Sunstate Pilot Council - Minutes February 2025
On Friday 28 February 2025 the Sunstate Pilot Council Committee met at the AFAP Brisbane Office. The Sunstate Pilot Council Committee is:
Jarrod Blaker (Chair and Rostering)
Anthony Berko (Vice-Chair)
Richard Copland (Acting Secretary, Meals and Welfare)
Louise Pole (Meals & Annual Leave)
Dan Lyons (Rostering)
Bianca Salim (Rostering)
Russell Thompson
Rod Millroy
Dan Lyons was an apology and Chris Aikens from the AFAP was also present at the meeting. During the day Dave Nelson, Stephanie Broadbridge and Alana Wark joined the meeting to provide responses to our various suggestions and questions. At the end of the day the Council also had a presentation and exchange with Sam Drummond regarding FOQA parameters.
REMINDER – A quick reminder to all Sunstate Pilots that telephone & Internet claims must be in by the end of March
Rostering
Sign-On Times
The company was reminded that the Council still awaited confirmation that the various sign-on times associated with clause 5.28 of the current EA were as per the table previously supplied by the Council. Dave Nelson confirmed he would review the Council’s table detailing all the expected sign-on times and get back to us. Once the position of the company is confirmed further details will be provided to members.
Roster Stability (Post Roster Publish)
The Council had further and detailed discussion regarding ongoing problems with the ROC swapping trips post roster publish. The Council were clear that neither the ROC or pilots should swap wholesale trip duties post roster publish, if it would remove another crew member from their rostered duty, personal swaps between pilots remains unchanged and acceptable. It was clear that where a multi-day roster gap needed filling it should be done on a day by day basis to minimise the potential for flow-on roster disruption.
The rules for roster stability are detailed in clause 36.21 “Alterations to Rosters” of the EA. The rules spell out the need to endeavour that every pilots keep their rostered duty (36.21.4) and that pilots are only displaced from their rostered duty due to ‘disruptions to service, checking and training, when a flight is cancelled or the pilot has insufficient hours to complete a flight’ (36.21.2).
It was pointed out that the historical position of this clause was to protect pilots to ensure stability of roster and that individual approach to pilots should only take place after reserves have been exhausted. Evidence was being obtained where text messages from the ROC were being sent with ‘sweeteners’ to encourage pilots to amend their rosters whilst reserves remained unused.
The company accepted that there remained ongoing issues with the application of the EA by the ROC, which was exacerbated by the centralised ROC dealing with numerous EA’s for both Flight and Cabin crew. The Council pointed out that numerous transgressions would at some point have to be challenged and while it was understood that issues within the ROC were problematic, it was incumbent on the company to resolve what was clearly an EA transgression.
As the potential for this matter to escalate into a formal dispute still remained the Council are seeking examples from all members faced with text messages from the ROC requesting post roster publish changes and known utilisation of pilots prior to reserves being exhausted.
Jeppessen Rostering
Anthony Berko reported that the rosters provided via Jeppessen (JCR) were currently very good at ensuring equity across the pilot workgroup (within 5 hours) and that the company still remained open to further system tweaks While the last roster build had resulted in the bid success rate dropping and with reserve clustering still occurring it was discussed whether averaging duty hours over 14 days as opposed to the entire roster period could potentially assist.
The Council agreed that further a meeting between the roster checkers and the JCR representatives should be pursued to keep working on improving request success rates. The company also confirmed that they remained open to ongoing JCR improvements through the provision of meetings between the parties.
Establishment Numbers For EA Compliance
Further to requests for an update around the progression towards the 10 days off per roster period, as per the EA, the company representatives provided the Council with an update as to how far below required establishment the group was to enabling 10 days off.
It was reported that attrition was currently tracking relatively well and that once the current re-training onto the 400 was completed then further progress was clearly going to be made. It was also pointed out that the current hold file remained healthy and that focus was on initially bringing in more experienced pilots.
The plan from mid-year (when 400 training would be near completion) was that new recruits would be around the 8 per roster period. In addition it was expected that most of the new hulls would be coming into the Sunstate operation, which would be matched with most new entrants also entering the Sunstate operation. It was though envisaged that 10 days off would be unlikely to be reached (even partly) before the end of 2025.
It was confirmed that the company would still work towards finalising an EOI form in preparation of offering 10 days off and noting that it would have to implemented on a gradual basis. Further reports were to be provided to the Council to enable tracking of this important EA topic.
IFlight App and Ongoing EA Breaches
There was extensive discussion regarding the publication of the IFlight App and the ongoing problems still with its introduction. The company has been advised that the main issues were:
- Mandatory acknowledgment of duty changes remained - in contravention to the EA
- Reserves being displayed as a ground day
- The iCal import essentially overwriting any other calendar entries
- Fridge View - weekends to be white like all other days
- Insufficient detail displayed on the fridge view
- Does not fit on an A4 page
Exporting the roster in excel format was the only way to get a roster resembling the current iFlight roster format.
While company welcomed the feedback from the council to assist in them negotiating with the app provider the Council will actively be looking to dispute the most important aspect being that pilots are still unable to view duty changes without having to accept such a change in the first instance.
Flight Pulse App
While Sam Drummond provided a report regarding the proposed changes to some of the FOQA parameters it was also agreed that a meeting with Rod Millroy would still take place to enable discussions regarding any proposed changes to the FOQA deed with the importance of reference the flight pulse app to ensure ongoing protection for the pilot group.
Long Service Leave Accrual on Pay Slips
The company confirmed that they would explore why the past practice of long service leave accrual on pay slips had been removed, and that they would get back with more information.
If you have any questions regarding a Sunstate matter please contact a Sunstate Council Committee member or AFAP staff members Chris Aikens on chris@afap.org.au or Simon Lutton on simon@afap.org.au or (03) 9299 5737. The AFAP Member Assistance Program (MAP) can be contacted via Freecall 1300 307 912.
Regards,
Jarrod Blaker, Anthony Berko, Russell Thompson, Richard Copland, Dan Lyons, Louise Pole, Bianca Salim and Rod Millroy
Sunstate Pilot Council Committee