I'm interested in what the pay will be like, I'd guess it will be about 85% of what an Air Nelson pilot gets for the same rank.
For that matter, what is the pay range for F/O's and Captains at Air Nelson?

Jetstar regionals in Oz next after this experiment...:hmm:

Gifted Q300s from Qantaslink and free Check and Training from them as well. Along with interest-free loans written off after 12 months. Jetstar NZ set the trend for all the JQ franchises in 2011 by being given a $15 million loan from Jetconnect and then having it written off after twelve months and booking the profit as the interest it would of paid if it had. Another winner!

Sorry but isn't this a good thing? Expansion in NZ means more jobs for local pilots. Cheap fares for locals to regional ports. Competition for Air NZ will bring down their prices.

I fail to see how this is anything other than a good thing.

Not everything is doom and gloom people.

they grew the nz market with the 320's enabling more bogans and students to fly more regularly. fleet size has since stalled, despite the amazing operation.

the dash8's will do exactly the same. another money soak for the qantas machine

contract will be horrific and just a paid job search, just like the 320 job has been for many.

hopefully some good news for any ex vincent guys still out there.

200K for Captain/120K for F/O (NZD) on the A320 is hardly "horrific".

i said has been, not is. dunno about nowadays

how much overtime you need for 200k?

So where does one apply? (to find out if it is horrific or merely average to poor...)

No overtime last year and my mate took home 195k with his ZQN supplement. Not exactly a bad contract.

This will be good for NZ, it will mean some recruitment onto a pretty good aircraft for a group of pilots who would be consigned to GA for the next few years. Jetstar NZ may not be a career airline but it has given 'lot's' of young guys and girls their start in aviation. Not everyone can work for AIR NZ mainline.

take home 195k is like 260k gross? my word. that is doing well.

agreed. more turbo prop jobs arent necessarily a bad thing.

Whats the point of talking about Jetstar's jet salaries? The Q300 crew will be far less paid! To gain any ground in this (about to commence) price battle Jetstar will only pay Air Nelson rates, if that!

Do you think there will be more A320s in NZ to complement the increased jetstar traffic (connections etc) ?


Will be interesting to see where they get their pilots. There is a fair bit of movement slated in the next 18 months,- Air NZ/link, Jetconnect virgin, possibly jetstar jet etc...


F/Os will probably never be difficult, they will only have to lower minimum entry requirements, plus there are plenty of Aussie pilots willing to come over and swamp the NZ industry if need be. But captains ?
Sure if they based in the regions such as Napier there may be a few from Air Nelson due their base closures but apart from that..... ?


I guess its all about the money and I don't count on there being plenty

What's the pay range at Air Nelson? I'd be willing to bet it will be a good shot short of their pay.

Ask Grant Kerr what the pay and conditions are like at Air NSN... Pretty sure he'll remember.

Who's Grant Kerr?

Former head of Air Nelson ( and I think Eagle before that? ), now the head of Jet* NZ.

Sorry, it was a bad choice of words. His Gross pay was $195k for the last tax year and he just emailed and said in that 12 months he did 496 hours. So sounds pretty good to me.

As to the question of where they will get their Captains, I imagine this will bring a smile to the face of quite a few Kiwis currently flying similar equipment for PX.

A pity there won't be a Nelson base........

Unless they are already on B scale in PX the pay cut will be significant.

But I guess there are quite a number of Air Nelson F/O ready and keen for a command upgrade.

I would be surprised if the AOC holders risk mitigation tool spat out a result of " very low risk" when the input was ' lets hire first officers and upgrade them to Captain at the recruitment stage'.
With that in mind I'd wager that all of the Captains recruited will have previously held part 121 commands and most probably on the Dash.