Originally Posted by
lederhosen
I wonder what happens when one of your crew tests positive somewhere like Sydney. Long haul carriers are not going to have standby crew members everywhere. The risk of one of your pilots being quarantined or even worse falling ill at a distant outstation is not negligible if mandatory testing is introduced. Identifying non symptomatic aircrew is obviously good for Australia but complicates matters from a crewing point of view. What do you do if the captain tests positive on arrival. Obviously the other crew are high risk. Do you fly a whole new crew in or just a replacement? The whole thing becomes extremely difficult to manage.
The entire crew goes into quarantine if one person rests positive. In QLD that’s for 14 days, in VIC it’s 10 days, I haven’t looked up NSW yet.
Just to make it harder, VIC also require any crew that have been in quarantine (positive or not) MUST return to their home country on an empty ferry flight (no passengers) or a freight flight. So after all that drama (and despite clearing quarantine) they still can’t be used as crew for the way home!!!
Does this start to make sense why EK are pulling out of the east coast? It’s not a simple exercise when you are now talking about the entire crew being removed, plus not even able to operate home.