Hold_Short
is on it!
The pay is bad, and the work is relentless. They can't get enough crew. The FO's they recruit are only there to get enough 737 time so that they can go somewhere else, and not hanging around for an upgrade.
The pay over there is similar to what a Q400 pilot earns in Australia; some FO's worked out they're financially better off on the Q400 in SYD instead of being a 737 FO in AKL.
JC comes under "Associated Airlines and Services" which includes all the smaller bits of the group, such as Network, Eastern/Sunstate, JC, and the governance of Cobham 717's.
All managed by Teflon John. Anyone who's seen an EA negotiated with him at the helm knows that he's like. He's more than happy to negotiate conditions that ensures people leave. He can blame the future pilot exodus on other factors and get away with it. He was responsible for two major decisions in the past three years that has left Eastern/Sunstate reeling; yet he's still there.
JC management are probably happy with the return of two airframes: means they can crew the remaining ones easier. Kind of like when Qantas announced that "due to customer demand" the CNS-POM Q400 flights would be replaced by a BNE-POM 737. Absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that 40% of the Cairns base had resigned and they couldn't crew the flights anymore.