AIPA and JQ

[Going Boeing]

Teggun, perhaps it's a suitable time to look at the history of AIPA. During the late 70s/early 80s, the AFAP was a professional body that was dominated by the interests of Ansett pilots - simply because they had the numbers in their own mainline plus the many subsidiaries. Generally, the interests of the TAA pilots were in line with the AN pilots thanks to the "Two Airline" policy. Qantas pilots were in the "Overseas Branch" of the AFAP & for many years, were frustrated with their inability to get improvements through if there was any chance of a future conflict with AN's expansion plans. The subs paid by QF pilots to AFAP was a very substantial percentage of the AFAP's income but the QF pilots saw very little value for their money so eventually the decision was made to break from AFAP and form AIPA with the sole intention of looking after Qantas pilots who numbered approx 500 at the time. There was never any plan for AIPA to "grow" and poach other pilots from AFAP.

The AFAP was a very stong industrial body until the Domestic Pilots Dispute in 1989, which resulted in its industrial power being significantly reduced as well as its income stream as most of the new pilots in TN & AN didn't join the AFAP. In 1992, Qantas (then Government owned) bought Australian Airlines (TAA) from the Oz Government for $400m (SQ bid $115m as that was all it was worth with all the debt it was still carrying from '89) and AIPA was confronted with expanding coverage to include the TN pilots. There were some opinions against this - Some QF pilots wanted the organisation to continue remaining focused on international operations and the majority of TN pilots were very hostile to TN being bought by QF and they didn't want QF pilot controlled AIPA having any input to their award (all 2 pages of it). AIPA's constitution was changed & Arbitration Commission processes were carried out to include coverage of the ex TN pilots (Australian International Pilots Association became Australian and International Pilots Association). AIPA's attempt to include the TN subsidiary pilots in the extended coverage was strongly opposed by QF management - TN had always kept the regional pilots at arms length from the mainline operations and QF management decided to keep that status quo going. They said that the regional operation could not afford to become the training ground for mainline pilots.

Once QF management made it very clear that they were opposed to Regional pilots being covered by AIPA, the support for them dropped which, in hindsight, was a big mistake as their coverage would have reduced the ability of the next generation of QF management (Dixon) to use "divide & conquer" tactics. AIPA remained focused on it's own issues for a number of years after that and dropped the ball again when Dixon set up Jet Connect in NZ - the majority didn't see that this was the thin edge of the wedge (although many would say that the NJS regional operation set up by TN was the first use of this industrial tactic). Some in AIPA started getting vocal about the threat that Jet Connect type operations posed so that by the time Impulse was bought by QF, AIPA's COM wanted to act swiftly to include coverage of the Impulse pilots. AIPA's President and Industrial Manager had a meeting with a group of Impulse Pilots, advised them that the AIPA constitution would have to be changed to allow the Impulse pilots to become members and suggested that they set up their own Council (IPC) (something they could not do while they worked for Jerry) to carry out industrial negotiations until they became members of AIPA. AIPA's resources & industrial expertise were also offered in support. AIPA's COM was dismayed when some months later, word filtered back that the President had subsequently told the Impulse pilots that they were not wanted by AIPA. That was against COM wishes and was very short sighted (unless you wanted a job high up in QF management as that President subsequently went to). That unilateral action resulted in the Impulse (later Jetstar) pilots feeling very angry at being rejected and so when AIPA made attempts in subsequent years to mend bridges and include them in AIPA's coverage, they were met with distrust and resentment. In the background of all this were the QLink pilots who were not being given the career options that they deserved or decent industrial coverage.

WoodEye's ARG run AIPA started in the right direction with GOaL but with such distrust (& disinformation) amongst the pilot community, it proved very hard to bring to fruition. I have confidence that the current AIPA president will try to unify the various pilot groups so that we can achieve more in our dealings with management.