DJembe56,
You make some good points but if the B717 is bought in to replace the 146 then I can't see Qlink having to much trouble finding crews based on the west coast. And while your correct about maintenance hangars and engineering facilities these could be gradually introduced on the west coast and could probably be even contracted out if required initially. However I fail to see how these costs would be higher the the cost of initially setting up a new type. "time is money" and the time it would take for NJS to take crews off line retrain them in the USA for 5 weeks bring them back with Boeing Pilots who get paid a s*@t load to be out here train them on routes (no pax allowed) with CASA watching for a couple of hundred hours. ground your 146's while this is happening because you don't have enough crew to operate them, meaning QF have to come in and take over some of your routes which they couldn't make a profit on before (thats why they gave them to you in the first place) and thats just the pilots.
Flight Attendants, engineers, OPs staff will all require training whose going to do their job while their off training?
It Costs a lot of Money. A lot more than setting up some basic maintenance and expanding on crews you already have. new routes one flight and thats it. That is why if your in Adelaide today you will see a nice new shinny B717 paying you a visit, should already be there.
Miss Behaviour, Impulse staff only get staff travel on Impulse flights so I can't imagine the cost to Qantas would be much more than one person eating two meals on a flight.
BTW, I'm not saying you guys are wrong and/or stupid I'm just expressing my opinion from having seen the operation start up a few years ago.