Originally Posted by
soseg
Were NJS pilots stood down much, if at all, during covid?
I distinctly remember receiving photos in an email from the QF Friday weekly news thing they send us all, of NJS management cutting cakes mid pandemic while I was stood down unpaid. Why were they cutting cakes? Because they were being awarded new routes on the 717 which were previously 737 routes.
Who else would have taken the a220s off them? It wouldn't have been mainline back then as they're clearly too expensive.
Very unlikely it would be NAA as they're over on the west coast and an unorganised mess struggling with their own ops.
What specifically was the threat they faced?
Yeah, they did the same thing.
I am not going to say that NJS had a harder time during COVID than LH crews as that is obviously not the case. The international border restrictions and quarantine requirements for those that operated were a lot harsher than those imposed on domestic interstate operations.
However, there were significant standdowns imposed on various NJS bases (again not as harsh as what would of been imposed on international crews, I am not trying to imply this was the case). There was only one NJS base that wasn't stood down which was Perth due to the intrastate mining routes they served (I believe they were subjected to forced annual leave at one point but obviously not the same as being stood down). Every other NJS base (BNE, CNS, CBR, HBA & SYD) were subjected to various lengths of stand downsin 2020 (I believe but could be corrected that HBA had the longest standdown of the NJS bases of about 9 months). Afterwards PER, despite never being stood down was subjected to a base closure along with CNS. After said closures and transfers another round of standdowns occured again during 2021.
During the NJS EBA "negotiations" a direct threat was made to the NJS pilots that if a no vote occurred that the A220 would be given to another operator and the NJS pilot group would be made redundant with the retirement of the 717. It was implied that the operator would most likely then be Network.
Even if one doubts that Network or other entity had the ability to take on the A220 flying many did not doubt that Qantas IR wouldn't pass up the opportunity to make an example of an employee group at the time.