Temporary iFlight Agreement - Pilot Monitoring Required
You may recall out of the last Sunstate Pilot Council Minutes reference was made to the ongoing failing of the new iFlight App to meet the requirements of the Enterprise Agreement, the most serious breach being the 'mandatory acknowledgment of duty changes'.
Consequently the AFAP wrote to Qlink management advising that the ‘the deficiency with the current software is that it requires acceptance of the proposed roster change before a pilot can access other parts of the roster program. A pilot must be able to acknowledge, reject or defer acknowledgment of any duty change whilst still having full access to the iFlight system’.
The correspondence also noted that unless the matter was urgently addressed then the matter would be disputed on the basis that the EA requirements of clause 36.1 was failing to be met by the company.
As a result of this the company responded with a proposed solution and following exchanges with the Pilot Council the following 'interim arrangement' has been agreed:
- To address this matter, Sunstate have provided instructions to the Regional Operations Centre, effective immediately, to make contact and reach mutual agreement with a pilot prior to deploying roster changes
- The added qualification is that any callout from reserve on the day must be by phone call, as per the current arrangement. The only time this will not apply is for future dated reserve duties.
- The interim solution will be in place for three months and the Pilot Council expects updates as to how a longer term solution is being achieved.
- The Pilot Council reserves the right to re-initiate the dispute should pilot feedback report that the interim solution is not being adhered to.
Consequently on this last bullet point the Pilot Council are asking all pilots to report instances where the above processes are not adhered to. In particular the Pilot Council and the pilot community in Sunstate are fully aware that due to high staff turnover in the ROC that often the standards promised do not meet expectation, hence why we need all eyes and ears attuned to ensuring this interim solution is adhered to by Qlink.
We hope to report over the next few months that the iflight App has been improved to enable the EA to be met regarding roster changes.
Regards,
Sunstate Pilot Council
Jarrod Blaker, Anthony Berko, Russell Thompson, Richard Copland, Dan Lyons, Louise Pole, Bianca Salim and Rod Millroy
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.