This action clearly fails the Pub Test. AJ and his senior advisors have failed to accurately read the room here.
With several pilot EAs due for renegotiation in the near future, I suspect that this current senior management team will only bargain with a modicum of honesty if they have the threat of protected industrial action on the table.
It will be interesting to see whether the pilot groups and their union/s move for overwhelming no votes followed by the lodgement of a PIA application.
PG