Oddly enough
Re: Iron Bar vs: IsDon and *Lancer*
What happens, what can be proven to happen, and arrangements conducted behind closed doors are three very different things.
More rumours from Qlink in 2007/2008:
J* was recruiting and plenty from Qlink were applying. The then CP of Qlink was concerned about the flow of Qlink pilots to J* and appealed to Qantas to stop employing Qlink pilots at J*, as it was contributing to our crew shortages.
There was no way that Qantas was going to threaten the success/growth of J* and the CP was told "bad luck".
But...
They worked out an arrangement where J* told the Qlink management who had been successful, and Qlink management then asked if certain pilots (such as Captains, Training captains, etc.) could be given later start dates and that other pilots (FO's, "trouble makers", etc) could be given earlier start dates.
This also backfired as many of the people who'd been given later start dates got start dates with Virgin in the meantime and went there, again resulting in loss of group corporate knowledge.
Again, rumours only but...
DIVOSH!