A “couple of years from now” is unpredictable. Worldwide some airliners remained in storage for up to 9 years post GFC before being reactivated. It’s complex enough now to plan a RIN, but for the next 3 years when no one knows what will happen? Management have indicated that stand downs will continue whilst the fleet is stood down. As long as they are not retiring aircraft, like what was announced with the 747, then nothing changes from the forecast that has provided 190 pilots in surplus (that is the forecast til mid 2022).

Something that will have to be considered is the fact whilst pilots on long term stand down will probably return to flying, after having spent several years off coming back to flying won’t just be a matter of a few sims and off they go. The retraining will be extensive, and not just for individuals, we’re talking about entire fleets of pilots including instructors who haven’t been operational for a considerable length of time.

You would guess that a return to “normal” traffic would be slow and incremental though, so a fleet-wide recency problem should be manageable given enough forethought.

I am not reading anything currently that suggests a robust travel recovery absent a vaccine, even if immunisation is something that may have to be boosted periodically. I fear that we haven’t seen the entire SarsCoV-2 bag of tricks quite yet.

Any RIN is fairly irrelevant at this time, as it will only occur on paper.

I suspect that QF will have to write the cost of the A380 upper deck upgrade as a badly timed investment. This virus has such a stranglehold throughout the world that it can’t be contained until a vaccine is released and thus, any international traffic for the next few years will be a fraction of the 2019 level and will be “point to point”. This means that aircraft such as the B787, A350, A330NEO & even the A321XLR will be the most suitable types. Working against the A380 coming back into service is the fact that it was designed as a “hub to hub” aircraft, it has a very high fuel consumption, extremely high maintenance costs and the loads/fares won’t be high enough to offset these issues.

There was an article recently detailing the amount of work that A380’s require whilst in storage (mainly focussed on the SQ A380’s in Alice Springs but detailed the manufacturer’s requirements) and it is very significant. If all 12 QF A380’s get parked in Victorville, then there would be sufficient full time work for at least two of the LAX based engineers (relocate or have a lengthy commute each day). It would be worth monitoring if this ongoing maintenance is being performed because, if it stops, it signals that management have made the decision not to bring them back into service. Another scenario is that they may only maintain the aircraft that have had the recent upgrade.

In Oz, aircraft are written off over 12 years so, the early delivered aircraft would now have no value on the company books and, as we’ve known for a long time, there is zero market for second hand A380’s. For the remaining aircraft in the fleet there would be some residual book value which could be used by Joyce to increase the company’s FY loss (may be delayed a year or two to get the best timing) and then orchestrate a second miraculous turnaround - imagine the bonus he could reward himself for doing that.

cynphil - I totally agree.

Bodie 1 - do you still want to make a bet?

Yes,

Willing to put money in escrow.

I'm making this bet based on the fact that the aviation industry is entirely irrational. (I can back that up by research).

Irrational is a great word. That is exactly the view senior management and many other segments of the airline have on our working conditions. Never say never but the A380 is finished or at least the sky gods that fly them will never fly them again under our current award conditions. The restructuring will cost 1 billion and investors are already on board and happy to spend that money on getting rid of unnecessary staff and aircraft. There will be no turning back. The airline will be much smaller on the other side. The sky gods should just be grateful for extracting years out of what has been an unbelievable gravy train.

Has anyone actually met one of these sky gods?

Why would QF pay millions of dollars to dust off the A380 in three years? Its' a white elephant now, let alone in a world where other airlines will be backing out of they A350 purchase contracts left & right. It's dead, it just doesn't know it yet. The 350-900 & 1000 is a superior choice in every way.

Do you have any source for "apparently"?

Two minutes on the internet shows the opposite to be the case. Alice Springs is much less humid than Mojave.

https://weather-and-climate.com/aver...tes-of-America

https://weather-and-climate.com/aver...ings,Australia

I guess you can thank AJs predecessor for not buying the trippler

You are now left with valueless junk & pissed another $500 million up against the wall on upgrade

Strange how QF still persist with the line "couldn't make a 777 work"

Tough times no doubt - QF do not have an international business , but it "might" commence 12 months from now

Joiners from 2016 onward ihmo should stop listening to living legends on pprune who have decades on seniority & take LWOP

CRs are coming to the QF pilot group and the number will be in four figures - really just similar % to Kiwis/ BA / AirCan

They have moisture in Alice Springs? :}

Or people should realise Australia isn’t in the same situation because a legal provision to stand down employees exists here, whereas it doesn’t in many other countries.

There’ll be no more than 190 positions in surplus if no firm fleet changes are announced. Those numbers are based on the forecast of what will be needed in mid 2022.

So you reckon that more than one thousand LH for CR. That’s pushing into well into LH FO territory.

Gonna be expensive...:eek:

Yes they do YRP, prob 80 VB.

Even higher when you consider every LH SO will apply for LWOP and thus be passed over for CR. :)

About one third wouldn't it be (& that would be inclusive of the inevitable SH redundancies)

Do you really think QF is going to start CR LH guys from over a decade ago while SH FOs who have
been around for five minutes are "protected" & retain their jobs

Not gonna happen , there is one seniority list & there is a surplus in both divisions now

Man this is awesome, I'll take a bet on this as well.

"We'll all be rooned" said Hanrahan.

I've lost my flying job, career path has been severely mis-directed and yet I know this will pass, the world will re-bound and dare I say it, Qantas WILL hire pilots in the future. The only threat to all of this are the inbreeds that swear the world is ending.

I can't say whether there will be 380s flying again but I suspect if they do fly, it will only be the re-configured aircraft.

Also, considering the hundreds of engineering staff to be made redundant, the capability to service a full fleet will also be diminished. Sydney I hear are losing 300 from engineering and over 600 in total across the group.

Just what every other Airline in the world is doing

Why is Qantas any exception ?

You don't do any international flying atm & domestic is tiny

Do you actually believe all this "Australian exceptionalism" BS that gets promulgated by the Aussie media and talk feast brigade

That we are something special and have the best Universities ,national airlines, beaches , places to live ,pilots & for that matter everything else in the world ?

That we are "above" the outside world & what happens there - well that just has no relevance to us

Out from me

If you are directing that me? People love outrage, disaster. The media and lefttards have now created that for anybody who wants to participate. A bit of rational and critical thinking is now required. The AFR reports that 38 billion that was spent on overseas tourism is now out of the question, I'd love to see how business adapts to the current situation and ensures that money gets spent in this country. But if you or anyone else wants to fixate on disaster and outrage, go for it. Unfortunately, life goes on.