QF Corporate may find themselves in an interesting legal conundrum in the near future given that they may be attempting to continue to have “stood-down” A380 pilots on zero pay for the next few years, while at the same time they are contracting flying out to Alliance, and also expanding their Network subsidiary.
Whatever “deal” was done with Alliance, (and I have seen no evidence of any deal as such, merely an invitation through internal QF communications that Alliance will consider applications from QF pilots) it could be arse-covering by QF Legal to at least have attempted to offer flying employment to stood-down pilots when/if they are taken to court over it.
Whilst I somewhat see the point that it may seem fairer to offer the jobs to pilots who have actually been made redundant from other airlines, or indeed to offer quicker upgrades to internal Alliance pilots, the pilots stood-down from Qantas are stood-down on the basis that “no useful work is available” for them. Pretty hard to argue no useful work is available when you are contracting work out, and expanding subsidiaries.
Furthermore, this Alliance work would not be available for anyone had QF not contracted Alliance to do it. So, if, in fact, QF had said to Alliance, “hey, we’ve got some work for E-Jets - will you take on some of our crew for a year or two if we give you the contract?”, and Alliance said “sure”, then it is what it is.