"I want a sword"

So do I, but I'd settle for a giant Aeroflot style hat. And dangly epaulets, as worn by potentates everywhere. Better that than looking like an impotentate, after all.

Australopithecus, as for the surplus available to crew the B787s, I'm pretty sure there will be no overall change in crews required as the B787s will simply replace outgoing airframes from Q. So there will still be a surplus :(

I really don't know. But speculating for a moment about 35 787-9s replacing eight 330s and twelve 747s leaves a net 15 more airframes. With 100 retirements over the next three years that soaks up the surplus. That then becomes the general target for fleet planning this decade. Anything less than 35 new planes means more VR and an aging pilot group.

An aging pilot group has its own attendant issues. American hired in late 2013 for the first time since 9/11. Their median age in 2013 was in the mid-50s. That is an unhealthy demographic for obvious reasons. Anything over ~43 is an indicator of both past and future hard times. Every time there is a discontinuity in the hiring wave there follows a schism between the past and the future: all institutional memory gets truncated to the immediate past only, and sometimes values get...modernised.

The answer to the original question appears to be 'yes' if some behind the scenes actions are any indication. Let's hope SARS Mk II, Ebola or WWIII don't get in the way! :ok:

Hey Keg

Would you please enlighten us?

The recruitment team is being put back together.

I guess that's what he is talking about.

Why would QF recruit? Aren't we over by many pilots? Plus LWOP pilots.
Any idea when this recruitment will take place?

Indeed. When I fly over the South China Sea later this week I plan on politely asking the Chinese Navy and any USAF aircraft on frequency to please stop the chest beating....Qantas' 787 order and thus my promotion depend on it:) Can't do much on the Russia front though other than:=

The numbers (excl LWOP) are not too far from being right. Yes there are some categories assigning leave, but there are also categories where there is a definite under resourcing.

When/if expansion hulls come to mainline, the 'suck' from training will be immense (there are so many more usable crew when the music stops) and QF will be short of crew. With new jets potentially arriving from mid 2017, people will start to move off existing types very late in 2016, which means recruitment probably need to start vetting people early next year.

Oh great ,
just as it all starts looking rosy again you come across the following downer.






Asteroid Impact Apocalypse 2015: Mass Anxiety As Conspiracy Theorists Predict Catastrophe

lol. There's normally one in every crowd ut it seems we've picked up two with brown hornet and blown. :D :ok: