Originally Posted by
Beer Baron
RealityCzech,
You are quite right that Network is the bigger threat to us, however that does not mean that the Jet Connect changes are not extremely worrying.
AIPA took Qantas to court a few years back to try and get the Jet Connect flying covered by the Qantas Short Haul EBA. They lost that case 2-1, part of the reasoning of the commissioners was that it was a New Zealand operation, flying New Zealand registered aircraft using New Zealand AOC, hence it was outside the jurisdiction of FWA.
Under this new arrangement an operation that is entirely owned and controlled by an Australian company, flying Australian registered planes, into and out of Australia under an Australian AOC, will be using cheaper foreign labour to circumvent an approved local EA.
It dramatically changes the arrangement and has not been tested in court.
As to why it matters so much. Well where does it stop? Can they fly Aus to Bali, Noumea or Port Moresby? Can they fly the QF A330's? Why not have them operate any aircraft in the Qantas fleet?
When it was a small operation flying a dedicated fleet of just 7 aircraft only across the Tasman there was a natural limit to how much of a threat it could be to Qantas pilots. Now they will be flying up to 70 aircraft! And there is no need for it to necessarily stop there. There is no longer a natural limit to the possible expansion of cheaper offshore labour operating flights that were once crewed by Qantas pilots.
If you can't see the threat in that then you just don't want to.
I have a different reading of that case. It was lost because a majority of Fair Work declined to lift the corporate veil of a New Zealand company that employed the NZ pilots. That employment arrangement hasn’t changed and relitigating won’t result in a different outcome.
“As to why it matters so much. Well where does it stop? Can they fly Aus to Bali, Noumea or Port Moresby? Can they fly the QF A330's? Why not have them operate any aircraft in the Qantas fleet”
They can already do those many of those things under the Open Skies agreement. Part of the problem is what they already can and can’t do is really poorly understood by almost everyone involved, so the shadow boxing begins.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if Qantas chose to operate JC pilots domestically, as they legally have been able to do since JC started but have chosen not to, because mainline pilots took industrial action over the possibility of JC pilots operating domestically?