Originally Posted by
C441
All that is entirely correct, but how exactly were AIPA - or the AFAP for that matter - going to prevent this?
PIA? Recall that the CEO was the darling of the business world at the time and PIA would have had almost zero public support. Don't forget, the pilots voted up the last 2 or 3 EA agreements to at least some degree based on the implied threats.
The CEO at the centre of these decisions (and his predecessor) specifically set out to remove the apparently costly staff (ignoring the benefits of having a loyal, motivated workforce) to outsource to less costly entities for the benefit of anyone but the staff (and not just pilots) or customers.
So what would the AFAP have done differently and prevented the declines mentioned in the quote?
As it turns out, even those outsourced entities are now in the firing line and there is no guarantee they'll be anymore successful than AIPA have been in dealing with a personally financially motivated senior executive 'team'. I hope they are but their best outcome will still be significantly inferior to mainline.
The only tool pilots have to prevent all of the above is negotiating scope. Scope is the reason US regionals have started to die, US mainline flying increased, and led to stronger bargaining positions.
Delta are tapped out on growing their international because of relatively weak scope language, although they improved it in last year's negotiations. FedEx also have extremely weak scope language, leading to a lot of their flying being farmed out to Amazon carriers.
The problem with negotiating for scope is that it'll cost you a lot to secure now, but you won't see the benefit of it for a long time. QF pilots have to lead the way though, or suffer the continued decline in career outlook as Links of whatever flavour come and go. If QF guys can get that over the line, life for every Aus pilot will improve.