Originally Posted by
AerocatS2A
Qantas have an almost identical situation you guys. SOs living the high life and not wanting to move to short haul, two wholly owned turbo-prop subsidiaries with pilots who want to be able to move straight to the jets with a minimum of fuss, and a thread on PPRuNe discussing the various merits of hiring externally to the group vs promoting from within the group (Qantas Recruitment.)
The high life? That's a bit of a stretch.
As someone said, the A320 used to be a highly sought after position. When the 737 was the Domestic workhorse, it had rostering rules and CEA clauses (lower incentive threshold) to account for the higher workload of multi-sector days... remember, NZ isn't Aus. Our longest Domestic sector is under 2hrs and the main trunk, AKL-WLG takes about 30 minutes so you can do very high sectors on a Domestic roster. Even then however, 737 FO & Capt positions were a fair way down the list due to lifestyle considerations.
Anyway, when the 737 was retired all of the rostering rules went with it and we've been fighting with the company ever since. Some very minor changes were made through a working group which had virtually no impact. This is the biggest cause of grievance on the A320 and many SO's are simply staying put. Plenty would move across (the non commuters anyway) if the Company would just resolve the lifestyle concerns. As it stands however, Pilots are utilizing their right to choose and simply avoiding the fleet.
This all leads into why the Company is pushing the Cadetship. Not only will they save a fortune slashing the SO pay, but it will also mean the first Widebody Jobs will sit ~400-500 positions above the most Junior A320 FO. Pilots will have no choice but to sit on the A320 for 15+ years (500 seats / 30 retirement a year) as they cant bid anywhere else. Overnight, the company will solve their crewing issues on the A320 without having address any of the lifestyle concerns.