Thank you Slats, that was terrific. Appreciate the heads up.

You need to improve your sources. More than halfway after a week. A lot of crew still sorting out the financial advice. I reckon this will be a bit like letters of preference at close of bidding. A lot of activity in the last couple of days prior to it closing on Friday night.

What a complete disaster this all is for crew , & for the travelling public alike

Guys from mid 50s onwards having to consider taking VR , and missing out on the most lucrative years of their careers , and best lifestyle
given high places on on the list etc. Junior crew taking lwop to protect a position , possibly years down the track

If QF didn't recruit for nearly 8 years post GFC , likely you are looking at 2030 before external recruitment at QF. Imagine flight crew HR have
had to dust off their CVs

Interested in what some crew might be doing in terms of study, career transition , return to previous profession/vocation or getting into something new

You could almost complete a medical degree (4 year grad degree) if you wanted to - hard to jag a place but some might have the academics & motivation to pull it off

At the start of Covid I imagine many were looking at "temp" jobs ie: maybe things like protective service officers etc

Has that changed now it is clear the likely duration of this downturn

Let's hear some of the success stories about what people have done or aim to do

It has been inferred WRT the 190 excess as quoted from the boss office that it appears they only have half that VR number on file as of 6th August, however I know there are a ****e load of fingers hovering over the TOGA button and come 2359EST tonight , QF will have an absolute cascade of VRs flooding into the mainframe. I can only hope that a young bloke like me won’t miss out, I pressed TOGA last week 🤞

Only a personal opinion but I think they will take all comers. Also as I understand it there is no guarantee the VR will go ahead unless the pilots vote up the changes the company want to the EA to effectively pay for the VR.

as stated and restated by Flt Ops Exec Management, the current VR packages as published prior to this date in your VR non-binding EoI , is a stand alone offer and totally separate from any future EA amendments... ie, if you want to GO on That deal, you have just over 3.5hrs to press the button 🚨

Could be worse but not a great time for it to happen if you were counting on a decade of high wages to fill the retirement pot now that the kids have left home and the house is nearly paid off. Too late for a career change and to establish in the new line of work at a decent income level. I wouldn't even want to have to learn a new airlines SOPs let alone study and pass exams in a completely different field.

Network a bit and see what's available, maybe snag a government desk job with good benefits. Options are limited once you've passed 50, unless you're really fit much of the physical stuff is out and the brain probably isn't up to too much new technology. No employer wants to invest much in training someone who's only a few years off retirement anyway.

We're probably going to have to tighten our belts, do our best to preserve what payout we get and try to find something with reasonable pay until we retire.

Dragonman is talking about how the VR offers are part of the overall package including LWOP and EA variations. IE if the EA variations and LWOP applications don’t deliver the required savings there may be less money available for VR offers.

So whist the VR offers are accurate and binding in terms of $$$, it isn’t encumber on the company to accept them. They could choose to only accept the 747 crew, or 747 and 787 crew, or any variation they like.

The number of EOIs was supposedly north of halfway on Monday. I also agree with dragonman’s assessment that they’ll take all comers.... even if it’s a few more than the 196 previously mentioned.

There is something I’m not understanding here.

Are you saying that the Company is “threatening” not to accept the VR applications if the pilot body votes “no” to an as yet completely unknown variation proposal to the LHEA?

If so, that makes no sense. How could a pilot vote on a LHEA variation possibly be influenced by a threat to VR for a couple of hundred (or less) senior pilots?

I know this Company has form with thinly veiled IR threats, but this one doesn’t seem to make sense.

No, there is no threat. The way it was explained there is an amount of money set aside for this flight ops business case of reducing head count and costs, etc. If there is no LWOP and no changes to the EA, that changes (decreases) the amount of money available for VR. Qantas can respond to this in a number of ways. They may choose to limit the VR to specific categories- or more correctly change which offers they accept- and then go down a different road of dealing with the head count.

This has been explained on a couple of different webinars now. I didn’t get it the first time I heard it. Took me about three goes to understand what they were getting at. I don’t have a full understanding of what options would be considered.

I still reckon they’ll VR everyone who asks for it up to about 196 people (if that many ask for it). I suspect the 747 crew are the lay down misere. Beyond that will depend on aircraft type and so on and as has been confirmed a coupe of times, would require a re-evaluation of the business case to see if the additional numbers ‘fit’ into the case.

Ahh... Now I get it.

You mean like outsourcing the A350 wasn't a threat, it was merely a business case of a certain amount of money being set aside to crew the A350.

Also they’ve scared the junior ones witless so they’ll get a hell of LWOP from the bottom up.
They'll get their numbers.
Having said that I’m absolutely sure they’ll over do it and be short in the medium term.

Spot on Wingspar.
I also believe they will overcook it, but no real downside for the company with that approach.

Alright....... so VR has closed. Monday has been and gone..


And the VR number is??

Do we expect to hear anything this week?

Tighter than a fishers arsehole swimming backwards. Not a whisper

Qantas pilots in much days, preparing for the second Project Sunrise test flight from London to Sydney in November 2019.

• EXCLUSIVE

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Qantas is under fire from its most senior pilots over what they perceive to be unequal treatment under a redundancy scheme to shrink the airline’s workforce by 6000 staff.

Pilots approaching 65 have been told they do not qualify for redundancy payouts because they would be retiring before long-haul international travel resumes.

It means about 60 *pilots will leave with an “early *retirement” package of three to four months’ pay, while others who take redundancy will *receive up to 12 months’ pay.

READ NEXT

• https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/...a8a9?width=320
  SUPER NETBALL 2020
  Bassett milestone a giant reason to win
  MARCO MONTEVERDE

A Qantas pilot who spoke to The Australian on the condition of anonymity said it seemed a shabby way to treat people who had worked for the airline for 35 years or more.

“We’ve been told if you turn 65 prior to July 1, 2022, you don’t qualify for redundancy,” the pilot said. “Our legal advice is that it is not age discrimination, but it certainly feels that way.”

He said the only alternative was to remain stood down on the JobKeeper allowance of $1500 a fortnight, and have their leave entitlements continue to accrue until they reached 65, the age at which all international pilots are required to retire.

The expressions-of-interest period for voluntary redundancies closed on Friday but Qantas would not say if it had reached its target of about 200 pilots.

Pilots have been among the hardest hit by the COVID crisis due to the massive reduction in flying and the uncertainty surrounding the resumption of international routes.

Qantas does not expect long-haul flights to return to pre-COVID levels until 2023-24, and has taken the decision to park its A380s in the California desert until that time. Many of the airline’s newest aircraft, Boeing 787s, are also heading to Victorville in the US to be stored for up to 12 months in a sign of the gloomy short-term outlook for overseas travel.

A Qantas spokesman said the 787s, all of which were under three years old, were among about 100 aircraft identified as surplus to needs for the next year.

“We’ll keep some in Australia as contingency aircraft,” he said of the 11 787s in the Qantas fleet. “We expect the 787s to be the first aircraft to return to service when long-haul inter*national travel returns, so the rest will come back to Australia when the time is right.”

He said conditions in California were better suited to the long-term storage of aircraft than Australia’s Red Centre where many Southeast Asian airlines were parking their planes.

“The humidity in California is much lower than in Australia,” he said. “All of the aircraft will be looked after by our Los Angeles-based engineering team.”

Meteorological data showed the average humidity in the *Mojave Desert was between 10 and 30 per cent, compared to 24 per cent in Alice Springs.

One cannot be required to retire. If the job no longer exists you are made redundant. The chances of anyone being awarded VR is extremely unlikely given the magnitude of those numbers.

It’s pretty clear 196 at a minimum will be offered VR as that was the forecast surplus.

correct, you can’t be forced to retire but as an incentive take 4 months pay to leave OR remain stood down for the next 12-24 months and be shown the door with 0 pay.

JK can’t last forever..

Sure, but on what basis would you discriminate and offer a couple of hundred VR's, followed by a couple of thousand CR's

When jobkeeper finishes you will still be stood down but then only accumulating annual and long service leave plus for those still in division 3 super years of service towards your final payout.