Telfer, are you in Qantas? The answers to the points you have raised are in the LHEA.
The award states that any pilot made CR is put on the ‘redundancy list’ and re-employed when Qantas re-commences recruiting. It’s not a matter of ‘you would expect’, Qantas is bound by the LHEA to do so.
Further, the LHEA also states that you don’t go back to year 1 rates but instead pick up where you left off. So any pilot employed in 2009 who may be made CR (as highly unlikely as it is) would return on year 11 pay.
So yes, Qantas will save the yearly increments by making someone CR but as already stated, it takes 3 1/2 years of stand down to equate to the minimum 6 month payout.