedule, so 3 pilots will be needed if the pilots complain. I would expect this route to be axed or moved to another combination, such as TPE-SUB 3 weekly, or TPE-HKG-SUB 7 weekly (which will cut down the flight time to almost 7 hours).

Auckland was doing okay but with NZ coming in to competition, I would expect CI to drop this tag route sooner or later. In that case, TPE-BNE will probably need to down gauge to a 359 if it remains daily. I am skeptical about whether CI wants to start a direct flight to compete with NZ, it just doesn't make sense.

As for Ontario, unless CI can get the 6/5 afternoon slot back, I don't see a need to cut this flight. Even with CI 6/5 back on schedule, I think Ontario can sustain itself now, just not very profitable (as in the plane may be used elsewhere for more profits) plus not much cargo compare to LAX. However, if we are talking about whether Ontario was profitable the past year, it wasn't with the daytime departure.

I am unsure why London or Ontario is on the list if New York is not. New York has not made money for majority of it's existence. London is also low yield but if New York needs to exist, then London should too. Plus if you want to do the Kangaroo route and mix it with BNE, SYD and MEL, then you need London as one of the destinations.

If London is cut then I guess Melbourne will be cut as well. If that comes then we can expect Sydney going back to 7 weekly operation.

Delhi is never a profitable destination and I don't see CI being very active advertising this route to connect to North America like it use to do for Vancouver or San Francisco, so I do question if CI really wants to keep this route. It use to be 5 weekly, and has been down-gauged to as low as 2 weekly, with 3 weekly being the current schedule. I think this flight is in question cause it's very close to 8 hours mark on one leg.

tris06

Yet I don't think LGW is any lower than say AMS or FCO or even Vienna. When I fly to AMS I find the plane is mostly full of tourists or group tours. The only European route at a much higher yield would be FRA. I think it has more to do with it being a new route compared to the others not so much yield compared to those I mentioned above.

Melbourne being dropped I can understand for the same reason. It is a newish route so it is not well developed. AKL-BNE I can also understand, there is plenty of competition on this route already and maybe oversupply.