Normasars
What you say in your immediately prevoius post, re NJS being a shoo in for the 717s may be correct. I suspect many think that way BUT no where near as many were prepared to take the gamble on the shoo without some sort of insurance.
Maybe we were wrong, perhaps we were right. Unless you have some serious inside information from QF's hallowed halls of power, you can't possibly know you're right, you can only surmise. I don't believe that any of us workers will ever know, I do however remember when NJS was a shoo in to get the airframes that became YAD, YAE & YAF. We only got them by default after QF merged the Eastern & Southern operations.
It doesn't pay to be too cocky and I have little doubt that despite all the signs that might have said the 717s would come to NJS, had QF not been happy with the deal they got, they would have quite happily sent them to Jetstar, just to prove their point.