Factually speaking,
jake, how many pax do you really think base the purchase of their ticket on QF's "Safety level"? SFA to none, would be my guess.
Pax priorities are price and/or schedule first. The airlines "safety level" is a long way down the track - unless of course one of the airlines being considered has had a previously extremely poor Safety record eg. Korean & Garuda.
It's about standards and known qualities. You don't get that with off the street hires.
Weren't the majority of QF pilots "off the street hires" at some time, knocked into the QANTAS mindset during training?
Any new off the street hires would similarly be processed through the QF system,
initially, by QF trainers and checkers.
A few lcc's (eg. Cathay Cargo, Air Japan, Freedom) have gone down this road - "off the streeters" trained by the incumbent mainliners, but paid substantially less, until sufficient numbers of new hires then totally replace the mainliners.
At a future date this cheaper labour is then trickle fed back into the mainline.
Could this be Dixon's plans for the Impulse pilots??