Pick on the junior guys? The reality is that at the moment it would be MUCH cheaper to CR the bottom 200 than offer VR for the same number of senior crew. No need to re-train anyone for the foreseeable future to cover those S/Os (and even 737 F/Os if they went from both hauls) and the bottom 200 can be done with a maximum 6 months pay at a much lower pay rate. Five S/Os can be CR’d for the same price as what QF is offering senior crew to take VR.
So far from picking on the junior crew the company has offered them a pretty significant lifeline in the short to medium term.
That line about ‘they are people too’? That applies equally to our senior colleagues who in many cases are concluding their careers a few years prior to when they may have planned and in majority of cases will not get their ‘retirement trip’ either.
The only thing we can really rely on here is the EA. For better or worse, when it comes to CR, it says last on, first off.
This is a crap storm irrespective of whether junior, senior or somewhere in the middle.