Originally Posted by
Brakerider
Is the biggest problem (for Link drivers) guys and girls trying to skip the queue by leaving link to do a year or two at an Aussie carrier before jumping into Jet? Maybe if they put their foot down about “leaving the group” it could alleviate some issues?
Quite possibly, although the actual number of Pilots who left the links only to get re-hired by Air NZ after 1-2 years would be very low. To the best of my knowledge, most of the ex-Link pilots who were hired from the Aussie Jet operations left the links some years before all this happened. But the perception is definitely there, and I suspect it's been driven by a handful of Eagle Pilots who "got lucky" (so to speak).
Morale was pretty low at Eagle a few years ago, before they announced the closure. Air NZ had stopped hiring internally and Eagle were selling A/C and cancelling routes. About this time, I gather a handful of Pilots left Eagle for greener pastures... 6 months later Eagle closure was announced. Many of them (not all) have since been picked up by Air NZ. This obviously sent a big message to the Link group and others followed suit, but I'm not sure how many of them have found their way back. I suspect those Eagle Pilots just had incredible timing.
All Air NZ need to do to solve this, be it now or in the future, is to interview suitably qualified Link Pilots and, on successful completion of the interview, Tag & Release them back to the Links.