Look I can see a couple of different themes here. One is a reluctance for this deal due to the perchieved reductions in Terms and Conditions with regard to the SO position. I totally understand that and would defend everyone’s right to protect those as they are hard won. Two, I don’t get trying to dress up the objections By saying things like ‘ex Cadets couldn’t fly an ATR into a small NZ strip, or without Jet experience you shouldn’t be sitting in a Jet’. BA, Cathay Pacific and Emirates all take direct entry FO’s who have no Jet experience, Qantas and Cathay both put SO’s onto large jets who only have 200 hours with very little multi time, using experience as a reason not to join the list is just not valid, maybe with the exception of Emirates the rest could pick and choose from a pool of relatively experienced candidates but the airlines want to get some cheaper people in at the bottom and keep them for longer, why does that surprise us?
One of my Air NZ mates said to me the other day ‘I think this is a bad idea as it would allow an ATR driver to move straight into an FO spot on the A320 and that is just dangerous!’ Why.......
I am actually genuinely interested in this attitude as I have seen a lot of different pilots with different levels of experience successfully get trained into quite different roles all over the world, the most important thing is a good training path and I am intrigued if people actually believe in the experience argument. If I was actually voting on this deal then I would vote no as terms and conditions once given away will never be gained back.