A couple of thoughts on this thread.
First: there is a wealth of experience out here in the real world that can help any genuine applicants with good track records to find decent jobs. A thread on this theme would be good value. Since 1989 a lot of former Australian airline pilots crawled up very steep learning curves to fly all sorts of machines in all sorts of places and conditions. Many of those places involved weather and flying situations where being the world’s second best anything was no help. Being a skilful pilot with flexibility, confidence, reliability, commitment and good CRM were (and are!) the keys. So there is help out there for those who meet those qualifications and want a fresh start away from the blinkered incestuous cosseted aviation world in Australia. Others please don’t muddy the waters for the rest of us who have no other place to go and no years of good salaries at home to fall back on.
Second: as ex-AN pilots look around for work and wonder about fairness and equity, remember that out there in the boondocks are some guys who never did land quality airline jobs post 1989 because of a harshly applied BLACKLIST against those from a particular aviation union. Not quite ethnic cleansing of the ideologically unsound but close enough for a photo finish. Those guys deserve a fair go and remembrance that they haven’t had a fair go since 1989. Some regional drivers weren’t even part of the Dispute, just ordinary card-carrying union members who didn’t want to cross someone else’s picket line.
Having said all of the above let’s remember that competition creates jobs; it doesn’t destroy them. High costs (hence high ticket prices) pre AN’s crash meant that traffic growth was lower than it might have been. Lower costs in the future will mean more growth and more jobs in the long run. Yes it might be a long wait. Others have survived that wait and lived. Mow grass, tend a bar, drive a taxi. It’s been done.
Just remember while you’re building a (temporary) alternate profession that had the then (Hawke/Keating) pro-Ansett governments supported either Compass 1 or 2 to keep going even for a few weeks while alternate financing was arranged then genuine industry restructuring would have got underway much earlier and maybe, just maybe, we wouldn’t have the spectacle of our senior politicians running to Singapore hoping that SIA could tell us how to run an airline.
Safe flying wherever you end up.
Sherm