You are are never going to reform legacy carriers without confronting the issue instead of costing millions in shareholders funds to wage a war against your own staff! 1980s IR in 2015! Air New Zealand has done it and maybe Qantas needs to go broke! They are going the right way about it!

The Cobham 717 OTP is rubbish, particularly on the East Coast, in the very markets where OTP matters most. Why would you then reward Cobham with a new type?

I've also heard the next Regional Jet size aircraft will be crewed "in house". Maybe a bit of wishful thinking on my behalf but you never know :ok:

A bunch of 737-700's makes sense to me. And on the CBR route have some specially configured with extra rows of J class as per the old 737-400's.

Pilot (or any other employee's) salary is not the defining matrix when Qantas or any other company decide to return an operation 'in-house' from a previous outsourced contract. Maybe Cobham's cost vs performance does not produce the desired outcome.

“You are are never going to reform legacy carriers without confronting the issue”

You mean sitting down with the staff and asking politely for labor reform? 100 years of deeply entrenched inflexibility is difficult to change.

Air New Zealand employees had labor reform forced upon them as a result of the renationalization agreement following the Ansett collapse. There was no “confronting” of the issue at all.

"Pilot (or any other employee's) salary is not the defining matrix when Qantas or any other company decide to return an operation 'in-house'"

lower labor costs are one of the few ways in which airlines can gain competitve advantage. Pilots alone, maybe not. However QF are saddled with high labor costs in all departments and yes labor costs when viewed as a whole part of the business do drive where resources are allocated.

The Professor: Since you are obviously management, how about reducing management costs to those of competitors? No?

Network will be rebranded Qantas regional and take over the 717 and replacements. The replacements? There's a strong rumour they are getting A319s. There's a big backlog of A320s that need to go somewhere.

I'm also hearing Neos will replace mainline 737s. That way capacity can be spread around the group as required on short notice.


I have heard this from a very reliable source.

And not duplicating management positions is another. Do airlines in Australia really need numerous AOC's to run one brand with all the multiples of bureaucracy that come with it?

It's funny that airlines of all colours seem to think it's OK to fatten up management with duplicated roles yet are always running around looking for 'savings' from the staff.

You mean like the 2-dozen "base manager" jobs just announced in QF?

“The Professor: Since you are obviously management, how about reducing management costs to those of competitors? No?”

Ha, well actually I am way too retired to be “management”. Just a fly fisherman now.

And I have never worked for QF.

But contrary to the opinion of most pilots, the cost of middle to senior level execs is nowhere near as high as you think. MOST execs would love the pay and benefits of an A380 captain and trimming their relatively small numbers or salary would not alter the bottom line much at all.

Placing the remaining 33000 employees of the company on par with the wider industry would achieve a lot though.

Well Professor,

A380 Captains make up about 5% of the mainline pilot group so it's not a good benchmark. Sure it makes a good water cooler discussion with the Jetstar HR staff after comparing their F11 first class staff travel trips.

Most A380 Captains would have to have about 25-40 years of service in Qantas to obtain command there. Doubt many in the upper Echelons of QF management are even that old.

After the QF32 incident the ATSB attributed experience as a major factor that saved the aircraft and its $414 million dollar list price. Wonder how Air Asia would have gone in a similar situation? But of course, "everyone can fly" these days.

Can't wait to see the annual results in February. Analysts are saying a billion dollars profit this year and two billion the year after.

Guessing our CEO's options granted at 80c must be looking good at around $10,000,000-$15,000,000.

Not bad considering the heavy lifting has been done by the sustained fuel price drop, as well as the fall in the AUD from $1.15 to 0.77c.
Competitors are pulling out capacity with the weak dollar and the yields are improving too. Foreigners are increasing their inward travel to Australia as the dollar stays low.
Doom and gloom has passed folks. Looking forward to seeing with time the benefit of the exposure to the plummeting fuel price on the bottom line.

Cant see the rush in signing a new deal unless it is reasonable.

Worst case it's an 18 month freeze(still a pay cut in real terms) like every other work group in Qantas such as the engineers, Short Haul Pilots, Cabin crew, TWU, ASU etc etc etc etc

I wonder what the bonus payments will be this year and the year after?

Well Professor,

If you want to place the 33,000 Qantas workers wages to on par with "industry standards", I suggest you start with a grossly overpaid CEO by Airline industry standards, and a Miss Wirth, who i believe earns over a million dollars, more than the CEOs of ANA and JAL combined!!!

And this rot is not confined to Qantas, as some of Virgin Australias senior execs, not just Borghetti, got some very nice pay rises last year, some in the vicinity of 200,000 plus!!

I heard the non-operational staff / airframe ratio in QF was close to double the industry average also. Can anyone confirm this?

Transition Layer "The Cobham 717 OTP is rubbish, particularly on the East Coast, in the very markets where OTP matters most. Why would you then reward Cobham with a new type? "

Is it!!?? Not what the numbers say... Most delays are from 'outside influences'. From what i've been told...

But never let the truth get in the way of a good bagging!!

TL is right on. Again, the CEO said it for all to hear!

It's no secret that the 717 operation on the East coast has horrible OTP. Several days each week see 1 or 2 aircraft u/s resulting in the loss of J class in/out of CBR when they need to sub in an all Y-class 717 or send the Dash/Alliance to GLT/ROK/MKY.

With the continued softening of the QLD market, the 717 will shortly be too much aircraft up there. QLink have been able to sub in Q300's recently to cover for the 717 the loads have been that low. The new schedule sees most of the ROK flying back on the Q400 already.

The punters aren't happy and they're making it known...

i'm sure when you take out the cancelled and recovered flights, the OTP is great Blumoon. But as someone who see it day in and day out, it's far from it.

How did a thread about a possible "B scale" for Qantas long haul operating the 787-9 turn into a thread about Cobham's contract for operating the 717 under Qantaslink?

Did I miss something or are the two topics not related?

“Most A380 Captains would have to have about 25-40 years of service in Qantas to obtain command there. Doubt many in the upper Echelons of QF management are even that old.”

The length of service of pilots compared to managers has no relevance in the debate.


“Wonder how Air Asia would have gone in a similar situation? But of course, "everyone can fly" these days.”

Again, not relevant to the debate. Outdated work practices and uncompetitive labor costs at QF have nothing to do with the safety record of poorly managed airlines in the third world.

“ATSB attributed experience as a major factor that saved the aircraft”

Fantastic then that there was such an experienced crew on hand, very fortunate. However, the level of experience of said crew is not related to their pay structure is it? A pilot can still offer experience and expertise while receiving a more competitive salary in line with the wider industry.

“Doom and gloom has passed folks.”

Maybe for this week but the global economy is softening, indicators such as the BDI paint a very gloomy picture and currency markets can and will turn on a dime, so to speak.

“grossly overpaid CEO by Airline industry standards, and a Miss Wirth, who i believe earns over a million dollars, more than the CEOs of ANA and JAL combined!!!”

Unlike legacy pilots, CEO compensation and benefits are subject to market forces, what will the shareholders pay to retain the person in that role. AJ is paid exactly in line with his value to the company, nothing more and nothing less. He is paid more than some in the industry and less than many.

He is paid more than everyone in the industry bar no one! $2.2 billion write down that should have begun in 2006 but someone wanted to sell the company! Fixing his own mistakes, costing shareholders $1.6 billion (according to the former CFO)in the Jetstar misadventure! By the way how's JQ Hong Kong going? Australian Shareholders need to do a bit of due diligence. BTW he had a chance he had the chance to fix "outdated work practices and uncompetitive labor costs" and he blew close to $700 million doing it and what happened, nothing! Negotiations is a two way street! :ugh: If Qantas had the Southwest ratio of staff/aircraft then it would employ 17000 people. The thing is operational people fly aircraft and make money. Management in this outfit have lost it!