Kaptin M
Dj started operations at a time when Qantas & Ansett were still operating the exact same aircraft types at
much higher rates of pay. As such, there was little incentive (if any) for qualified guys to leave either of these airlines & move to DJ.
Luckily for DJ they were able to find a group of very experienced senior 737 pilots overseas who were willing to do pretty much anything to get back home - even if it meant taking a huge pay reduction, with no real forseeable increase in wages & conditions.
Junior guys new to type (i.e freshly paid for rating) are easy to attract with pretty much any rate of pay - as we can observe. However, without qualified senior C&T personnel, those very same junior guys are of very little use - they can't suddenly become senior captains with a fresh rating. As such, had the senior guys held out for decent wages & conditions, they might have held some bargaining power. (After all, with no senior C&T captains, the airline couldn't have got up & running. Having caved from the very beginning however, they effectively had no bargaining power whatsoever.
Kaptin M - How do you suppose DJ could have trained their crews to the required standards without the support of the senior fellows...? Where were all of the senior 737 C&T guys going to come flocking in from...?
If what you have proposed below is even in the slightest in any way, shape or form representative of how the bargaining process did occcur - then I
WILL hold the AFAP at least partly responsible for the current state of the industry. I'm not moaning & groaning about how conditions were pre'89 when all pilots were represented by the AFAP - I'd be more than happy for them to go back to 1998 levels, as they were
before the introduction of DJ (especially in light of the re-emergence Australia's current 'back to the future' airline duopoly...)
