Wunwing sums up the stupidity. I can explain the thinking.
I've also tried this approach and come up puzzled by the management thought process.The Qantas group in the past has benefitted greatly by holding on to their skilled workforce using an actual or implied seniority and good T&Cs.They now seem hell bent on destroying both those levers.
Years ago I was at a meeting for LH Tech crew a week after we got a new CEO.It was at a time when experienced B747 drivers were pretty thin on the ground and a well known Asian carrier regularly poached them as they turned 55 and could pull out their super. A bit into his opening,Mr CEO made the statement that went roughly like, anybody who was in a company for more than 5 years was not the kind of person the Company needed. The CP who was sitting next to him went ashen and at the end of the presentation it was explained by Mr CP that the CEO didn't mean pilots to be included in his comments. However he had lost us forever at that stage because he obviously didn't understand the business he was in.
A few years later and I was presenting at the Productivity Commission hearing on Deregulation in Aviation. The subject of LAMEs came up and I ended up with a raging arguement with the same CEO. I was attempting to argue that in our industry experience is everything. My example was of the old procedure where a defect was called into say SYD Engineering by the FE. Engineering would call back with a few quick requests for observations and tests. The aircraft would be met by a LAME and an apprentice assigned to the defect prior to arrival. Between them they had everything needed and the aircraft normally left on time. Under the new system they were met by a much cheaper AME or 3 who knew nothing about the defect and the aircraft left an hour late with the defect as a hold item.Which is the cheaper staff member? According to current wisdom its the low paid AME. It appears with this debacle, this thinking is now flowing on to the Pilot group.
I can see no future for any airline who sees this way of management as valid.
This thinking derives from narcissism, and as I have posted before, narcissistic managers attract other narcissistic managers to work for them because only narcissists will lick the required arse cheek as required. Qantas, with its infinite gradations of status, seniority and associated perquisites is a narcissists paradise: "Going to London next month old chap? I'll get you an upgrade to First, think nothing of it!"
The trouble is that narcissists believe their own bullshyte - they really do think the world revolves around them, the closest way I can describe how they think of "ordinary people" - meaning workers, is a little like dogs that talk. Pat them, feed them, but if they get out of line and don't do exactly as told, have them put down immediately.
What that means is that too a narcissist experience isn't important, I mean how could some little man in greasy overalls know more than you? How could a pilot dare tell you anything that is at variance with what that nice young man from Boeing or Airbus told you?
"Modern technology makes the old ways of thinking obsolete"....and you believe it...and start making smart cracks about "legacy airlines" and presumably legacy employees, who are long past their "use by" date and will be got rid of as soon as it is expedient.
This is the trouble. They hate experience because it shows them up as the know nothing amateurs that they are. Their response is to remove the experience, then no one in the organisation knows enough to point out the flaws in their stupid schemes.
As for the shareholders, narcissists don't care.