Gondwalla your posts suggests we had a choice. If only that was true. Have a quick peak at the world airline crewing over the past 5-10 yrs. Qantas has spawned Jetstar, QF has contractors flying B747400F with QF callsigns out of SY and ML.
VB has PB flying into the Pacific. So in Australasia this is not a new concept. You must accept that the VAustralia operation is a multi-billion dollar gamble with no guarantee of success. Do we all see it succeeding, yes but the stakes are high. So as far as the operation, including crewing is concerned it needed to be set up independently for the financial security of the
VB Domestic operation.
Do we think that the vast majority of the seats in VAustralia will be filled with current
VB pilots, the optimist says yes, the pessimist says no and the truth is that nobody knows. Time will tell.