That's a somewhat pompous statement isn't it? :rolleyes:

Not everyone has an interest in the two majors, and vice versa.
The guys/girls at the Aliiances etc are absent from the seniority lists of the majors resulting in a career opportunity for someone else.
It would be rather short sighted to suggest every pilots career would be more progressive with VA and QF the only shop in town, more so if you hold that belief from the luxury of already being employed by VA/QF.

I agree that it is the customer that misses out, but I dont think that's as high of a priority to the airlines as the marketing departments would have you believe

Laughing all the way to the bank. One of the smartest run companies around. Masters of cross hire, been doing it for years. In the mining boom it was Perth, these days its Brisbane. There are nearly more Alliance aircraft in Brisbane than Virgin aircraft. They also know how to run a bargain when buying F100's LOL!!

Another interesting point is that their conditions are much lower than QF/VA, yet their crew survey results run by ALAEA Fed Sec are consistently way above the majors. Go figure.

Busily yet quietly picking up all the RPT the Ejet did. At the end of the day its not crew cost difference but aircraft cost difference. 1 mil vs 25 mil is always going to win. Thats why the is taking place. Get used to it as it will continue on for as long as the F100 is flying. Need to scrap all those job and career protection clauses as they're pointless. Any VA new joiner that wants a quick jet command should join VARA as their flying will only grow, the numbers say so.

Not sure if true but I heard the other day that VAA B737 do less ML-SY runs than they did 10 years ago.

Apologies for adding to the thread drift!

More QF/VA pilots might win, but pilots who had been rejected or for whatever reason missed those boats would in turn loose, with the net benefit to the greater pilot community being zero.

I would go further to say that a good number of those F100 runs could never justify a 737 service in the first place and the size of pie would simply shrink.

Au contraire, since the deregulation of the industry in 1978 airline management have repeatedly shrunken the pie. At least with regard to viable career path.
Pursuit of a lower unit labour cost and 'leverage' over workforce was the centre piece of management strategy for decades. The key weapon in this pursuit was subsidiary and out sourced employment.

Whilst the sectors you refer to may never have justified a 737 it is really a question of what the management focus is.
Using your existing pilot body, keeping the operation in-house and utilising the career and seniority trajectory was one approach..

The other path, very well worn is the use of outsourced contractor workforce with hopefully far less union involvement.


One may posit that it all depends what the contract says.

I know a few people who won't be moving, I think Air north and Alliance just got a very high number of suitably qualified applicants..

Best of luck to all the Cobham DRW 717 crew, hope you find DRW based or good commuting jobs.

Virgin 777 SO and QF Long Haul jobs would be commutable if that helps.

Good point Nothisguy.
Airnorth are very short crewed & haven't been able to crew their whole network, nor can Alliance as they've been depending on call-in payments.
Those displaced crew have a plethora of choices is this pilot's market, both in Australia and overseas if Cobham are stupid enough to "let them go" (the latest management speak isn't it?) instead of allowing them to transfer to another segment of the company.

But the cadet scheme will fix it all.

The Cairns base is closing?

Why can you add the Cairns base to that list?

Why cairns?

Until the next round of Qantas intakes...

It appears the Cairns base is downsizing as of March next year in line with the recently announced route restructures. I've heard up to 8 flight crew will be asked to relocate along with similar numbers of cabin crew...