EDITION OF THE ASSOCIATION DUTCH CABIN CREW NUMBER 04 / 2019 CRITICAL INCIDENT CONSEQUENCES OF RESPONSE PROGRAM NIGHT WORK magazine A CENTURY OF KLM CONTENT COLOFON EDITORIAL Articles 9 Night work 13 Interview Pieter Elbers 18 CRIP Columns 1 Editorial 20 Air-sense Feature 2 Well found Chief Editor An Verelst An Verelst 4 KLM Background [email protected] Editors Ingrid Brama Nathalie Pruijs Pia van Boven Jannette Passchier Address Still Standing Stationsplein 406 1117 CL Schiphol-Oost Phone (020) 5020480 1919 was a special year; my grandmother After differing partners, divorce, engage- www.vnconline.nl was born on the 28th. of June, and the ment and a few beautiful daughters later, it 4 Advertising sales “Airline Corporation for the Netherlands is suddenly 2019, a year that is also special: Bureau van Vliet B.V. and Colonies” was incorporated on the You wouldn’t give it her, but now KLM is [email protected] Phone (020) 5714745 7th. October. The latter gets off to a flying celebrating its 100th. year. 100 years of rich start on the Amsterdam - London route and history, with turbulence, diversion and hot 2 Translaters scoops with flights to Batavia (currently In- summers alternated by harsh winters, but 9 Paul Millward Hannet Bilderbeek donesia) and the United States. As a young she’s still standing - and very much so! Stewardess, my grandmother joins the The cabin crew associations of the time are E-mail address editors “Association of KLM Pursers and Stewards” now jointly called “Vereniging Nederlands [email protected] and the “Association of KLM Stewardesses”, Cabinepersoneel”, and it too has withstood Want to join the VNC the start of a long enduring membership. all possible adversity in the past 73 years. Surf to VNC vnconline.nl and press the button ‘Lid worden’. In 1971, with the introduction of the Boeing The VNC is proud to have contributed to The VNC Magazine is published under the authority 747, the world becomes her oyster - or to the good health of the birthday boy. of the VNC Board. stay in the words of Albert Plesman: “The Unfortunately, my grandmother is no lon- The VNC magazine can also be visited online. 13 ocean of the air, unites all people.” ger alive, but fortunately the final chapter The contents of the magazine do not necessarily KLM grows and flourishes, the image of the of KLM’s life story is still a long way off! reflect the point of view of the VNC. swan stands symbol for KLM and a tulip Reproducing articles is only allowed after permis- sion from the VNC board. The VNC can not be held becomes KLM’s very own by being named responsible for the contents of the advertisements. after it: “Tulipa KLM”. VNC MAGAZINE / 4 / 2019 1 WWW.SVGSTUDIOBV.NL bestellen op: Nu ook online te vier verpakkingen! bij SVG Studio BV Gratis verzending bij aankoop van Tevens verkrijgbaar morgen in huis! Vandaag besteld; MADE IN ITALY 8% ELASTAN 92% POLYAMIDE DENIER 20 uitstraling! en representatieve PANTY Voor een elegante STEWARDESSEN KLM INSPIRATIONS Well found World famous houses KLM houses Cool T-shirts The miniature Delft Blue Colleague, Gislind Rothkegel, makes T-shirts depicting old houses filled with gin, guided tours which we offer our KLM logos for colleagues who make their last trip. The World Business Class Colleague, Yvette T-shirts are personalised with themes related, for example, passengers before Zinkstok, organises “KM to their home town or their number of years in service. landing, are popular collector’s items. houses” guided tours. Gislind uses a special technique and fabric markers to turn There are online exchange fora, the During a leisurely walk these T-shirts into a special reminder of their many happy sought after houses are auctioned through the centre of years flying. We will raffle two T-shirts amongst you - our online, there are various books devoted Delft, she explains the colleague cabin crew members! to them and there are even KLM houses stories behind eight KLM Do you wish join in the raffle? guided tours through Leiden, Delfts Blue houses. From Then email your name and staff number, stating the KLM Amsterdam and Delft. KLM launched an grocery store “De shirt raffle, to: [email protected] App for these original “drinks on the Salamander” to the “VOC house”. In the App all 99 houses are House”, history is featured extensively with explanations, interspersed with the photos and videos and enthusiasts can fun anecdotes of today. digitally manage their personal Delft is a fascinating city collection. Download it for free from the with a lively history. The App store: KLM Houses. centre is small with picturesque streets, historic Kunst en Vliegwerk buildings and terraces. A day in Delft is truly wonderful! Feel like a walk? For information and In just eight months, 85-year-old artist and bookings, send an email to: [email protected]. aviation enthusiast, Thijs Postma, drew and painted and drew all the aircraft types, current and past, used by KLM. In the past, Thijs Postma, also painted Martinair and Transavia aircraft. His exhibition, named “Kunst en Vliegwerk” (*) and An aviation Fiver numbering no fewer than 60 of his works, can be seen in the Nederlands Transport Museum, in The Royal Dutch Mint celebrates 100 years of aviation by minting an Nieuw-Vennep. His homage to KLM can be official commemorative coin: The Aviation Fiver. A nice portrait of the admired until the end of the year. For more Dutch King is depicted on this official commemorative coin. The tail information: nederlandstransportmuseum.nl. (*) aka the reverse side, shows a contemporary aircraft in the sky, viewed from above. The shadow it casts on earth is that of an “Kunst en Vliegwerk”, is Dutch phrase describing historic aircraft. The coin’s design is by Dutch artist, Marijke van extreme effort and is a play on words using the Warmerdam. For more information: www.knml.nl word fly, which is “vlieg” in Dutch) 2 VNC MAGAZINE / 4 / 2019 VNC MAGAZINE / 4 / 2019 3 KLM / BACKGROUND ‘It was our fullest intention to have a new collective labor agreement (CLA) agreed before the start of summer. Whether the CLA negotiations will be concluded soon, depends on KLM’ Due to the phasing out of the B747, fewer flown by two-ringers. This creates more and fewer cabin crew are required for opportunities for one-stripe crew to pro- this aircraft type. We have discussed the gress to two stripes. ensuing divisional changes with KLM: Who will fly which type? Sufficient col- Blue Base leagues have been trained for the A330 Rumors were already circulating, but now and KLM therefore suggested that new it’s official: KLM is moving its headquar- entrants therefore fly the B737 and B777 ters from Amstelveen to Schiphol-East. / 787. In addition, it was suggested that Apparently it is so costly to renovate the no colleagues would return to flying the old HQ, that the option for a new building A330 after handing in the B747. The topic has been chosen. The KLM HQ campus described here, is stated in the CLA as “in will be next to the Operational Control consultation”; which means that both KLM Center (OCC). We expressed our concern and the VNC must agree. We proposed a about accessibility and parking availability different solution to KLM: ask for volun- at Schiphol-East. This, as it will become teers who wish to fly the A330 and, if the extremely busy with hundreds of additio- A330 is over subscribed, assign the A330 nal colleagues. KLM stated that the Works according to seniority. KLM will consider Council had already raised these issues our proposal. and that it had their full attention. As of summer 2020, the B747 will only be Shutterstock.com Fasttailwind / photo 4 VNC MAGAZINE / 4 / 2019 VNC MAGAZINE / 4 / 2019 5 KLM / BACKGROUND Farewell to Peter Overdijk is required. Not only the VNC, but all uni- This was the last cabin management ons at KLM have therefore turned down meeting with the head of Cabin Crew this CLA proposal. To-ing and throw-ing Management, Peter Overdijk. After the of repeated negotiating positions and the summer, he will be superseded and at suspension of negotiations followed. KLM the end of this year, will take voluntary re- aims to achieve a CLA with a short term, dundancy. We thanked Peter for the many while the unions have jointly proposed a years of collaboration. In every relations- CLA term of two years, with an annual 4% hip, also in a business one, there are highs structural wage increase. and lows. We did not always agree with each other, but in mutual respect and in ICA WRR (FTL) the end, we were always able to find com- In the meantime, we have also made it mon ground. We wish Peter all the best. clear that, in our view, the ICA WRR shall not be changed. KLM would like to form a Collective Labour Agreement (CLA) working group to investigate cost-neutral 2019 and cost-saving changes and implement For a very long time, during the current these when times are harder. For us at CLA collective bargaining process, KLM VNC, this is an absolute no-go. Particu- steadfastly stuck to its proposals: a CLA larly after having just had a long period of with a term of sixteen months, a total of labour unrest and having suffered deep 2.25% in structural wage increases, plus cost cuts. Our rejection was final and KLM photo MyImages - Micha / Shutterstock.com a one-off net amount per month until the has now accepted our position on this end of 2019.