All the very best to those who took the package .
Looking more and more like they may have made a very smart move in leaving before Alan’s flotilla sinks !

What would be difficult for them, regardless of the payout, is they would not have known that the last time they finished work was the end of their airline career. Any plans they would have had for an orderly exit and one last flight to their favourite destination was gone. I realise that it is a first world problem in the disaster that is C19 but it is worth acknowledging that a significant number of pilots in Qantas and Virgin, with collectively tens of thousands of flying hours, will never again walk through the cockpit door to go flying.

Yes, I did the outbound leg of my last trip as the F/O was going on leave and requested the homeward sector to maximise his chances of maintaining recency at the end of his leave.
Little did we know we'd both be going on 'extended' leave and recency probably wasn't going to be a big issue in the whole scheme of things! :)

Who would have thought it would come to this.

I know a mate in a local Woolies down in Melbourne. FO works on the registers, Cabin Manager in the Deli, Captain in the Fruit and Veg. They are all actually enjoying the experiencing living only a few minutes from home.

it certainly exposes the lifestyle con of the industry

Pretty sure they are not enjoying the drastic reduction in hourly rate.

Does giving VR to everyone who asked for it now allow the company to legally go down the CR path?

Generally, the first step is to offer ER and VR. After that, if they still still haven't got the required numbers, then it's CR. LIFO is often used but in this case the agreement needs to be looked at carefully. The current situation is unprecedented and I doubt the union was seriously considering the possibility of mass layoffs occurring when it was drawn up.

Expensive retraining would be required to move A380 and B744 crews onto other fleets, and the next type down may be over crewed already. Do you then displace more pilots downwards or put the senior pilots onto the junior fleet ?

A few months ago I posted that QF was in a strong enough position to avoid redundancies, and unlike Virgin, would be able to survive this crisis relatively unscathed due to its solid financial state. Back in May, I doubt anyone expected this crisis to still be going on as the end of the year approaches.

Technically they only need to consider VR and other alternatives before going to CR.

But managing a surplus involves exhausting leave, RIN, LWOP, Secondment and a whole bunch of other measures before CR is used. The surplus will be in certain categories, namely the 747 as that definitely isn’t returning. That will probably be a RIN on paper as training cannot be conducted. Then the process of redeployment and displacement would occur. One could say the most junior pilots, 787 and 330 SO, will be some of the first to return to regular operation.

As management have repeatedly stated the current surplus will be managed by stand downs in the short/mid term and the VR and ER in the long term. As announced no need for further redundancies, Voluntary or otherwise.

They’ve stated mid year that their current cash flow at the time would see them survive until end 2021. Now with the domestic network starting to return, 50% by Xmas and most sometime next year that stretches that out. One could say as the domestic network is the main cash cow then that will sort out the long term issues. Another sign there’s no imminent financial problem is that the VRs have all been approved, I think if they were tight for cash they wouldn’t pay out packages they weren’t legally required to pay.

Sounds promising, hopefully by this time next year the bus driving pilots will be back in the air with a few stories to tell.

Ironic, if you add the VR and ER together it adds up to 238.
Boeing customer number is 38 for Qantas.
Many of those going would have many hours in a 238.

That's a coincidence, not irony. You've been hanging out with Alanis Morriset too long.

That made me laugh...thanks. Didn’t even think when I typed that.
Yes, I don’t mind ol’ Alanis!

Unconfirmed VR and ER numbers:

Aircraft: total (captain)

A380: 82 (55)
744: 66 (44)
A330: 67 (57)
787: 26 (23)

Cannot vouch for the accuracy.

A330 numbers are solid. I hadn’t heard any of the others.

That 50-odd A380 Captains didn't take VR/ER does surprise me.

Why would that be surprising? If a 380 Captain is 57 then he can't access his super until he is 59. So in two years time when the international flying starts getting sorted out he can resume his career on either the 787 or 330 if the 380's are not flying anymore. If the 380's do come back on line because demand requires it then he has another 5 years to top up the coffers. Remember the first rule of dealing with an emergency, sit on your hands.

If (and it’s a big if) Qantas bring back any A380s, they’re only bringing back a maximum of six.

There are 50ish A380 Captains under the age of 60. Some of them took VR. It’s the ones aged 61+ that didn’t take it that have me baffled.