Not a bad idea...except that Air NZ has purchased the ATRs off lease which means they're commited to them for a while (years) yet. If you wanted to dump a fleet, it would be smarter to keep them on lease and then just not renew it. Selling/disposing of aircraft is much harder.

Besides, the Q300 is now middle-aged technology with the production line being wound up and the Q400 still has teething problems.

If Bombardier would hurry up and sort out the Q400, then get the shortened Q400 up and running as the Q300 replacement, we'd have ideal machines for NZ.

Absolutely, I was purely looking objectively at the business, and the sad fact is, it is more labour intensive than it needs to be.

I woundn't be citing NZ housing figures (or any NZ figures for that matter) with reference to economic recovery, but we'll have to wait and see who's right, I won't bore you with the details.

One pilot group will never happen. Would you risk grounding the entire regional network when the boys threaten to down tools at negotiation time?

Neither would I.

You guys will be right GK is a good sort :ok:

Gotta second warren9....... Air NZ Link as such will never be a company. 1x HR manager, 1x GM, 1x Payroll officer, 3 Fleet managers etc etc would make sense but im sure politics will prevail before commonsense which should have been applied a decade ago.

No not really if the info I hear is correct.

No probs swapping across from what I have heard though I'm not sure that many do. I hear it's partly to do with the generally quicker progression at Eagle and the fact that an FO upgrading to Captain at Eagle does not go back to year one salary like happens at Air Nelson.

Yes Air Nelson pays more but I've been told that once you have a bit of time in at Eagle it's not worth going onto the bottom of the list at Air Nelson you never catch up to what you would have got at Eagle. If you were to start at both on the same day Air Nelson would be a no brainer choice from a salary point of view. However if you start at Eagle first by a short while then the choice isn't quite so clear cut and eventually I've been told it's better to stay at Eagle.

An Eagle FO with a few O/Ns will actually earn more than an F/O at Nelson

in the hand (net) FO's get round about 1650 F/N with one a week and a few bases have reg ON's now.

The progression is faster as well. The bad old days of Eagle management all being wankers has more or less gone because it is easy to keep out of their way. Also checks are ALOT easier than they used to be so if she has the choice to go to Eagle now rather than spend another winter in GA tell her to GO FOR IT we need all the crew we can get!

As long as you can put up with pax complaining about how small/noisy/hot/cold the 1900 is, Eagle is a good place to be :ok:

With Air NSN you get an F/A, coffee, autopilot, APU and aircon on ground with good bases, decent pay and a good bunch of people:D

Air NZ recruiting guys have been reported as saying Eagle guys do **** loads better in the sim and through their training, no doubt due to the hand flying.

The sort of people who feel the need to have a coffee every sector brought the them by the F/A, are also the sort of people who sit around the tables in the crew room, instead of the couches, and don't join the conversation with the eagle boys!

Or the Vincent boys. Oh, that's because there aren't any left to talk to.. :(

theres still one or two Steve..still practising approaches to stay current...on a bicycle no less!!!

:E

I have heard that generally they dont do that well in the sim because they are not used to the automation.

News flash, you dont hand fly fly a jet.

In fact the eagle guy I did my training with got blasted in the sim for never shutting up about, eagle this, eagle that, at eagle we used to do it this way... Yawn.

Insecure much?
 

Oh please 6080, "feel the need"?....just because the option is there, hardly means there is a "need", its a nice extra...dont knock it till you try it fella:E:D

That last part is quite a stretch...:rolleyes: Could it be that during your short break in the crew room, one might not feel like talking to someone to whom one doesnt know? Nah, thats just too much like common sense....:ugh:

Nosey
PS my willy is bigger than yours too......

Grow up boys
 

All this Eagle vs Air Nelson b/s! What a load of crap.... "we hand fly, so are better pilots", "we get coffee", "our o/n allowance is this", "we have a F/A"...blah blah blah.:ugh:

Are we not all doing the same job? Grow up!

I can't even believe I bothered to write this...

Donk

Nosey I can back you up on that!! :eek::eek: Python

I think that almost everyone would agree that Air Nelson IS a better job than Eagle for various reasons, however that does not mean that Eagle is a bad job. There is always somewhere better isn't there.

At Eagle you get paid quite good money (for what you do) and get pretty good terms and condtions to boot. I think that given todays enviroment where things have slowed down a lot, especially those trying to get out of GA, you'd have to be very brave or very patient to not go for Eagle given that they are pretty short staffed right now and surely some interviews are just round the corner, when the crew levels at Air Nelson are still pretty good, and they may potentially not higher for quite some time.

Each to their own though, everyone has different circumstances.

I think I know what your doing with your hands dude and it aint flying. Last time I heard that story the airline was cathay Pacific. They also come in handy if you need the oil checked. :E