I am not sure how these negotiations have been going, but I would be hopeful the pilot group wouldn’t fall for such BS. QF are not going to buy NJS from Cobham, to then 3 years later shut down the entire operation only then to have to recruit 150 odd pilots to cover the A220.
And Gordon has a point as well - if QF did do that, there would certainly be a case for the unions to argue that this would not be a genuine redundancy.
Given the amount of duplication that goes on in QF in management roles just by the sheer number of AOCs they hold I would imagine they would do exactly that just to simply send a message. It’s not about actually running an efficient cost effective airline it’s about keeping the pilots all in ‘check’ and making sure there is downward pressure on wages, regardless of how expensive that saving turns out to be.