So the latest on JQ “surplus” Perth and Newcastle crews seem to be (in a nut shell), give us 2 years of a concessional EBA and we might not make those crews redundant. Can’t say I’m surprised but seriously can this guy give an already very stressed workforce a break.

Why have they ever needed 3 X ceo?
Maybe the title entitles them to more pay without being scrutinised by shareholders etc.
On the point of having large cash reserves,seems contradictory to go & mortgage every aircraft you can & then do an equity raising,paying interest on borrowed money & pushing the share price lower is an interesting way to save money.

Try 5

Andrew David - Domestic and Freight
Tino - International
Olivia - Loyalty
Gareth Evans - Jetstar
And Alan Joyce, CEO of CEO's.

https://www.qantas.com/au/en/qantas-...eadership.html

The more the merrier!
We been everywhere men.

https://taipeitimes.com/News/biz/arc.../26/2003738867

Hard times still ahead.

I do expect some equity to be destroyed during a pandemic, the outflow of $40m a week is testament to that. There’s nothing you, I or AJ can do about that.

Struth 40m a week, as a comparison during Ansett's last years they were losing 7m a week. The value of money in 20 years. I realise different era.

Thanks for the update from the Taipei Times. Very insightful.

There is a difference to outgoings of $40m a week to losses of $7m a week.

Salary costs alone were abut $86m a week(4,5bn a year) before covid - thats before you take into account the other costs like office rent, aircraft, overheads etc.

There’s also a CEO of Associated Airlines and Services?

What is the real number of redundancies here? I think 250 is well short. JQ have already threaten of mass lay offs Given a quoted email from the union which will happen even if the new EBA is signed end of July. QF surely will have to make more cuts to its international and domestic 737 crew.
Now that VA have very deep pockets with Bain I would think they will come out smaller but stronger than QF

why?
shorthaul? How so? Rotating stand down with low mgh.... why cuts?
long haul? Indefinite stand down costs little.
redundency costs alot.

Have to agree with that!
When i first saw the figure of 220-250 pilots it seemed very low,with 12 380s & 6 747s gone the figure for those 2 fleets alone would exceed the numbers they are quoting & then theres 330s,787s & the jq 787s,just doesnt add up.

QF SH pilots are forecast to all be stood up by the end of this year. There will be no changes to SH. In fact, there has been some discussion about allowing additional LH crew to be trained onto 737 temporarily to save some jobs. Obviously that’s a fair way off and any change would need to be voted on by the SH crew. This would be a mechanism to save junior crew, not to allow old mate 4 eng capt to extend his career for a few more years.

Someone in the webinar made the comment of a LWOP would count towards the 190 total. Well not really. If 190 pilots from the 380 take LWOP then 2-3 years down the track we have the exact same problem again (minus retirements).

Given forecast there is no need for 2019 crew levels for 2021 operation people are forgetting the worse has not hit the economy yet, unemployment is close to 8% now this will be worse after job keeper ends, also there is no prospect of borders opening up anytime soon especially WA, Tuesday we will find out about QLD but wouldn't hold my breath then those 15,000 numbers AJ said gets re worked. When we go into 2021 this will be scary. NT I commend their approach making everyone sign a declaration rest of the country should be adopting this maybe this would get things moving quicker.
Stand down with roster on roster off does cost more than people allow. You have AL, LSL accrual then you have EPs, sims then paxing for sims then a hotel room human factors, DGs, cost of an ASIC cost of parking the list goes on more than you think. So the 250 is most likely just what Jetstar will do, how many LH and SH pilots will QF fund with a down turn of pax numbers. Just saying 250 is very far from the truth.

costs the company nothing (saves actually), kicks the can down the road til maybe theyre needed. Good (band aid) solution but not sure how many lwop's there'll be

You tell us. What figure would you be satisfied with?

You have been provided a figure with reasons behind it. If you call bulls!t then I suspect no figure that is given will be adequate.
There wouldn't be a QF/J*/VA pilot in the bottom third or quarter of their respective lists that isn't looking over their shoulder right now.

I doubt they’ll offer them 737 slots.
At the moment those LHaulers approaching 65 can’t rely on a 737 slot to keep going.
If there isn’t one there they can’t take it.
I bet the company will want that demographic to take the VR package.
Especially seeing that most of them are on the 74 and 380.
The bigger issue is how long can they keep them stood down.
I doubt a reasonable person would expect that to be three years?

I didn’t see any such email, unless you’re referring to the NZ operation communication regarding stand down provisions being included into their agreement.

So far the JQ pilot redundancies are around half a dozen F/Os from NZ and none from Australia. PER and NTL closing but those aircraft being redeployed to MEL & BNE.

Yes, Virgin will now have deep pockets, but they will likely be a more rational competitor with Bain steering them to a mid market carrier. In the Aus domestic market we already have Tiger gone, VA reducing to 40-50 737s, VA A330s gone.

My reading of the situation is that most of the shrinking of the domestic market will be absorbed by a downsized Virgin, and QF group should return to a similiar capacity of 2019 by mid 2021. But that’s only my opinion, I could be wrong.

ECAM I think Jetstar is in line for a big hit too, a lot of aircraft used to do Bali, Tasman and the pacific, and not from NZ. Just by numbers if you say just a fifth of the narrow body fleet was flying internationally that’s a lot of crew that have no work. It’s no use transferring airframes from PER to MEL if their flying doesn’t exist anymore. This is a time when all unions needs to work with management to try and save the careers of those near the bottom of the airlines respective lists. There’s just not enough flying domestically in Australia for the number of pilots, in any of the major airlines.

Respective unions have a massive job ahead of them to try and keep redundancies down.

The majority of Tasman flying and all Pacific flying is done by NZ crew.

That leaves about 5 extra NB frames that did the Bali flying, however we were 2 frames short prior to COVID due to the aircraft sent to Network with no decrease in the JQ domestic schedule and about 50 pilots short, about to embark on a big round of recruitment with many guys flying close to 100 hrs a month.

The official word from GE was no pilot redundancies from the Aus operation.

The company hasn’t been shy about letting JQ Asia and JQNZ know about redundancies so if there were plans in the works to let Aussie guys go they would’ve let us know. But of course plans can change.

Also worth noting is that while the broader QF group is having 20% of their workforce slashed, the figure for JQ is 6% (mainly head office).

It seems the biggest threat is closing more smaller bases and transferring the flying to the big 3.

Who’s going to take LWOP? There’s no jobs to go to this time (except maybe the guys that can get back into the airforce).

Obviously the company loves the idea because it gets people off the books for a few years without having a cough up the cash for redundancy. Having your cake and eating it too.

Any 747 or A380 pilot over the age of 63 should be wishing for a VR offer. Even if the company offered just the leave they would accrue over the next 12-24 months whilst stood down and to cash out their current leave balance, with the tax rates applied for redundancy the crew member would be well in front of what they’d get otherwise just sticking it out on stand down.

Anything above that number that AIPA can negotiate is a win for those crew.

Of course it depends on whether one thinks those crew can be kept stood down beyond March next year, whether the international borders are open and so on. So still a bit of a mess to work through.

One thing for sure. There are no winners in all of this. Everyone loses. Some will just lose less than others.

I don’t know Keg, if you had a hand sanitizer or toilet paper business you would be doing ok, although it is a flooded market....

QF to resume TT 20 July 2020
 

Qantas plans to resume Trans-Tasman services from July 20, 2020 with the following:
Brisbane – Auckland 14 weekly
Brisbane – Christchurch 7 weekly
Brisbane – Queenstown 3 weekly
Melbourne – Auckland 27 weekly
Melbourne – Christchurch 5 weekly
Melbourne – Queenstown 3 weekly
Melbourne – Wellington 7 weekly
Sydney – Auckland 34 weekly
Sydney – Christchurch 7 weekly
Sydney – Queenstown 14 weekly
Sydney – Wellington 14 weekly

from routesonline

Any LONG HAUL pilot over the age of 63 would be wishing for it. Occasional stand up's over the next few years at best compared to a clean break and a yet to be determined package??

Sometimes an event like this can be a spur to people to branch out into things they’ve always wanted to do but never had the time or impetus to commit to. Other industries, other professions, a small business, charity, study, stay at home parent etc. I sense a feeling amongst pilots these days that a lot would maybe desire to spend a small period out of their working career doing something unrelated to flying.

Obviously there won’t be as many taking up the offer as those who took up other airline pilot positions in previous eras of LWOP. But I think a few will.

Why offer VR to those over (say 62) on the 744 and 380 when they can probably leave them stood-down indefinitely at almost no cost? VR will almost certainly be used to offset training costs, so anyone that won't have to be trained through extended stand-downs won't get a look at VR.

Those under 60 would be able to see out the time until the 380 is returned to service or scrapped and still be valuable/productive in 2 to 3 years. Offer the 58-62 year olds (or whatever makes up 190) a VR and the training cost vs return value is significantly reduced.

There is a belief that the 747 pilots now have to be dealt with as they can’t be stood down as they don’t have any work as their aircraft is retired, therefore they need to either VR them or RIN them to another aircraft and then stand them down again.

Isn’t there also the Super consideration for those in Division one?
A calculation of the average last three years of income?

Highest earning 3 of the last 10 years. But very doubtful there’ll be many more prosperous than the last 3 in the near future for most

:ok:
Thanks!

Because stand down can’t be indefinite. At some point it becomes a commercial decision and the clause of stand down won’t apply. Ie When the government no longer has a travel ban / border closure in place.

Then the company have a choice - pay you MGH to sit around and do nothing - or follow the provisions in the EBA regarding reduction in numbers. That becomes their choice - it will be interesting to see how they “get the numbers right”.

Why keep them when for the same cost to the business of keeping them stood down when you can show the market that you’re ‘doing something’ about the crewing numbers? Win/win for both parties. Doesn’t cost Qantas anything additional beyond what they were going to pay anyway, pilot clears more than they would had they remained stood down burning their 7 weeks and 2 days accrued leave each year. Plus the crew member gets better tax treatment of their accrued leave up their sleeve now.

I actually think it’d be immoral if Qantas didn’t immediately (or very soon) offer VR to anyone who turns 65 prior to April next year so that they can use the better redundancy tax rates for their accrued leave.

Personally I’d hope the offer would be a bit better than just the 7.3 weeks per annum until 65. Certainly you’ll need to offer a bit more to (say) a 60 or 61 year old if you wanted them to bail out earlier given they’re likely to do some flying in a few years. I guess it depends on demand and so on.

As one of those staring at conceivably 3 years of stand-down I hope you're right, but one thing I am sure of is that Qantas demonstrated during the EA negotiations that they are far from a benevolent society. They will endeavour to keep us stood down as long as they can - by fair means or foul.

Of course they will. They will argue there is no work for the 380 and thus you can remain stood down. Just because the borders are open, in the eyes of Qantas, changes nothing. If there is no useful work for the 380, and they intend to keep the fleet, then you can remain stood down.

Not saying I agree with it, but it will require the union taking the matter to FWA. You would assume Qantas has already done the homework on this.

I’m not sure if I’d be up to it at 61 to have a couple of years off and get back into it at a reasonable standard. It’s hard enough now after a few months.

If I were over 60 I’d be using this as a rehearsal for the big retirement.

It’s also probably adding years to your life, or if not years, those years in retirement will be in better health.

It’s all bluff!
Qantas will try it but I can’t see hundreds of crew blindly accepting that they can be stood down indefinitely!
To me the EA and FWA are quite clear. They can’t be stood down indefinitely if there are no limitations to international travel.
Qantas are trying it now because the other option is too expensive.
Ive seen it before and I’m even seeing it now in one example. QF will try to pull the wool over your eyes.
If that won’t work they’ll try cut a deal with AIPA.
What someone should do is lodge a grievance and then go to FW.
That is the only way to get something done.

Fair work will judge based on what is best for the greater good, that means the best way of keeping some jobs (not all) and the company functioning in a world of Covid and health restrictions FW a will not save you as an individual if you are just dragging the Tribe down with you. It is the new world order. Adapt and overcome. (Gunnery Sergeant Highway).

It’s not based on whether you agree, or whether they intend to keep the fleet. The EBA is quite clear on when stand down can occur. FWA are pretty clear that in the case of an EBA covering a situation, they won’t interfere with it.

Union won’t need to do much, if anything. The EBA that was recently voted upon during this pandemic, stands.

Normanton, what QF would like to do, and what they can do, are very different things.

Won’t stop them trying to cut a deal to pull the wool over your eyes where they can though!

LH and SH EBAs are pretty tight - and not in QFs favour. Can’t speak for the other EBAs in the group.