AFAP Narrow Body EA Update No 21
Changes to Part-Time Provisions and New Flexi-Line Provisions
There have been a number of changes and improvements to the part-time provisions in the proposed 2024 EA. The key changes are outlined below:
- Increased availability of PT working arrangements (the highest minimum access to PT in the industry).
- Higher Salaries for PT50 (51.4%) and PT75 (75.5%) as a proportion of FT.
- New FT and PT Flexi-Line provisions improving on current exceptional carers responsibilities clause.
- RO-RO retained through access to FO-FO as part of Transition to Retirement.
- Permanent PT as a dedicated Transition to Retirement, maximising access to temporary PT.
- Reduced minimum DDOs throughout year in line with FT pilots, but offset by enhanced pro-ration table.
Increased Availability
We note at the outset that there is no legal requirement for the Company to provide access to part-time working arrangements. As such access to part-time is a negotiated outcome for pilots.
The percentage of Virgin pilots able to access a part-time arrangement will increase from 12% to 15% in each resource group over the life of the new Agreement as soon as practicable but by no later than the following percentage by the following dates:
- 13% - 30 June 2025;
- 14% - 30 June 2026; and
- 15% - 30 June 2027.
Within these part-time percentages, a minimum of 5% in 2025, 6%, in 2026 and 7% in 2027 will be made available as permanent part-time under a Transition to Retirement Scheme (more on this below).
However, any unused proportion of the permanent part-time percentages will be reallocated to be used for temporary part-time in the same Resource Group until the total minimum part-time quota is exhausted.
Access to Temporary Part-Time
Under the proposed 2024 EA, priority to access a part-time arrangement (PT50 or PT75) will be given to pilots who have a right under the Fair Work Act (section 65) to request a Flexible Working Arrangement (FWA). This includes:
- A Pilot who is pregnant;
- A Pilot who is a parent, or has responsibility for the care, of a child who is school age or younger;
- A Pilot who is a carer (within the meaning of the Carer Recognition Act 2010);
- A Pilot who has a disability;
- A Pilot who is experiencing family and domestic violence;
- A Pilot who provides care and support to a member of their immediate family, or a member of the Pilot’s household, who requires care or support because the member is experiencing family and domestic violence; and/ or
- A Pilot who is 55 years of age or older.
Pilots who meet any of the above criteria will be ordered on the part-time wait list based on date of application.
Given only pilots 55 years of age or older may access the new Transition to Retirement Scheme (more on this below), pilots applying for temporary part-time for the reasons in (i) to (vi) above have priority over pilots applying in the 55 years or older category.
Access to temporary part-time for ‘lifestyle’ reasons.
Pilots seeking access to temporary part-time for lifestyle reasons will only have access to PT75 and be ordered on the part-time waitlist below pilots who fall into any of the categories under s65 of the Fair Work Act (as listed above) based on date of application.
This will not alter the current arrangements for any pilot who is currently on a temporary part-time arrangement under the 2021 EA.
Permanent Part-Time and Transition to Retirement Scheme
As above, under the proposed 2024 EA Virgin will be required to make available a minimum percentage of permanent part-time positions in each resource group for pilots 55 years of age or older as part of the Transition to Retirement Scheme that has been agreed for the purposes of prolonging a pilot’s flying career at Virgin, as follows:
- 5% - 30 June 2025;
- 6% - 30 June 2026; and
- 7% - 30 June 2027.
A pilot can access either PT75 or PT50 under this Scheme. While RO-RO will no longer be available in its current form, where a pilot accesses PT50, they are permitted to select a four weeks on, four weeks off arrangement (FOFO) which will be split across Roster Periods (I.e. the last two weeks of one RP followed by the first two weeks of the following RP), achieving the same outcome as RO-RO.
It should be noted that the changes to permanent part-time will not impact any pilot under 55 years old who is currently on a permanent part-time arrangement under the 2021 EA. These pilots will remain in their existing permanent part-time position; however, they cannot access the FOFO arrangement until they are 55 years of age.
Offline Days for Part-Time Pilots
Offline Days and credits associated with Offline Days will be reinstated for part-time pilots under the proposed 2024 EA given we have returned to the same/similar salary structure as the 2018 EA.
Given there have been some misgivings expressed about the reinstatement of Offline Days, it is important that we provide the following context as to why they were removed under the 2021 EA and the implementation provisions currently in operation:
- Pro-rated MCG: The Minimum Guarantee Credit (MCG) for PT pilots was pro-rated under the 2021 EA (unlike the 2018 EA where it was the same as FT pilots). This eliminated the need for Offline Day credits to pro-rate the PT credit hour trigger.
- No 'Hard' Drafts: With no "hard" drafts payable under the 2021 EA (to commence when the new Crew Management System was implemented) there was no need to differentiate between Offline Days and Designated Days Off (DDOs). Originally, Offline Days were to limit PT pilots’ drafting days to ensure they couldn’t earn more than a FT pilot.
- Avoid Double Benefits: Applying the 2018 credit table alongside the lower MCG for PT pilots during the transitional provisions of the 2021 EA would have resulted in PT pilots receiving both Offline Day credits and a lower MCG, leading to unintended financial benefits. Thus, part-time pilots were given all DDOs and no Offline Days.
The rationale for reinstating Offline Days in the 2024 EA can therefore be summarised as follows:
- Same Credit Hour Triger: Both full-time and part-time pilots will have the same Credit Hour Trigger (65 hours in Off-Peak and 70 in Peak Roster Periods) so Offline Days are required to pro rate the Credit Hour Trigger for a part-time pilot.
- Preventing Income Disparity: Ensures PT pilots do not earn significantly more than FT pilots through drafting on the DDOs they would otherwise receive.
- Upholds the intent of a part-time arrangement: It has always been acknowledged (including in the actual Part-Time Appendix itself) that participation in PT arrangements is so pilots have the opportunity to reduce their duty days and time at work.
AFAP Negotiated Improvements on Offline Days
The AFAP has negotiated provisions to ensure that PT pilots still have a reasonable ability to access additional flying and income. One of the disadvantages of Offline Days is they can appear anywhere on the roster and a PT pilot seeking to work on days off may only be available on a day off which is an Offline Day.
In line with the intent of PT, one of the key changes secured by the AFAP to the Offline Day provisions in the proposed EA is that there is now the ability for part-time pilots to swap an Offline Day for a future DDO within the same Roster Period, thus triggering a hard draft payment for that day. This provides flexibility for part-time pilots to choose to draft on the non-duty days that best suit their individual circumstances, whilst at the same time capping the total number of days that they can draft.
Additionally, we have confirmed in the proposed EA that Offline Days are rostered to the same hours as DDOs (see definition of Offline Day).
To ensure that Offline Days are not used to bookend days off because they do not attract a working on a day off payment, the AFAP has negotiated that where a part time pilot agrees to extend a duty and infringes an Offline Day they will be entitled to an infringement payment as per the EA. This includes a minimum of 5 hours pay (i.e. a ‘hard draft’) for an unscheduled overnight into an Offline Day. The compensation in an infringement scenario is therefore the same as a FT pilot given infringements are generally outside of the pilot’s control.
As per the 2018 EA, if a part-time pilot elects to work on an Offline Day, they will receive actual flight time credit towards their Credit Hour Trigger instead of the Offline Day credit. Therefore, we would not expect a pilot would accept working on an Offline Day that accrues less than 2.39 Hours credit.
We note that the treatment of Offline Day credit is different to a pilot working on an Annual Leave Day where the annual leave credit remains intact as the hours worked on an Annual Leave Day do not contribute to a pilots Credit Hour Trigger (pilot are paid a ‘hard draft’). As such the annual leave credit is still required for the purposes of pro-rating the pilots Credit Hour Trigger.
Annual Leave for Part Time Pilots
Annual leave entitlements
PT50 and PT75 pilots will continue to accrue leave entitlements as per the 2018 and 2021 EA. That is, 18 days for a pilot on PT50 and 27 days for a pilot on PT75.
The reason that annual leave entitlement for part-time pilots is not a straight 50% and 75% pro ration of the annual leave entitlement for a full-time pilot (42 days) is because this is a negotiated outcome between the parties as part of securing and enhancing access to part-time arrangements in this and previous EAs. The entitlements have been carried over through successive EAs despite efforts to increase them in every negotiation.
Virgin has resisted PT pilots accruing annual leave at 50% and 75% of a full-time pilot because it has insisted that part-time working arrangements need to be cost neutral for the business (bearing in mind Virgin is still subject to the same on-costs (i.e. training, Workcover, payroll tax for a PT pilot as a FT pilot but do not have the same productivity as a FT pilot) and hence annual leave has been used as the lever to achieve this.
Duration of annual leave
Despite working less duty days we acknowledge the frustration of part-time pilots not being able to access the same duration of annual leave as a full-time pilot through having no control over aligning their DDOs/Offline Days with a period of annual leave.
From the commencement of the 2025 Ballot Year, PT50 and PT75 pilots will be able to access the same duration of leave as a full-time pilot (i.e. 6 weeks) through having periods of annual leave of at least 7 consecutive days rostered and deducted at the relative percentage (i.e. 50% or 75%) with the balance being rostered as DDOs/Offline Days during the annual leave.
In simple terms, part-time pilots will be able to align their annual leave with DDOs/Offline Days to take equivalent time off as FT pilots but for a proportionate deduction of their annual leave.
For example, under this system in order for a PT50 pilot to take 2 consecutive weeks off work they would only need to take 1 week of annual leave (with the other week comprising DDOs or Offline Days), whereas a FT pilot would have to take 2 weeks of annual leave. A PT50 pilot in this instance is deducted 50% from their leave balance compared to a FT pilot and also is paid their 50% salary.
Deduction of annual leave
Part time pilots will continue to be deducted 5.71 hours per day from their leave balance, which is the payroll value of one day of annual leave for all pilots (this is based on a 7 day/40 hour week, 40/7 = 5.71). This is consistent with a typical PT arrangement where a part-time employee works the same hours on each work-day as a full-time employee, but works less duty days than a full-time employee.
Part-time and full-time pilots will continue to be credited with 2.46 hours towards the Credit Hour Trigger for each Annual Leave Day taken, reflecting the consistent value of a day's leave regardless of employment status.
Pro-ration of DDO’s for PT pilots
With Virgin’s position being that part-time pilots would also have 6 DDOs bought back this has resulted in PT50 pilots moving from 8 to 9 days, and PT75 pilots from 12 to 13 days available for duty in Peak RPs.
The Company made claim that the Peak RPs should simply have one more day available for duty than in an Off-Peak RP, and to base this on the 2018 EA annual leave pro-ration table. In recognition of the reduction in annual DDOs the AFAP has negotiated a significant improvement to the number of DDOs, (a reduction to the days available for duty) in both Off-Peak and Peak RPs when taking annual leave through an improvement to the 2018 EA table.
In some combinations part-time pilots will be working the same and even less days in a 2024 Peak RP than they otherwise would have under the 2018 EA, prior to being financially remunerated by the Company buying DDOs back. We encourage part-time pilots to review the changes closely, the improvements over and above the 2018 EA and the Company’s claim are highlighted in green in the below tables.
Part-time 50 annual leave pro-ration:
New Flexi-Line Provisions
Under the proposed 2024 EA, pilots who meet with requirements of s65 of the Fair Work Act are eligible to apply for a Flexi-Line arrangement (see the list above under “Access to Temporary Part-Time”). This is an improvement on the exceptional caring responsibilities in the current EA which is limited to full-time and has narrower eligibility.
A Flexi-Line arrangement is designed to provide eligible pilots with a predictable rostering arrangement on a full-time or part-time basis. This is achieved by being able to nominate to be rostered up to eight (8) fixed DDOs per Roster Period Monday to Friday (unless otherwise agreed in exceptional circumstances) and in a recurring pattern, and/or Limited Overnights per Roster Period. Limited Overnights is defined as a maximum total of four (4) nights away per Roster Period, excluding training duties.
We note that in the final document we corrected the term of the Flexi-Line provisions which will be for a up to 26 Roster Periods unless otherwise agreed with the pilot. The Flexi-Line will be able to be reviewed periodically to ensure the pilot continues to meet the eligibility for this clause, namely that their caring responsibilities require fixed days off and/or Limited Overnights.
Virgin may decline a request for fixed days off and/or Limited Overnights on reasonable business grounds, with reasons provided in writing. However, before declining a request, the Company must discuss with the pilot alternative options and circumstances; where the pilot’s request cannot be accommodated, Virgin may provide an alternative proposal to the pilot (e.g. alternate fixed DDOs). The pilot may then accept or decline the alternative proposal.
Flexi Line is intended to replace and expand on the existing provisions in the 2018 EA that provides DDO’s for exceptional caring responsibilities, and provide a framework that caters for the majority of pilots caring responsibilities instead of requesting a FWA.
The number of eligible pilots able to access a Flexi-Line arrangement will be subject to caps determined by Virgin Australia from time to time. However, it is important to call out that nothing in the Agreement can prevent a pilot applying for a FWA under the Fair Work Act nor can it change an existing FWA arrangement.
Questions
As always members should contact the elected representatives directly, or email virginNBEBA@afap.org.au should you have any questions or feedback regarding EA negotiations.
Forum
With the AFAP EA team being in webinars this week we will be deactivating posting abilities on the VPF forum from tomorrow. AFAP members will still be able to view content on the forum to inform their voting.
Alternatively, email general industrial queries to virginAIC@afap.org.au, Safety and Technical matters to technical@afap.org.au, and HOTAC issues/ reports to HOTAC@afap.org.au.
Regards,
AFAP 2024 EA Negotiating Team
First Officer Steve Hungerford – Chair
First Officer Shaun Rudduck – Vice-Chair
Captain Ben Raby
Captain Brad Wilson
Captain Mark Bannister
Pat Larkins – AFAP Senior Industrial/ Legal Officer
Deanna Cain – AFAP Senior Industrial/ Legal Officer