Stand down is probably a bit better than furlough because at least people are accruing AL and LSL along the way. Not sure if furlough has that benefit.
That said, I don’t reckon stand down was ever intended for this sort of ongoing situation, or a situation where parts of the company have work and other parts of the company have zero.
I suspect stand downs on the A380 is going to be a sad fact of life whilst other LH fleets still have rolling stand downs (due to international border closures). My personal opinion is that once borders are open and other LH fleets are back flying then the lack of A380 flying looks more like a commercial decision and stand down becomes very hard to justify. I suspect QF know this and are trying to work out how they solve that problem in about 12 months time.
The worrying part of this is there is no desire to test the legality of this. The AIPA don’t seem to want to ask the hard questions, and if they won’t fight for the pilot group, who will?
How can the company use rotating stand ups? There either is useful work or there isn’t. If there isn’t ENOUGH useful work - you have too many staff and should follow the EBA process to resolve that. Too expensive? Might need them shortly? Then pay a minimum retainer - as per the EBA.
We should be pushing harder to have everyone stood up. Don’t tell me they can’t do it - govt assistance package plus domestic capacity means they have the resources.