Would it be cheaper to close the airline, make all pilots redundant and then start again, rehiring those that are needed rather than retraining hundreds of pilots to different positions?

100% correct & now the future is looking eerily so alike.
Big egos & not answerable to anyone.

Politically unacceptable with the Government owning 52% of the airline.

You’d have to do a TD/PD anyway when you came back, maybe even a type rating, so it seems a pointless requirement to keep your IR current. I don’t actually think the company would care.

ALPA has said all along there will be redundancies but the goal is to minimise the number.
Nobody will be paid WB salary to fly a 320. A fleet change means a salary change.

The CEA of the majority of the AirNZ Jet pilots (900 of the 1096 current jet pilots) has a 10yr redundancy re-hire policy in seniority order. So you can't make them all redundant and start again, cherry picking the qualified and current people for the fleets you plan to operate because people need to be rehired in the order they were let go.

Also making someone redundant, and then hiring someone else for the same position in less than 18mths is illegal in NZ if I recall correctly.

You'd have to wind up "AirNZ" and start "Teal2020" or the like and start a fresh with everything and everyone..... something that even Simon Bridges would recognise and give the side eye to.

Sad to see this happening to such a great airline to fly with. Hopefully we all get through this period and the economy bounces back as soon as. Maybe it is better to take the redundancy payout and then come back hopefully at a later date than LWOP.

Quick question. Under my EBA we can’t be displaced from our Fleet, base or rank by any person who has lost their position as the result of a fleet decommissioning. Regardless of that persons position on the GDOJ list. Is there no similar provision within the AirNZ agreement?

Nope, last on the list, first off. It's going to be expensive to get everyone into their new seat.

That is correct

That leaves a pretty small window, we only have one more cycle of aircraft design before we go single pilot and full automation throughout the narrow body/wide body industry. That’s 25 years tops before we only need half the pilot numbers we currently have.

You are assuming that there is going to be the money and the market for a new aircraft design. Then you are assuming that the manufacturers are going to launch a whole new design that will be single pilot. Boeing and Airbus are going to be licking their wounds for a while before embarking on a project that will have the potential to see them go bankrupt if they get it wrong. You only get one chance to recover from an A380 or 737 Max.

25 years you say? That technology has been avaliable for decades, it's the appetite for it that has and will lack.

Is there a clause that mentions exceptional circumstances or unforeseen event? We have one in ours and in layman’s terms it means.
Company will do as it pleases as we are in a fight for our survival and to hell with your GDOJ LIST. The cost of retraining everyone and downgrading is prohibitive. We will make redundancies as we see fit within the fleets to manage cost.
I can’t see them doing it from the bottom up personally.
It’s going to be a mammoth task for the unions involved but I can’t see what leverage they have over the company when it’s receiving a bailout to the tune of $1B and owned 52% by the government. They will want results. That may mean some seniors pilots end up on the chopping block.
I would be looking at it as no one is safe.
Myself personally am stood down, not expecting a bright future so am dusting off the steel cap boots and getting my hands dirty. Nothing else for it.
I wish you all luck. Have a lot of friends at AirNz and it’s an absolute shambles what is happening worldwide to our industry.
Take care of one another and hopefully in a couple years time we all hear each other in the air again!
Best Wishes

They've already stated publicly they won't be using "exceptional circumstances" clauses.

Wouldn't LIFO dis-proportionally affect the most needed pilots? For example I'd assume the 320's pilots are junior to the 777s, but the 320 may be in more demand. Wouldn't both the cost and complexity of retraining the most senior pilots onto the needed fleets due to making the most junior pilots redundant be prohibitive?

Correct, but thats how the agreement is written.

I wouldnt be susprised if in the shorter term the widebody fleet picked up some of the shorthaul work with a drastically reduced frequency vs that offered with the narrow body fleet operating. One AKL/SYD or two AKL/CHC a day anyone? Strange times ahead.

The 777 and 787 are already used on trans Tasman, and QF use the A330. Everything will depend on volumes. If Jetstar and VA drop off trans Tasman then the legacy carriers can pick up their seats and it would make sense to use existing assets rather than having the aircraft sat on the ground, especially if the LH market is slower to pick up

[QUOTE=Lapon;10746314]Correct, but thats how the agreement is written.


Irrespective of what is written into the agreement, I'm not sure there is enough goodwill among the taxpaying public at large, many of whom a doing it very hard right now, to subsidise a lifestyle to which a senior WB pilot has come to expect.

That may be true, however the contract overrides public sentiment.