This appears to be a fishing expedition, most likely by AAE. Having rejected NJ’s bid to crew their 73s, they now have a problem, who is going to drive them?
Jetconnect was a pretend contender, they do not have the resources to operate both sides of the pond and a mainland freighter does not fit their LCC template.
That leaves QF. Their pilots, inorder to minimise redundancies, are very keen to get the flying, which could be considerable, up to 15 aircraft. But they are too expensive and their maintenance does not come cheap either. In addition, if the two industrial grass fires, maintenance and pilots, QF is dealing with at the moment should flare up into bush fires, AAE would be badly burnt collateral damage. They have contracts with the likes of TNT, Toll, DHL etc and face hefty penalties if delivery is not overnight. This makes them the soft underbelly of QF strategy and would be the logical target of the unions if they were to crank up the ante in negotiations. And there would be no disruption to the travelling public.
AAE-Australia Post can see the train coming. They need to distance themselves from QF and come up with a plan ‘B’. As punters, we can only speculate that Express Freighters Australia is it.