Network Aviation East Coast
 

Network Aviation operated an A320 into Brisbane recently. Is this the first step of AJs plan to get rid of those expensive 737 pilots operating QLD mine site charters? Hard to keep up with the cheap E-Jets from Alliance soon to be taking as much work from QF as possible.

What Qld mine site charters? I think Alliance and VA have a lot of dancing to do before QF joins in to the Pride of Erin with the Leprechaun.

The only destination that QF 737s operate to inland in Queensland is Isa, and that’s RPT not charter.

It was a charter direct into BNE from a WA mine. It then operated another charter back to PER

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/...330Z/YEWA/YBBN

I think you'll be seeing a lot more a320 activity on the east coast next year. Was only a matter of time.

Great, might make AIPA pay some attention, instead of worrying whether $400k to fly an A350 is underpaid.

Was always the plan,now just a lot easier.
Similar to the new routes recently announced for the 717s.

There is a new era about to dawn on us all. A refurnished competitor, growing charter company, another new new competitor going to give it a go that has the gov in their back pocket.

The 717 is a completely different scale - it’s there to stop a competitor bringing in E-Jets or CRJs. Not much point flying a 737 around with 60-80 people on board. The 320 is a direct replacement at a lower cost base. Look at the WA market. Where a 737 with appropriately paid flight crew used to operate regular RPT routes to BME, KTA, PHE now cheaply crewed 320s are doing it. From a business point of view it would make sense to start A320 to Cairns/Isa ect

Only a matter of time before Qlink a320's take over all 737 operations. Cheaper crew, easier loading/unloading, better reliability, now with outsourced ground handlers even easier to operate everywhere. Noneed for overpaid pilots or engineer's.

Not at all, actual quite the opposite and significantly too.....

Why stop there? Nothing stopping them from doing SYD-MEL-BNE, it might take that for the union to finally notice

I'm certain the union has noticed but what, pray tell, are they supposed to do?

1. The vast majority of their members are stood downing meaning no $$ coming in.
2. There is no legal option for taking any form of industrial action.
3. Even if they COULD take industrial action, the consequences of any such action would pale into insignificance when viewed against what COVID and border closures have managed to do the company.
4. Take the company to court? With what $$ and on what basis? Unions hardly have a stellar record when it comes to taking legal action against QANTAS.

Network will doubtless expand with red tails and take both opportunities and conditions from Mainline pilots. We've been watching the same pattern now for 20 years since the acquisition of Impulse. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Exactly what that means as it plays out time will tell. Expect it to be somewhere in the range between a crap EA offer next time around with a "take-it-or-leave-it" approach up to and including redundancy. That's the range of possible outcomes. Where will it fall? No idea.

knob of the year post material right there.

How many 737's have been replaced with 717's over the years? it is only a matter of time before the 717's get replaced with a320's. your kidding yourself if you don't think this will happen. punter's don't know the difference as long as its a red tail. cobham, impulse, network, qantas, same same.

Would network really be the replacement for Qantas short haul (737)?
There are approx 650 737 pilots in mainline.
There has been the token fso issued inviting mainline pilots to take lwop where after passing the selection hurdles join network. However looking at the fine print to be eligible, one needs to be endorsed on the 320 and have time on type.
We all know that allows training costs to be omitted from the groups cash burn. Bugger all 737 drivers with 320 time.
But what is the end goal?
Will the 650 pilots be absorbed into network to fly the 320?
Or will this pilot group be absorbed into Longhaul? That area of the Qantas due to the pandemic is shrinking for now.
Will the pilot group be made redundant? Probably not possible industrially and also extremely expensive to the qantas group to pay out the pilots in theory.
Isnt this the same pilot group that have provided the greatest profit to qantas every year since the gfc?...

It won’t be a complete replacement, not even close. It will be a gradual takeover of routes as aircraft become available.

Brisbane will be the first base as an all economy Jet can do Cairns and Isa with no-one even blinking.

Even a 20-30% takeover of 737 routes is a huge cost saving to the company. It also provides protection against industrial issues (PIA) as they can keep the punters moving.

Won't happen. It's too expensive and serves very little purpose. It's all been said before. Get your hands off it gentlemen.

Join the PPRUNE Gym where you get your exercise by jumping to conclusions!

Your missing the point of old A320s which are highly unreliable. They are nothing but engineering nightmares. Mainline customer satisfaction and corporate contracts are very important, wouldn’t want to cede too much of that business to Virgin with a young fleet and new machines on the horizon, all due to cheap A320s with bull**** reliability.

It will happen.
The current Eastern/Sunstate Chief Pilot is heading to Network early next year as head of standards / alternate chief pilot. His mission, should he choose to accept it, is to sort out Network, get it integrated into the QF group properly so they can slide into east coast bases in a year or so.
Probably lines up nicely with 717 fleet retirement anyway, those things are about as reliable as my mitsubishi sigma.

The Network 320s are the same age as a whole bunch of 737s and 717s. Most reliability issues comes down to QF management sacking all the good (expensive) engineers.

Unreliable?.....then perhaps AJ will just give the J* NEOs directly to Network

Zero.

QF still have as many 737's as they ever had.

Yes they do right now but that doesnt mean it wont or cant change very soon.
There are quite a few with leases that expire very soon & a big cost saving can be had by not renewing them.
There are plenty of leisure routes where a very cheaply operated 320 will fit in very nicely & also theres the 330s still in storage that mainline can put on the trunk routes if required.
The 717s are not going anywhere for now,they are gearing up to do maintenance on them in melbourne.
Network arent there for no reason,expansion is a given.

Which pile of money are the QF group using to pay for all these network NEO’s?

the capital budget has shrunk considerably, and the focus is now sunrise.

it sounds like a wet dream for the odd pilot with a chip on his shoulder, but the reality is, the flying plan for the 737 post Covid has it doing more hours than it ever has. So maybe network will expand, and I honestly hope that it can soak up some of the crew who have lost their jobs this year. But any expansion will be because the whole group is growing, not because of some industrial ploy.

C'mon guys, Network replacing 737 flying is about as likely to happen as Jetstar flying trunk routes.............
Hang on a minute :eek:

Did anyone protest when the 73s took over some of the mine charter work previously being flown by Network?
Apparently Mainline 73s still supplement a small chunk of the Charter contracts in WA.
Will the A320s replace the 73s in WA?......yeah probably.
Will they run over some 73 intestate routes in the future?.....probably. Just don't bother whinging about it when it happens.

Agreed.

We can complain that 737 flying has gone elsewhere, but overall the hours are up, not down (pre COVID)..

If the hours reduce then we have a transfer of business problem..

All signs point to greater share of the market for mainline flying, not less.

True, forecasts for the 737 indicate it’ll be flying more later in 2021 than at any point in 2019. The aircraft, even the older ones, have high dispatch reliability and now have all had the wifi fit.

NA’s 320s will probably just be for resource sector growth only, spare parts or to take over a reduction in VA flying. It’ll be hard to attract crew to Network in 2 years once most stood down pilots are back at work and contracts in China are offering triple the pay tax free in USD.

Yous are all so delusional. 717's have been taking over 737 routes CBR and ADL etc, 320's will take over once the 717's are deployed elsewhere to battle REX and Alliance. 737 flying is up because they are taking up the 330 and 767 flights eg PER and SIN. All looks good now but once the market picks up it will be 320's that are expanding in capacity not 737's.

I thought it was Jetstar who were going to take over the world.....

The 320s are gutted with no IFE or wifi and have poor dispatch reliability. You don’t run RPT with aircraft designed for low density flying. Add to that in 2-3 years if international comes back in similar numbers to 2019 there will be a shortage with existing crew. NA will be lucky to hold on to existing crew with those pay rates and overseas contract deals offering substantial tax free commuting contracts.

The QF SH operation is actually quite efficient. A low minimum guarantee and the stand down clauses achieve that. If management really wanted to cut into crewing costs it would be for the LH operation when it returns, even on the 787/350 conditions they far exceed the narrowbody crewing costs. But as they don’t seem to be planning to outsource that flying then I’m pretty sure they haven’t got a secret scheme to outsource SH.

As long as NA keep getting JQ hand me downs I wouldn’t be worried, now if they were getting new NEOs and kitted out interiors then it’s another story.....

I must say i agree with most of this except maybe the delusional part however for those that think the 320s wont start taking over work from the 737 fleet i would think again.
As pointed out the 717 has & will be doing shorter routes once done by the 737 & even doing main city pairs during quieter times.
Even if the 320 is old & unreliable & doesnt have mod cons on board,that wont matter too much,the aim is to lower costs,keep patching them up to keep reliability at a reasonable level & as for ife etc,bad luck for the punter,too late to whinge once paid & in their seat.

That’s because the 737 is needed to do longer routes.

320 has slightly longer legs than a 737

Longer Gear Legs. Less range on a stock 320 compared to 737-800. About 2 tonne extra fuel on the later, similar fuel burns. Neo = different story.

There is so much BS in this thread its becoming embarasing. Just a couple of BS statements:
The Network A320's have to be the most unreliable aircraft in the whole group, certainly not more reliable than the 738.
The 738 has more range than the ex Jetstar A320's, always has, always will.
QF doesn't need an all economy A320 going to Cairns, that what Jetstar is for.
The 717's are operating routes that require 100ish seats. The A320 would be as unsuitable to those routes as the 737 is. They aren't replacing 737's anyway. Most of the routes they are flying have only evenr sporadically been flown by mainline for the last 30 years.
I appreciate most of the Network try hards are new to group, and really haven't got a clue, but stop trying to rewrite history to prove your ****ty aircraft will be the new QF.
FFS, what a bunch of tossers.

In reality these conspiracy theories could have been applied to Eastern, Sunstate, RedQ, Jetconnect, Australian Airlines, Impulse, Jetstar, NJS, Cobham, EFA or any affiliated airline that has had the potential to replace mainline T&C’s over the last 25 years since privatisation. In reality it’s never come to fruition. The current CEO has been in the role for 11 years, and this secret plan to completely outsource mainline has never been seen. In fact at the start of 2020 mainline recruitment was at its highest point possibly since privatisation. Doesn’t sound like a group that secretly wants to get rid of all mainline pilots now does it?

I have worked at an all 320 airline and an all 737 airline. I now work at a mixed 737/A320 airline and I have always seen that the 320 has about a 300 mile longer range than the 737. Are Qantas Airbuses special?

I’m now very intrigued. What variant of 737 (NG or Classic) and 320 (CFM or IAE, etc) are you flying, and what is their respective max fuel capacity in Tonnes?

Not sure we are comparing the same apples here

The 738 carries more full and can fly higher than the A320, while flying at the same speed and fuel burn. Not sure what amazing A320’s (ACT?) or rubbish 737’s you’re operating, but you don’t even need basic math skills to work it out. Maybe you have low MTOW versions of the 737, but even then that’s a weight issue, not a fuel (range) issue.