What many overlook, and QF (ie the management) NEVER acknowledge is that the long-haul certified
agreement was between, understandably,
two parties; the pilots' association
and QF.
The
agreement has protections and provisions serving both sides which were nutted out over many iterations through good and hard times. Its detail has arisen out of decades of massaging issues like crewing, duty limits, lay-overs, accommodation standards, lifestyle, profitability, and, yes, flexibility. That's why it's so detailed!
QF have never in my time acknowledged the virtue of things like:
- the post-9/11 pay freeze its pilots willingly accepted in the circumstances,
- pilot contactability provisions,
- the 'riot' clause,
- the economies afforded by 4-pilot, 2-S/O flight decks, or
- the historical propensity of of the majority of its pilots to do more than the contract minimums when needed,
but they sure know how to p155 pilots off with their industrial behaviour over the last few years.
For outsiders and newcomers to the industry (managers
or pilots) to say the
agreement is too prescriptive, inflexible, or just plain silly is to blindly underrate some very hard-won and ultimately sensible planning & protective clauses on both sides. Does anyone else see irony in the opportunism of
some (no, not all!) who willingly, scornfully and vociferously undercut the longhaul award but would
now seek to use the 'pilot shortage' to leverage their smugly lower pay and conditions (helped get a faster promotion though) closer to what the QF longhaul award always proscribed? Pilots too! Go figure...
