Ok, I'll bite!
Of course it is better to fight an external fight with management and staff headed in a common direction. It beats the hell out of fighting each other, and trying to compete in that environment. Jester and QF are competing in completely seperate markets. GD knows this, he has said it numerous times. You dont see Daimler Benz starting a price war with Kia, they are smart enough to know that they would lose. Plenty of full service airlines have failed by making that mistake. JQ was set up to compete with
VB, now they are saying we must compete with it. Go figure...
As for a fight with singas and EK, different story. Different game. We are fighting with an inferior product, and an uncompetetive playing field in the form of foreign investment limitations and a massive tax imbalance.
SBLs? Only an issue for a few greedy children who dont want to share their toys. They are too busy fighting to realise that Daddy is manouvering to take their toys away from all of them. Those closer to the door can hear Daddy in the hall, and are watching for the door handle to turn. Doesnt mean we have a problem with seniority though. No one else has come up with a fairer system for promotion, or bidding, but they have come up with a fairer system for rostering, so it needs to be discussed, voted on, and tested. Anyway, the disengagement is with the company, not between factions within the pilot body. Different arguement.
Everybody knows that promotion in 2001/2 was due to the demise of AN, and the rush for both QF and
VB to fill the substantial market share void left in its wake. It was a gift to both operators that we probably wont see again in the near future. No one was expecting that rush to continue. The slow down has also come at a time where the group has seen massive expansion, with the mainline pilots knowing that every command, every jet that went to Jester wasnt going to mainline, and we weren't even given a seat at the table to discuss an AO type deal. So yes promotion has slowed, its no suprise to us why. No one sitting here wondering where their command went, they can see them on the tarmac at every domestic terminal.
I'll tell you this for free, when a group prides itself on a long standing good working relationship with managment suddenly thumbs their nose at you and doesnt want to move forward as one with the company anymore, it may pay to listen, and not just think you know why.