Originally Posted by
Overspeed1
The company has said again and again that they don’t to do CR and I actually believe them. Wana know why? Because it’s expensive. Not only do they have to cough up the CR payment, they have to pay out your leave balances and give you the required notice period all of which burns cash which they are doing everything they can to avoid. It’s why they’re pushing the LWOP card so hard, because it costs nothing.
Im in the bottom 200 numbers so I am firmly in the danger zone. If it comes to it, I’ll go on LWOP as well to avoid redundancy but I’ll be damned if I offer it up to them before they release the VR numbers. There are 2 main reasons for this...
Any future job keeper scheme may exclude people on LWOP. I desperately need that money if I can get it. Interestingly, someone on the webinar actually said they have spoken to the ATO twice and they told him that anyone on LWOP should not be currently getting jobkeeper. Even if that’s not the case, the government has consistently said they are planning on tightening the future eligibility of jobkeeper, so watch this space.
Second, at the end of the SO webinar, Doug Alley even conceded that they would probably have to revisit LWOP after the 7th of August deadline in the event that they were forced to run a CR program. And why wouldn’t they? Like I said, CR is expensive LWOP isn’t. If it comes to it, surely they will continue to work their way up the list offering LWOP as required knowing people will likely take it over redundancy, hence saving the company money.
The company are not trying to arbitrarily axe X number of pilots. They are trying to manage a pilot surplus through the CHEAPEST means possible. The company have said it many times that LWOP is the cheapest and most preferred option (VR/early Retirement Packages for older pilots are a different proposition for a variety of reason I won’t bother listing). If you think that taking LWOP now is some cunning move because the company will definitely CR the bloke above you, then you’re not thinking it through. You might return to work a couple of months earlier than me if I go on LWOP in a few months from now but you might miss out on months of jobkeeper and I might never have to go on LWOP at all.
We should re-read this post every day!
They get it.