Think carefully about the "new bases" scenario. If the average FA is costing the company say $40k then it doesn't take many crew to start rivalling the cost of overnights. It may make sense for them to open a Perth base for instance. But then if we go to 10hrs we will lose Perth overnights from everywhere except BNE anyway. We will start getting Perth returns. So where is the big deal?
Bases are very expensive, it's not only the cost of crew but the cost of proper facilities in that airport, management to run the place etc.. It's not financially viable to open a base for the sake of 30-50 crew there. They will not just be opening bases overnight nor will it make financial sense to do so in many ports. Will they want to hire new crew to do a few flights a week and having them otherwise sitting on reserve? The port has to be busy enough and cost the company enough in overnighting to even bother.
VB might be a major player in the Oz market but they have already stated the Oz market is over-serviced. How will they save money opening new bases and recruiting yet more crew when they already have a full compliment? They anticipate in the next few years for the market to retract not expand so again not a great incentive to go opening new bases.
We were presented that overnights would reduce by about 10% with an increase in daily hours. Has this changed now?