Maybe its the demographic they are after-without obvious discrimination!. They want under 30's with limited experience but who will give them a longer return on investment. In a Seniority based airline such as Qf, experience itself has zero value due to the nature of the system combined with the internal belief that they know better, so any previous experience is without value. It also works for the company rather than the workforce as it creates a captive pilot market, except for the few lucky enough to have timing that allows LWOP so they can go and gain some actual real world experience in far more challenging environments. If experience was valued a new hire with experience would expect a window seat similar to what BA does, whilst the inexperienced would start as S/O's.