Likely 12 months ago I was howled down for having the temerity to suggest the following
1. Two years in (March 2022) getting back to 50% domestic & 25% international would be a great effort
2. It would be a good idea to take lwop to protect yourself from redundancy at QF mainline

The shrill responses about there being a pilot shortage, there was going to be some kind of huge "ramp-up" , the A350s are coming
was to me baffling

Nobody delights in the fact that travel is going to be very different for years , but ignoring that reality - well you are missing opportunities to go do
something else

QF international (if there is one in a few years) will look very very different - they are pretty much bust at the moment aren't they , surviving on Fed Govt charity

You are definitely a special one Telfer. I pity you.

Spot on


filler

Mock Telfer all you like but he’s a lot closer to an accurate prediction than the other Pollyanna views on this thread.

We are in the worst crisis in the history of commercial aviation and our union is voting today on whether or not to give the President a pay rise. What a pathetic insult to the rest of us.

Not a pay rise as such. They were going to vote (now deferred) on whether to return to paying the President at all.

Meanwhile….
The 20 highest-paid ASX200 CEOs on a realised-pay basis in FY20:
……..12. Alan Joyce, Qantas Airways, $10.74m

​​​​​​​Now that may be considered by some to be insulting…..or worse.

Seems odd to want to point out that your predictions were wrong and your advice would have cost pilots thousands of dollars in lost wages.

1. QF domestic has been bouncing between 65 and 100% of pre-COVID capacity lately. 9 months prior to your prediction horizon.

2. No QF pilot has been made compulsorily redundant. So a year of LWOP, as suggested by you, would have cost them 7 and a half weeks of missed leave entitlements for absolutely no benefit. In fact, some of those who were frightened/threatened into taking LWOP have now been asked to come back early.

To be fair on poor old Alan, that was about 25% less than he deserved given he worked for nothing in April, May and June last year.

[/end sarcasm]

BB you are counting empty aircraft flying around

As an aside , do you actually believe that data regarding number of flights anyway ? Sounds V fishy , are you sure it isn't an excitable CEO blowing his horn

I would be counting paying RPT pax & if you look at the Bitre data , we might have got to 50% in May , unfortunately that will take a nosedive

A more accurate measure would to look at both RPT (nos) and also RPKs

It is a real shame not only for aviation - the hotel industry etc etc have been decimated . There must be 100s of thousands who have been put out of work

Everyone is gun-shy about travelling to an interstate capital that does hotel quarantine

Nobody wishes for redundancies anywhere , but if the international division is grounded for years & bust - you might think redundancies are a fair chance

Free country & all but an upside of 7.5 weeks of entitlements Vs a downside of redundancy & returning years later on a B scale - well that is what a free country is all about. Each to their own

Not only loads but yields.
Aside when borders are about to close and there is a mad scramble. Yields are still poor. Corporate demand is still way down and will likely take a long time / may never recover to pre covid levels.

Hopefully the $100m + that has benefited his bank account since he took over as CEO will see him in good steed and ensure that he weathers this COVID storm. Indeed these are unprecedented times, even for our handsomely rewarded c-suite grubs.

I don't give a toss how much he earns- but how anyone could pocket $400k term a week whilst long term employees are unable to access sick leave, and whilst most LH employees survive on Government handouts, is beyond me. He should be ashamed, especially as P377 above said, he has already gouged $100million plus out of the Company.

Gold mate.
As we are seeing on social media with the NSW premier, Australians love revelling in other's misfortune.

Float Jetstar Australia. 3/4 of it. Business is rife for it. Would be a huge cash grab and would repair much of the financial damage done.

Victoria falling over now. Might have no choice soon.

A future executive will do it one day might as well just get it over and done with right now.

Yes, of course I am counting flying empty aircraft around. I just flew an “empty” aircraft up to Shanghai (cargo only). I and the other pilots will be paid for the duty, including the S/O who came back early from unnecessary LWOP. That is what matters in this discussion, not how many are pax onboard. It is not the time for caring about Qantas’s profit margins, it is time to worry about getting the maximum number of pilots back to work.

As for the stats, well I trust the published figures a lot more than I trust your own glass-half-empty metrics. But since you asked, the most recent BITRE stats are for April 2021 and compared to 2019 RPT pax numbers were at 68% and RPK at 66%. Qantas’s share of those numbers have obviously gone up as they have taken market share due to the unfortunate events at the Virgin group.
Having actually been out there flying, with double daily widebody services to CNS and DRW with 80%+ load factors, I have seen the rebound in domestic capacity. Admittedly it will take a hit out of NSW for a while but history has shown that it will come roaring back once borders reopen.

And your final point is a false dichotomy. No one has been sacked, stand down is far cheaper for the company and with the end in sight now I find it very hard to see CR suddenly being entertained. All coms from the company support this.
So the true options are; take LWOP and be assured you will do no flying and miss out on your leave entitlements Vs remain stood down, possibly be asked to fly in the next 6 months and collect 7.5 weeks leave regardless.

Expensive pre-flight Covid tests are expected to become a standard part of overseas travel until late 2022, even in countries with high levels of vaccination.

New Zealand recently introduced the requirement for “bubble” travellers from Australia, as an added layer of health certainty amid the pandemic.

A survey of 331 airline, airport and travel industry managers by the CAPA Centre for Aviation and Collinson Group found the majority believed pre-flight Covid tests were the key to reopening borders, as the vaccination rollout continued.

Collinson Asia Pacific president Todd Hancock said 51 per cent thought some form of robust testing would be needed as a “stop gap” until vaccination rates substantially lifted.

Another 32 per cent believed testing protocols would continue for the next three years, while just 13 per cent expected testing to be phased out in 2021.

“It’s likely that despite the fact the Asia Pacific was first into the pandemic, we’re probably going to be last out due to the low vaccination rates,” Mr Hancock said.

As a result, travellers themselves won’t feel comfortable unless there are strict health protocols in place when they fly – things like temperature checks at airports, testing measures and standardised digital health passports.”

The cost of pre-flight Covid tests could prove a major disincentive to travel however, adding about $150 a person to the price of a flight from Australia, or as much as $600 for a family of four.

Research by the International Air Travel Association found the cost of tests varied wildly from country to country, with Malaysia charging around $36 a test, and Japan $360.

“It’s definitely going to discourage people and put travel beyond the reach of many people if expensive PCR testing is required,” IATA chief executive Willie Walsh said.

“I’m hopeful we can see a change in that and I’m hopeful of seeing prices come down.”

Submitting to a pre-flight Covid test was generally viewed as preferable to quarantine however, particularly for business travellers.

Mr Hancock said their survey found even seven-days of quarantine was considered too long for business trips, with the sentiment strongest in Singapore.

“The survey showed 71 per cent of travellers in Singapore would be hesitant to travel while quarantine requirements were in place, compared to 57 per cent in Hong Kong and 49 per cent in China,” he said.

There was some concern among the travel industry respondents about fraudulent test results and fake vaccination certificates, highlighting the need for accredited testing solutions and digital health passports, Mr Hancock said.

“The global travel recovery won’t be immediate, but we do have the unique opportunity to make things better than ever before by working together to evolve current practices,” he said.

Source

Cost of tests are going to be an issue especially for families but more worrying issues are.

what happens if you or one in your family test positive in the test before you leave your holiday destination.. two weeks in quarantine there. An extra two weeks accomodation expense having to be found at the last minute so top rate. Plus missing two weeks work. Oh, and if you are lucky, you might get dragged out of your hotel by the police at 2 in the morning to be taken to a quarantine centre, for which you have to pay.

assuming we use a traffic light system like the uk, what happens if your holiday destination goes from green to orange or red just before you leave, or worse after you arrive. If it goes to red you would probably get a refund, orange, well the plane is still able to go…

and on top of that, have you had the CORRECT vaccine because some are better than others, and some are not accepted.

I can’t see international travel quickly returning while these issues exist. Which will probably be for at least another twelve months.

Any word on stand downs?

Short haul all stood up. Not expecting stand downs last I was told.
Longhaul - status quo - 330/787 rotating pretty much month on month off.

Did they drag them by their arms, legs or hair?

This is the type of BS spin the media use because it suits their rhetoric. The incident is unfortunate and definitely not a great advertisement for a return to normality. But the 'story' is nothing more than a group of entitled youths now crying 'foul' when the country enforces its Covid rules. I also read (in one of the tabloids that uses a similar style of writing to yourself) that one of the parents had insisted the group were 'minors'. Excuse me, you are now worried that your offspring, which you were only too happy to pack off to a Greek party destination, are now not old enough to be treated in accordance with the local restriction rules. Unfortunately these stories seem to sucker in the gullible that want a hookline for their cause. I am quite sure they were either not 'dragged' or they were physically escorted due to refusal to comply. But that wouldn't be anywhere near as scandalous a story.

What Qantas should do Post...Covid.
When these friggen international borders open QF need to hit London, Paris, Frankfurt, Rome, Athens with their own metal. Like the good old days.
Fly them direct, bypass the sand pit and you will fill every seat on those 78s. People are itching and they are done with interstate border closures.

I think they meant the sandpit as in the Middle East, not Perth! :}

ahh my mistake

Roger that. To clarify all flights originate from Perth. Perth-London has been proven, the other European cities are shorter flights.
Problem is they haven't enough 78s or A350s project sunrise thing. They need to find more pronto and if the A380s are still iffy coming back then train up all the remaining 747/A380 crews
Don't know about the union/politics on how that will work, though you got the drift of my intent.

If only Qantas has some of those rubbish 777s

Old technology.

Short answer is that it won’t work. The problem is with the SO ranks. The pay on the 78 is complete rubbish for SOs, it’s only attractive for new hires and Qantas aren’t buying 350s any time soon.

12yr A380 SOs stood down, receiving IRP and AL/LSL (not including Personal Leave) are getting just under 50% of a 787 SO salary flying at MGH all year. They’re not far off earning the same take home as a 787 SO flying a BP on/ BP off roster.

Why would they move to the 787 voluntarily or take the risk of not being able to move after the (18 month/ more junior taking promotion) pay protection if moved involuntarily? The only way you’d get them to move is to do a RIN. Then they’ll displace off the 330 if they have any sense. And now you’ve got a cascade of training.

Nice idea Turnleft, but the only way it would work is with fleet pay, and we know how that ends up.

How much AL/ LSL they got left?

It’s accruing it at 6 weeks AL and 3/10 of a month LSL per year pro rata during stand down, so it’s ongoing.

What a bunch of rubbish - if the company got enough 350s or more 787s most of the SOs on the 380 would take FO slots anyway.

I reckon the ones that are too junior for a slot would happily take 787 MGH pay any day over being stood down.

The SO pay on the 787 is far from rubbish - it’s just not the overinflated 380 pay some may be used to.

It’s not rubbish, it’s numbers. Part 5 section 32 of the EBA if you’ve got access to it.

787 SO pay is low. It’s low, not only compared to Qantas SO rates, but also compared to the industry 787 pay. That’s why clause 32.6 is in there, to protect current SOs to 330 average pay.

And I hardly think the argument for ‘promotions all round’ is valid given the current situation, but thanks as always for your optimism (even if it isn’t skeptical in this instance).

Hold on, what other airlines are out there paying substantially more to their cruise relief/SO pilots? The only others I can think of that employ cruise relief/SOs are CX and JQ, and neither of them pay more.

The conditions are appropriate for the entry level nature of the position, pre 2020 there was absolutely no shortage of applicants, plenty with jet airline experience, for recruitment onto the 787 at that pay, so the rates were appropriate at a market level.

Show me an operator who pays a 787 pilot of any rank just over $100k? And we’re talking pre-covid here when the rates were negotiated. It’s even worse when you consider the take home pay of QF 787 pilots compared to the foreign contemporaries.

But SO isn’t just any other rank. It’s an entry level cruise relief job in which you don’t even hold a type rating that allows you in a control seat below FL200. You can’t expect pay for that role to be on par with Capt/FO ranks of any other operator.

S/Os hold a type rating that allows them to land the plane Dre. There’s no such thing as an S/O type rating.

Do Qantas group SOs land the aircraft? If not, the the matter of type rating is moot.

The only Qantas SO’s that “hold a type rating that allows them to land the plane,” are SO’s that come from that type as an FO.
ie JQ 787 FO whom is now a QF 787 SO, or a CX 330 FO whom is now a QF 330 SO

All other SO’s only have a cruise relief type rating which prohibits them from sitting in a control seat below 20,000’ (I’m not saying an SO with the full TR can be in a control seat below 20,000’, as their full TR isn’t current and the FAM prohibits it also)

Are they expected (by the company)to be able to land the aircraft if needed? If the answer is yes than that’s all that really matters.

Is it safer to have SOs rather than FOs or is it cheaper? You know what the answer is.........

I have no skin in this game, but if the SOs were called FOs and paid the same money would it be any safer?

Actually that statement is complete rubbish. Having done a number of jobs outside aviation in the last 16months for minimum wage I can say that from my perspective 100K plus a year to be a SO above 20000ft is a very good wage.