Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

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AsheetMaDraws
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by AsheetMaDraws »

That wasn't foreign, it was English.
Winter season isn't over yet.
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Gilles Hudicourt
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by Gilles Hudicourt »

Actually, he was probably correct. Out of the 19 extra aircraft and crew that Sunwing imported this winter, only 7 were from British Thomson. These were the last to arrive and the first to leave. Six of the 7 Thomson aircraft have already returned to the UK.

CFEZF returned to the UK around March 18 after spending 89 days in Canada
CGDZE returned to the UK around March 25 after spending 105 days in Canada
CFTZD returned to the UK around April 3 after spending 120 days in Canada
CFPZP returned to the UK around April 4, after spending 110 days in Canada
CFRZJ returned to the UK around April 12 after spending 127 days in Canada
CFRZG returned to the UK around April 22 after spending 124 days in Canada

The only Thomson aircraft left is CFPZA.

The number of foreign crews is directly proportional to the number of foreign aircraft and the origin of the foreign pilots is directly proportional to the origin of the aircraft.

This is what is called "Sham dry leases" in the US and is illegal South of the Border. Transport Canada seems happy with that arrangement in this country.

Sunwing sources 7 dry-leased aircraft from Thomson and in a "separate" contract, sources a proportionate number of pilots from the same source to help fly these aircraft. The aircraft and pilot contracts are tied to each other. So Thomson in fact provided "aircraft with crew" to Sunwing, although this is disguised and made to look like a a straight dry-lease. The truth lies somewhere in the middle between a wet-lease and a dry-lease. The same is done with TUIfly, Travel Service, Akrfly etc.......

So out of the 13 foreign aircraft (and crews) left in Canada flying for Sunwing, only one is crewed by Brits (although the Brits do not necessarily fly that particular aircraft but any Canadian registered Sunwing aircraft)

Where this "sham dry-lease" is even taken to a higher level in Canada, is where Sunwing Wet-leases 4 B737 from Travel Service under a CTA approval and with a FAOC issued by TC but also dry-leases an additional 6 aircraft from Travel Service from which it also contracts out a proportional number of Travel Service pilots to come to Canada help fly these aircraft..

The dry-lease contract and the pilot contract are tied and related. Alarm bells should ring out at Transport Canada and at ALPA......

For the wet-leases, Travel Service is supposed to crew and maintain its aircraft and also maintain operational control over them.
For the dry-leases, this responsibility falls on Sunwing.
So there are two sets of Travel Service pilots in Canada, which are not supposed to be mixed. Those in Canada flying for the Wet-leases and those in Canada flying the dry-leases.
The same can be said for the maintenance of these aircraft. The 4 Czech registered aircraft are to be serviced and maintained by Travel Service and the other 6 by Sunwing.

Do we trust Sunwing and the SMS system to ascertain that all of this is done by the book ?
Do we trust Transport Canada to properly oversee all of that regulatory promiscuity ?

Based on recent TC performance and position with regards to CARs as it pertains to the foreign pilot issue, I don't. But that is just my personal opinion.
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rudder
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by rudder »

Here is one of the reasons that SW started to hire permanent pilots. They were told that changes to the TFWP rules were coming -

Ottawa set to unveil sweeping changes to foreign workers program

The federal government will announce sweeping changes to the temporary foreign workers program Monday, aimed at ensuring non-Canadian workers are employed in this country only after every effort has been made to put Canadians in the jobs first.

A key reform, The Globe and Mail has learned from a government official speaking on background, will require employers to put plans in place to transition to domestic workers before permits to hire foreign workers are granted.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... e11601857/
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Gilles Hudicourt
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by Gilles Hudicourt »

I agree, in a way. The regulations say one must first attempt to hire and train Canadians.

Last fall they did just that. They hired and trained 20 Canadian pilots. Then asked an LMO for 119 TFW pilots.

They are now hiring and training some Canadian pilots. Around 40. Will that convince HRSDC that they have fulfilled the letter of the law ? How many TFW will they be allowed by HRSDC to import because they hired and trained those 40? 150 ?

The TFWP is to fill a labor shortage. Not to save money on training.

Sunwing should attempt to sign reciprocity agreements with other Canadian aircraft operators whose high season is the summer and who lay pilots off in the winter or whose pilots are under-used in the winter. They could swap pilots with those companies and make the pilots sign contracts that they would be provided a 737 type rating on the condition that they go back to the summer operator in the summer and come back to Sunwing the following winter.
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rudder
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by rudder »

Gilles Hudicourt wrote:
Sunwing should attempt to sign reciprocity agreements with other Canadian aircraft operators whose high season is the summer and who lay pilots off in the winter or whose pilots are under-used in the winter. They could swap pilots with those companies and make the pilots sign contracts that they would be provided a 737 type rating on the condition that they go back to the summer operator in the summer and come back to Sunwing the following winter.
Gilles,

If anybody could demonstrate that this is a practical made-in-Canada solution, it should be CJ and AT this coming winter (B737 ops).

Having said that, I believe that the plots should stay on just one payroll with the 'seasonal employer' simply reimbursing the permanent employer for the temporary pilot placement. The permanent employer would assume the training expense and if practicable discuss partial cost recovery from the seasonal employer.

If pilots are staying on the same equipment type, then all that is required after the initial type training is the semi-annual training and PPC exercise under the applicable SOP's. If the pilots are alternating aircraft then they still have only one initial course then they can do alternating type PPC's.
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Gilles Hudicourt
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by Gilles Hudicourt »

rudder wrote: If anybody could demonstrate that this is a practical made-in-Canada solution, it should be CJ and AT this coming winter (B737 ops).
The problem is that this can only be done between two companies whose high season are not the same.
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rudder
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by rudder »

Gilles Hudicourt wrote:
rudder wrote: If anybody could demonstrate that this is a practical made-in-Canada solution, it should be CJ and AT this coming winter (B737 ops).
The problem is that this can only be done between two companies whose high season are not the same.
AT has surplus FO's (on layoff). CJ needs B737 FO's for winter 2013-2014. How could it not make sense given that AT will be operating B737's in the not too distant future (fall 2014?) for AT to recall the layoffs and train them on the B737 and then place them at CJ for the upcoming winter season? This negates the necessity and excuse for CJ to attempt to secure pilots under the TFWP and gets AT pilots back on the AT payroll and starts the process towards an in-house B737 program.

I know that this does not resolve 2014 and beyond but it is certainly a start in that direction.
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Gorgons
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by Gorgons »

It's going to be interesting to see if the new rules have any implications for the carriers being discussed, I read that "professionals" were one of two employment categories that was going to be exempt from the revised rules.
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Dh8Classic
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by Dh8Classic »

ea306 wrote: Each year more and more seats are being offered in the market place by Sunwing. More aircraft... And finally more Canadian Pilots are being hired. Lets see THAT trend continue. Good stable year round employment offered by a profitable company equates to long term employment are my thoughts. As a Canadian pilot who has seen my career path take the off ramp more than once, I am quite happy to be riding on this horse.

Incidentally, I well remember being a wide body Captain and being out of work due to an airline failure...only to see in the following year the same passengers being flown by a foreign carrier which was code sharing with Air Transat. Was very demoralizing to be on EI and see the work go overseas. Although I had a current A310 Type Rating and Captain's PPC .... I was not qualified to break into the Quebec market as a Canadian English only speaking pilot back in 2002. This is the way it goes sometimes.
I think I see what you are saying....If you are one of many, many Canadian pilots who unfortunately is not fairly bilingual, you have a much better chance of getting hired as a 737 FO these days instead of in the past where those good widebody jobs seemed to be reserved for King Air FO's who were from the local province. Times have changed and I'm sure SW gives equal opportunities for all Canadians when they actually decide to hire Canadians.
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Gilles Hudicourt
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by Gilles Hudicourt »

ea306 wrote: Although I had a current A310 Type Rating and Captain's PPC .... I was not qualified to break into the Quebec market as a Canadian English only speaking pilot back in 2002. This is the way it goes sometimes.
Air Transat did not hire any pilots, not a single one, between May 2001 and Feb 2006. When this gentleman lost his job in late 2001, although he had a PPC and Captain's experience on the Airbus 310, not even a PHD in French literature would have gotten him hired at AT before Feb 2006, which is when we finished calling back the last of the 85 pilots who had been laid off as a result of 9/11.

Yes sometimes knowledge of French does help, but always blaming not getting hired on the lack of French does nothing to explain the many pilots at AT who do not speak French at all......
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spm
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by spm »

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ea306
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by ea306 »

Gilles Hudicourt wrote:
ea306 wrote: Although I had a current A310 Type Rating and Captain's PPC .... I was not qualified to break into the Quebec market as a Canadian English only speaking pilot back in 2002. This is the way it goes sometimes.
Air Transat did not hire any pilots, not a single one, between May 2001 and Feb 2006. When this gentleman lost his job in late 2001, although he had a PPC and Captain's experience on the Airbus 310, not even a PHD in French literature would have gotten him hired at AT before Feb 2006, which is when we finished calling back the last of the 85 pilots who had been laid off as a result of 9/11.

Yes sometimes knowledge of French does help, but always blaming not getting hired on the lack of French does nothing to explain the many pilots at AT who do not speak French at all......
The French connection would of been an asset. However given that there were no jobs to be had makes sense.

As for always blaming... I have not done that. I have heard it many times though...which is why I never did pursue AT back in the 1990s...

In any case, the point I was getting to in that post was mostly about the shift in how a segment of the market share migrated from being serviced by Canadian carriers to jointly shared with Europe back in 2002. The language is more of an incidental reference to the impression I had back in those days. Thank you for the clarification.
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Realitychex
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by Realitychex »

Seriously, your comparing an Airline to a Tour-operator?? There's a big difference to WJ selling $199 air fares per person to SWG's $1500 1 week vacation per person. Hence the larger Revenue and profit margins versus a traditional scheduled airline per aircraft ratio. The only thing that smells here is your lack of understanding with regards to Airline vs Tour-operator economics.

---------------

Which would explain why Transat. even in the best of times, barely scratched out a 4% operating margin and the perpetual turnover in the European tour business....

The sun tour business is, at best, a high volume, low margin business. It always has been, always will be.

I'll bet you a nice lunch WJ's sched margins are 2-3x higher than the tour business.

Not that WJ Vacations isn't a significant contributor on an incremental business to the bottom line, but I doubt you'll see WJ quit the sched business to operate exclusively in the tour business anytime soon.

Until I see audited numbers, I make it a habit of paying very little attention to the profitability claims of any privately held company, and especially of privately held airlines, or publicly held conglomerates who do not break out some sort of comparative data for analysis. That habit has served me well in the past by avoiding stupid airline investments.

I could name literally dozens of privately held airlines / tour operators who went banco, even after years of operation, by operating off cash flow for year after year.

I'm from Missouri. Show me.

It will be interesting to see if the Gov't cracks down on the accordion airline model in Canada. I don't have a problems with it being used on a very limited basis, but when it's abused to dance around the system to the degree that it has been with a couple of so called Canadian operations, it's a little abusive to the scores of qualified drivers sitting at home waiting for a phone call.

8)
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ea306
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by ea306 »

Realitychex wrote:Seriously, your comparing an Airline to a Tour-operator?? There's a big difference to WJ selling $199 air fares per person to SWG's $1500 1 week vacation per person. Hence the larger Revenue and profit margins versus a traditional scheduled airline per aircraft ratio. The only thing that smells here is your lack of understanding with regards to Airline vs Tour-operator economics.

---------------

Which would explain why Transat. even in the best of times, barely scratched out a 4% operating margin and the perpetual turnover in the European tour business....

The sun tour business is, at best, a high volume, low margin business. It always has been, always will be.

I'll bet you a nice lunch WJ's sched margins are 2-3x higher than the tour business.

Not that WJ Vacations isn't a significant contributor on an incremental business to the bottom line, but I doubt you'll see WJ quit the sched business to operate exclusively in the tour business anytime soon.

Until I see audited numbers, I make it a habit of paying very little attention to the profitability claims of any privately held company, and especially of privately held airlines, or publicly held conglomerates who do not break out some sort of comparative data for analysis. That habit has served me well in the past by avoiding stupid airline investments.

I could name literally dozens of privately held airlines / tour operators who went banco, even after years of operation, by operating off cash flow for year after year.

I'm from Missouri. Show me.

It will be interesting to see if the Gov't cracks down on the accordion airline model in Canada. I don't have a problems with it being used on a very limited basis, but when it's abused to dance around the system to the degree that it has been with a couple of so called Canadian operations, it's a little abusive to the scores of qualified drivers sitting at home waiting for a phone call.

8)


I don't think anyone here is comparing the scheduled airline business to the tour operator business. Two different markets served by two different kinds of companies.

Westjet is in the scheduled airline business. AT and SWG operate scheduled services for their respective Tour Operators.

I agree, many Charter Airlines have gone "Banco" as you say....operating on cash flow trying to stay afloat hoping for the tide to turn only to find themselves beached when it does.
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24Left
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by 24Left »

Gilles Hudicourt wrote:
rudder wrote: If anybody could demonstrate that this is a practical made-in-Canada solution, it should be CJ and AT this coming winter (B737 ops).
The problem is that this can only be done between two companies whose high season are not the same.

Excuse me :smt014 Who is always complaining about CJ not giving the jobs to TS guys who are on lay off? The invisible 50 laid off pilots you are always talking about???

Now the perfect solution comes up you shoot it down and say the high seasons are not the same when the premise of your argument has always been CJ should be giving the jobs to the laid off TS pilots.
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Last edited by 24Left on Tue Apr 30, 2013 2:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by 24Left »

Gilles Hudicourt wrote:
ea306 wrote: Although I had a current A310 Type Rating and Captain's PPC .... I was not qualified to break into the Quebec market as a Canadian English only speaking pilot back in 2002. This is the way it goes sometimes.
Air Transat did not hire any pilots, not a single one, between May 2001 and Feb 2006. When this gentleman lost his job in late 2001, although he had a PPC and Captain's experience on the Airbus 310, not even a PHD in French literature would have gotten him hired at AT before Feb 2006, which is when we finished calling back the last of the 85 pilots who had been laid off as a result of 9/11.

Yes sometimes knowledge of French does help, but always blaming not getting hired on the lack of French does nothing to explain the many pilots at AT who do not speak French at all......

In a cockpit, English is the official aviation language of the world. Enough said.
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by Dh8Classic »

Gilles Hudicourt wrote:
ea306 wrote: Although I had a current A310 Type Rating and Captain's PPC .... I was not qualified to break into the Quebec market as a Canadian English only speaking pilot back in 2002. This is the way it goes sometimes.
Air Transat did not hire any pilots, not a single one, between May 2001 and Feb 2006. When this gentleman lost his job in late 2001, although he had a PPC and Captain's experience on the Airbus 310, not even a PHD in French literature would have gotten him hired at AT before Feb 2006, which is when we finished calling back the last of the 85 pilots who had been laid off as a result of 9/11.

Yes sometimes knowledge of French does help, but always blaming not getting hired on the lack of French does nothing to explain the many pilots at AT who do not speak French at all......

Perhaps when there is a real shortage, they will take their second choice of what is felt to be important qualifications. And it may be important, but Sunwing sure offers some jobs these days for a wider audience :smt038 :smt038 :smt038

Ending this foreign pilot practice, which has allowed Sunwing to hire more Canadians as well due to expansion, will not help many of the Canadian pilots if they can't understand the questions at AT's interview.
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Gilles Hudicourt
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by Gilles Hudicourt »

Dh8Classic wrote:Rumour has it that Skyregional will be getting the A320's.

The good news....no artificial language requirements.
Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out
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Dh8Classic
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Re: Sunwing declares profits of 71 million last year

Post by Dh8Classic »

Creating artificial language barriers is prejudice. And you benefitted from it. Sorry if that disturbs you but the harsh truth is sometimes disturbing.

I guess I was wrong about the A-320's though. Rouge got them and Skyregional got Embraers. Not that far off the mark. Go Sunwing.
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