I just can't see the mainline guys giving up their conditions and benefits and having to start all over again at 'Skimpy'
Hoss,
I think you're under some delusions about the conditions and benefits mainline guys get. I have a few friends working as 717 F/Os and read some info recently regarding F/O pay at Virgin. As a 767 F/O I bring home within $200.00 per fortnight of what these guys get.
Most of the so called "conditions" you're aluding to benefit the company more than they benefit me. It strikes me that many people base their impressions of Qantas Pilots on the old regime pre - privatisation when we got equal standown at home and only flew 400 hrs per year. Much has changed in the intervening years.
If I went to Australian, I'd get a pay rise, pay less tax on allowances, a simplified and (IMHO) fairer rostering system. The fact that Australian achieves cost savings of around 30 percent over its mainline parent confirms what most pilots have always known - that the cost savings are in infrastructure and support services, and not in what pilots actually get paid.
So if Geoff Dixon wants to set up a LCC airline then he has at his disposal a group of highly proficient and well trained tech crew to fly his aircraft at their current, economic, rates of pay. And they're all working for mainline.
WG.