Airport fire cover situation ‘damaging for the island’
Monday 9th February 2009, 11:30AM GMT.
TWO airlines affected by the shortage of airport firefighters at the weekend have said the island’s aviation industry image is under threat.
Insufficient cover from 1pm Saturday until the same time yesterday meant that no Dash 8, ATR72 or freight aircraft could operate.
Flybe and Aurigny passengers were affected by the Airport Fire Service being two men short, which meant category five and six planes could not fly.
A spokesman for Flybe said the situation had become intolerable.
‘This frankly ridiculous state of affairs has been allowed to continue for a second week. Flybe flies from 65 airports around Europe and honestly cannot think of another where such a level of ineptitude would be allowed to fester.’
Aurigny managing director Malcolm Hart said the situation was embarrassing for Guernsey.
‘It does nothing for our image in the aviation industry,’ he said.
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Whatever the rights or wrongs are, can somebody in our government please just show some “LEADERSHIP” and sort this matter out.
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Do you want tourists to come to your lovely island. I know we can come by ferry if need be but that won’t do much for your aviation “industry”. Somebody needs to sort it and fast.
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Thats another fine mess you’ve gotten us into Mr Flouquet!
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A crazy situation, this would never happen in the real world! You cretainly wouldn’t find this sort of disarray in a fire station runb by / narrated by Brian Cant. Those brave men, Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub would never of stopped a Dash 8, ATR72 or freight aircraft from operating to full capacity!
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Isn’t it about time that the town firemen were trained to handle the aiport. Then scrap the dedicated airport firemen and run a rota system to cover both!
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DOnt blame Bernard Flouquet for this mess – he is doing well not to give in to the demands of the bullies that are the fire fighters…
I have no sympathy for them at all… I know one of them & he took home over £40k last year – that is approx £15k more then a town fire fighter!!! You dont see the town firemen throwing their toys out of the pram over it all… They have to work nights as well – the airport firemen finish when the last flight is in!!
What I would do is take on extra firemen for the airport & stop all overtime – I wonder what would be said then?! I can tell you – they would kick off again… You cant have your cake & eat it i’m afraid!!
They should do the right thing & knuckle down & get on with it… Do you know what? we all work for money & we all want more but we dont always get what we want!! If I threw a hissy fit then I would lose my job & I wouldnt dare hold innocent people to ransom….
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As some who fly’s in and out of this island on business most weeks and hit twice in 7 days (thanks – I hope your now feeling better – was the snow too cold for you?), I need some politician to sort this mess out.
Given No leadership – here is your long term solution
1. Combine the islands fire services – keep the minimum at the airport, train all firemen, lots of cover. Major positive…job variety (1 week a month you have to cover the airport. The Police do this so what makes you so “special”.
2. Every fireman should have a doctors note for any time off. See how many go off sick for the weekend
Dear Mr Airport Firemen,
Hope you are feeling better – Strange you are never sick during the week? Did you enjoy the football?
NO TRUST in you – prove us wrong
Mr J Public
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Politicians – GET THIS SORTED NOW!!!!!
Utter disgrace. I fly on business more than I would like to. I also try and promote Guernsey when I am away. I can assure islanders that this Island is becoming a laughing stock. Don’t think that only those here know what is going on. I go to the Midlands regularly and you would be surprised on how many people hear and comment on some of the issues here, sewage, finance and now this. Fed up with the TOTAL INCOMPETENCE of those who run this place.
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Airport firefighters spokesman: ‘it is not industrial action or a strike – we are just short staffed’
Two questions for the spokesman:
If you are so short staffed how could you guarantee cover for the past six months then the DAY AFTER the £1000 one off payment agreement expires suddenly no one is available??
Bit of a coincidence really, maybe there’s also a sick leave roster in place!
Since this isn’t industrial action and therefore anything at all to do with demanding extra pay will the existing firefighters be satisfied if extra cover is drafted in and they lose their overtime money?
I wouldn’t have thought so!
SO INSTEAD OF FEEDING EVERYONE A TOTAL LOAD OF B——T WHY DO YOU COME CLEAN AND SAY IT LIKE IT IS, MOST PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY SUSSED THAT THIS ACTION IS ALL ABOUT TRYING TO GET A LARGE PAY RISE AT THE TAXPAYERS EXPENSE.
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I agree with most of the public on this one,that the job should be shared, and the true firefighters in town be trained up,these so called airport firemen need to grow up and come back to the real world where the likes of me and many others work in all weathers with no overtime rates or sick pay, i wish i could truly say how i feel but i’d be locked up.
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When is a strike not a strike? I am no expert but in my opinion a strike is when workers refuse to undertake their paid job. These firemen are not refusing to work their shifts – they are just refusing to work their days off and their holidays. They have ‘played the waiting game’ for 2 and 1/2 years while the powers that be have prevaricated. They finally agreed to pay them an interim on-call arrangement which came to an end last weekend…… which is when the firemen finally refused to work non-rostered shifts. All they seem to be asking for is an official on-call rota and payment for same – the same payment that all civil servants who are required to be on-call get. What is so greedy about that?
Let common sense prevail here – give them the same on-call pay arrangements that civil servants get and the problem will be over? Then perhaps they might be able to recruit and keep fire fighters, instead of taxpayers money being wasted on expensive training just to see them leave within a year. This used to be a sought after occupation – now, according to the media, the advertisements are not getting any applicants – not a sign of a ‘cushy and overpaid job’ .
The tax payers are the losers in the end – less tourists plus disruption to business and holidays can only result in even more problems for the island.
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With regards to the degree of overtime, as the partner of an airport fireman I can say that the current level of overtime has been excessive and disruptive, particularly for those with families. The firemen get a 2 day weekend off once every 6 weeks and during last year my partner had only one weekend in that year that he didn’t go in at least one of those 2 days for overtime. Even on the one occasion he had 2 days off he was still rung twice and asked to go in but he refused because he was fed up with the situation. Also, we tend to go away for any holiday periods because if we are on the island then he is also liable to be called in, even though he is on annual leave.
What is happening currently is the result of the firefighters no longer covering excessive levels of overtime due to personnel shortages. If the airport fireservice was fully manned then this problem would have been less likely to arise. Pay levels are the main reason why their staff turnover (and consequently there is a lack of personnel)is so great and it’s time that the states addressed this!!!
At the end of the day, the states have known for at least the last year and a half that the men were working excessive overtime because of staff shortages. The men continued out of good will but enough is enough. The states need to be reasonable and resolve this issue fairly and quickly.
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They say people get the govenment they deserve. After reading the predudiced bile being heaped on the airport firemen is this thread I’d say you have the situation at the airport you deserve.
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Last week I travelled by air from Southampton to Guernsey with Flybe.
Your airport fireman are holding the airport to ransom asking for more pay. It seems to be very odd thet 1 fireman was ill last week to disrupt one class of aircraft and then 2 fireman go sick so they have to close the whole airport.
This is a dispute for money not illness cover.
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Maybe im seeing this in black and white, but why not just train more firemen, or train the normal firemen to be able to cover the airport like someone said in an above post. Even if there are only a few extras trained, surely this will help ease the situation a bit.
And ‘Mrs’ if your husband didnt have a reason to stay at this job, im sure he would have left, maybe he likes the overtime pay. Or maybe he is dong it because he genuinly likes helping others, but it will make people wonder why they stay.
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It seems to me that going by the front page of Monday’s press it WAS NOT the fightfighters who wanted to go to CAT 4 but that of the airlines and higher management.
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Many people are losing their jobs and others have to accept pay cuts but the unions scream for more money.
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Merlin,
To be demanding £6000 a year (£500 a month) on call pay in todays economic climate is a joke and the airport firemen are the clowns!!
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Call in the Sark/Alderney Fireman as a temp measure!!!!
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MM: Are they asking for that much though??? No one really knows what they are asking for. They were given £1000 to cover on call over the last 6 months i think, so perhaps these figures are way off mark.
Heard on the radio today that mediation is hopeful that talks can go further – lets hope so. I thought they were just asking for the same on-call payments that other civil servants get, which depends on how often they need to be on-call.
Perhaps the whole of the public sector needs to be looked at? When compared with other salaries it does pale into insignificance though when lawyers can demand upwards of £100 an hour minimum, nearly £50 to go to the doctor and a 15-20 minute dental check up costs me more than a days wages. Add to this the unbelievable bonuses available to the financial sector (even when they are being propped up by the taxpayer) and perhaps it is understandable why silly money is being demanded by so many trades people now. The cost of living over here is going up despite interest rate decreases. A completely different story though ………
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GSY GAL, the fact of the matter is many of them don’t stay which is why they have lost 19 in the last four years-many of which had been there for less than 2 years, which has cost the tax paper an absolute fortune in the cost of training them. The rest that do stay enjoy the job and keep hoping that the appalling situation of excess overtime will be resolved. The overtime does bring in extra money which is great but as another partner of a firefighter said to me today-the money is great but there is a point were you would rather have your husband home than have the money. When it gets to the point were you have to go out in two cars to the same place in case your other half gets called in to work (and you don’t want to be stranded) when he’s not even on call, then that is ridiculous. So could everyone please consider the entire situation before making judgeent calls.
At the end of the day, the only ones to blame are the states and not the firemen-this situation should have been resolved a long time ago and they shouldn’t have waited until the situation erupted and the public were affected.
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27.5% payrise when the RPI is 1.2%?
They’ve got to be havin’ a laugh!!
For one of the most cushy jobs in Guernsey.
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Odinary firefighters and airport firefighters have one thing in common, they fight fires!. After that it’s totaly different, thats why airport firemen have to go on a very expensive coarse because it is a specialist job.
To be able to use the town firemen (as I shall call them) at the airport would require all of them to go on that coarse and also the follow up coarse’s that the airport firemen are required to go on. That would be very exspensive for the Island.
But would that solve the problem?, well there are statuary requirements for the number of men that must be on duty at any one time in both fire services. So if someone went sick at the airport a town fireman could not be taken from the duty shift and sent to the airport, an off duty firemen would have to be called in on his day off. Does that sound familiar.
Then as is normal in life and happens as a matter of coarse in the private sector when people get extra skills,the town fireman would now look to have the renumeration for now having the specialist skills of the airport fireman.
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Mrs: Sorry if my post offended you, it wasnt meant to. Hence why i put ‘he is doing it because he genuinly likes helping others’ Which as you said, is why he is still in this job. I was mearly voicing what some people may be thinkin. My Apologises again for any offence my post may have caused.
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Gsy Gal: No offense taken but I feel it’s important for people to consider both sides.
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Kevin, If the job is so cushy why havent you applied? Maybe you aren`t fit enough, or clever enough to pass the entrance test,or to old, or have a criminal record stopping you being a special constable, or most likely earn more than a fireman and like your time off to yourself.
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Also, I do agree with you that the states should have resolved this a long time ago. It is genuine mismanagement of which the ordinary firefighter had no control over and are therefore not to blame.
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MT,
I haven’t applied for a firefighters job because I don’t agree with the way in which they are disrupting the innocent travelling public for their own financial gain.
For the record I earn the same as an airport firefighter, also work shifts, unsociable hours, weekends and bank holidays.
And I don’t have a criminal record.
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Let’s just hope than now the trained mediators are involved that this situation will be sorted out quickly.
I am so pleased that something was sorted out quickly and before the school holidays. It may have taken a week or so of inconvenience/complete chaos …….. but it certainly got the right departments to sit up and take notice. Sometimes this is needed in order for services to be improved in the long term.
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can we just get one thing straight, if you were working at the town arsenal and picked up the paper today and saw the headline, you would feel that you are being tarred with the same brush as the AIRPORT FIREFIGHTERS.
I would think that although there are probably one or two people in any job just there for the money a majority of the town arsenal work hard train harder and have pride in there job.
Competency pay is in at the town arsenal and it takes hard work to stay competent in your trade.
finally if you are not contracted to work overtime, how can it be called a strike. there is only so much good will staff are prepared to give, current economic climate or not.
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Did anyone read ‘The Independent’ today which has a damning letter in it from a family of 5 who came on holiday to Sark last year. They took out insurance with flybe and due to weather conditions were stuck in Sark and had to change their flights from Guernsey to get them back to the UK. The airline could not change their tickets to their destination for 4 days (as they didn’t have 5 seats on any of the flights) so they flew to Southampton and then arranged to get home, incurring extra flight costs and another night a hotel.
They claimed on the insurance and flybe would not pay them! They said their insurance does not cover flights inside the UK – when it was pointed out that Sark and Guernsey are not part of the UK flybe said it was as far as they were concerned (and it was in the small print).
They have the cheek to try and claim from the States for flights lost but will not pay out against their own insurance.
Some advert that letter is for flybe!
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All firemen, whether they are based in town or at the airport, are ‘true’ firefighters and they are all willing to risk their own lives to save others. Yes the town firemen have to deal with more incidents than the airport firemen, but that is due to the nature of the incidents they are dealing with. Thank goodness the airport firemen aren’t busy dealing with the incidents they are trained to deal with every single day.
As to all the comments about sickness, firemen are human beings and get sick just like the rest of us.
The general public need to be aware that the Personnel shortages at the airport fire service are not just due to sickness. Each of the three watches have been one man down for several months due to the fact that management had not filled the vacancies and some of the firemen had been sent to the UK on training courses. The day the airport went down to CAT 4 was because the watch on duty was one man down, one man on a course, one man on holiday and one man sick.
Why aren’t the Guernsey airport firemen entitled to the same pay as their counterparts in Jersey and the Isle of Man?
I can’t see that the suggestion of merging the airport and town fire services will actually work as both require extensive training and surely time would not allow for one fireman to be trained in both areas. Below are a couple of links which explain how specialised the role of an airport firefighter is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_Rescue_and_Firefighting_Services_in_the_United_Kingdom
http://www.fireservice.co.uk/articles/aviation.php
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>>As to all the comments about sickness, firemen are human beings and get sick just like the rest of us.<<
It’s well known that public servants take more sickies than the private sector.
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Would you risk your life for £28Kish a year, I certainly would not. These trained professionals have had an independent report saying they are X underpaid, are they suppose to simply ignore this… These ongoing pay discussions were left to the last minute as usual by the States, the so called Ostrich factor.. keep your head down and hope it goes away, which to the cost of the island it has not..
The firefighters have stopped working overtime/cover and I do not blame them. Would you want to work over the weekend, when its your weekend off.. Any firefighters that have kids most miss the bedtime routine 3 times a week, so why add to it….
People that suggest dual/merged firefighters are very short sighted if they think this is answer. You will have to double the length off time for training, probably double the pay of firefighters as they are evenly more highly trained.
I hope for the sake of the island we never need the airport firefighters and if we do, everyone will be singing their praises, patting them on the back and saying how trained they are.. and then saying they deserve more money…
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To fire,
If you want to talk about risking your life -look at the fire situation in Australia at the moment. I looked up Sydney firefighters wages and guess what? they are less than in the UK at 51,000 Australian dollars for 9 years experience (http://www.payscale.com/research/AU/Job=Fire_Fighter/Salary)
Compared to the current median house price in Sydney which is 580,000 Aus dollars (http://www.myrp.com.au/sydney_house_prices.do)
So its pretty comparible to Guernsey really but I know where i would rather work as far as risk is concerned!
I understand what you mean about not being able to see your kids before they go to bed but many nurses, waiters, finance industry workers dont see their kids into bed on most nights and they work weekends too. It pretty sad but thats life!
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By the way i dont believe that this is the fault of the firefighters at all! This is a bungled mess caused by both the states and the union. The firefighters are just caught in the middle.
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I note people have made comparisons on salaries when it suits them..hours/weekend work, perhaps they forgot to mention about the potential risks involved… Without wanting to offend anyone those individual who work additional hours in the evening to ensure shelves are stocked for the next day (which as a householder I fully appreciate) you cannot compare these hours to that of a firefighter who as i mentioned may end up risking their life to save someone else.
Why are peoples first reaction, leave if you do not like it. They do like it thats why the core group is still there, its the ones that leave that do not like it.!!!..
Again lorry drivers probably earn £28K working 8-4 Mon -Friday, yet we pay trained individuals who work unsocialable hours, only have a rare full weekend off the same..
Again I hope these so called ‘tea drinking, pool playing’ firefighters are never needed, but when they are, the training and drills they undertake at 7am in the morning will ensure they know what they are doing.
I work in the finance sector and no I am not rolling in money as I have second job to finance my home and family….
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How can you compare Australia to Guernsey.
We are talking about Airport firefighters not firefighters…I note you have chosen the most expensive place to leave in Auz as well, people can commute in Auz, thus finding cheaper accomodation, I commute from the Castel and you…
A report was drafted by an Independent board, who used Isle of Man and Jersey… and they are underpaid… fact.
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You are right fire, I shouldnt compare Australia to Guernsey. I was so wrong to assume that the firefighters would have similar roles.
However, i didnt choose the more expensive place in Aus to live as Goldcoast/Brisbane is the most expensive city at about 630,000 australian dollars for the “average” house. Perth and Melbourne are about the same as Sydney now as well, Sydney is pretty average now. But lets not compare house prices as they shouldnt be used to justify wages haha. I suppose you could buy something for half the price and have the privilege of a 3-4 hour commute everyday – awesome!
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I agree airport firefighters and firefighters do not have the same roles. Surprisingly one is based at the airport and hope those things in the air do not fall out of the sky, while the other fire fighters deal with other island issues, car crashes, house fires etc..
Your comments are based solely on your choice of comparisons. A famous prime minister once said there are lies, damn lies and Statistics. Hence the need for independent reports, 80% of people know that.!.
The STATES have used a neutral off island research panel which has cost thousands of pounds to compile, obviously they must be wrong comparing Jersey/Isle of Man Airport to Guernsey Airport, perhaps you could use your vast experience of mediation/research and recommend your comparisons of Auz to bring a speedy close to this issue…
At the end of the day whether they actually use their skills or not is irrelevant as I am sure you would agree nobody wants that.
Thanks for update on the housing market in Auz. I would not to want to argue with those Statistics……
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