You know, it continues to amaze me how inconsidered and self-serving the personal philosophies of some members of our pilot fraternity, remain.
How does anyone from NJS feel a justifiable entitlement to automatic rights to B717 flying?
It was always reasonable for the "pre-Impulse, non-NJS" Qantaslink (turboprop fleet) employees to one-day expect some kind of improvement in their promotional opportunity lot, offered them by QF.
This is a fair expectation and perfectly nomal within the bounds of industry practice, locally and overseas and a frequent comment made by reasonably- objective industry observers.
Since the whimsical decision to purchase Impulse was undertaken by QF (rather than allowing the company to inevitably fail and resumption of the pieces - this is NOT a personal slant at Impulse, it could have been either Brand X or Y) plus the effects of the Ansett collapse, the Qantaslink regionals of SUN, SAA and EAA have been subjected to a gradual and obvious downgrading of conditions and expectations. QF have unashamedly displayed their opinion of the turboprop Regionals' in terms of disposability or insignificance in their "grand plan".
Southern operations were affected immediately by the Impulse decision: First it was the closure of Launceston base and transferral of staff to Canberra. Now, of course, the whole operation is to be disbanded into a completely different form in the name of administrative job efficiencies with no real solution offered to the disenfranchised flight crews.
In Eastern's case, to accommodate the sudden requirement for aircraft parking at Sydney, (due to mainline and Impulse expansion), Eastern exclusive parking has been progressively reduced at the main terminal from an original 12 bays to only 2. Parking has been moved to a remote and makeshift facility, reminiscent of GA days, distant from the main terminal and accessible only by bus.
Within the terminal area, all departures, - 000's of pax/day - are crammed through a single departure lounge with many pax forced to stand due lack of seating, while mainline departure lounges 1-17 lie idle for large periods of the day.
The detrimental effect on schedules, customer service, public perception, working conditions and obviously staff morale, has been significant. To rub salt into an already deep wound, an expectation from QF of a seamless sharing of these facilities with ex-Impulse staff, once their rival and the main contributor to their ills.A further insult came when the Eastern general manager, an excellent administrator and progressive individual, responsible for much of their former gains, was shifted to management of the newly owned Impulse.
And finally, despite record loadings and staff service beyond duty, all of this is coupled to the failure by QF to recognise identifiable productivity increases in the Dash 8-300 flying for Sunstate and Eastern - their refusal to award REASONABLE salary increases in recognition of work under difficult circumstances, during the current round of EBA negotiaions.
In summary, it's been a terrible 12 months for the Qantaslink Regionals and it becomes perfectly understandable, even to the most unpassioned individual, that talk of 717's to NJS is undeserved and inappropriate.
Yes - their staff are still employed, when others have lost jobs. Yes - they maintain a reasonable sense of job security during this uncertain time.
There is a certain sense of disbelief and obscenity, however, that against the backdrop of all of the above, another opportunity to further their careers and expectations, is again robbed by a contractor organisation - when the cost benefits to QF in doing so are minimal.