Originally Posted by
Beer Baron
The way the EA’s are structured means you have to start as an S/O. If you believe you may get in sooner by saying “Yes, I’d love to fly the 737” then I’d recommend saying it. Then on day 1 when they ask you to alter your Letter of Preference to bid for the 737, you can say “no thanks, my circumstances have changed, I’d like to remain an S/O”.
There is nothing Qantas can do about it. You can’t be forced across hauls onto a different EA.
So just do what you’ve gotta do to get in the door then decided what YOU want to do.
I’ll admit I don’t know the full story but I believe they were told a 737 position may be available straight away or it may be 3 years. The HR person couldn’t confirm a 737 basing location. They refused to allow him to do a secondment to what was his current Group position until they could guarantee a 737 spot so he turned it down.
Last I heard from him he was living in Miami working with Atlas so bigger and better for him at least. The other gent I know has stayed as a skipper with another group jet operator and says he’ll earn more doing that then taking the pay cut to mainline.
This sort of thing wouldn’t have happened in the past but this is what a happens when you voted a B/C scale in. Mainline simply isn’t the job it used to be.