The 787 SO’s would tend to disagree with you...

I’m not defending the company. I’m trying to take the principle that Flightdeck is espousing through to it’s natural conclusion and pointing out the issues that arise.

When someone puts forward a pipe dream outcome that hasn’t a hope in Hades of getting up and I question the logic or principle under pinning the pipe dream that is actually representing the interests of all the pilots- including those pilots who are standing up on a rotational basis.

A RIN may not be the best outcome and could create more problems than it solves. There are other solutions possible. Some of these solutions were being discussed late last year. They no longer are.

I’ve asked the questions. The answers tend not to be reported in insights. I’m not going to blaze away on here when it’s not my place. People can call me if they like- I’ve had a bunch already.

Not a line I’ve put forward. However I still maintain that a RIN may not be in the interest of the majority of pilots and that there are other potential solutions that could be considered.



This number is incorrect. It’s about 25% less than that. Included in those training courses are a fair number of A380 and 747 pilots who will now have some window seat flying. Fantastic outcome for them. They are going to fleets who are currently not in surplus*. A RIN of the A380 adds a further 200+ pilots. The remaining 747 RIN slots (most of whom start courses on the A330 or 787 within the next month or two) is another 65ish. 11 are waiting for the A380.

* Technically the LH fleets are for the current flying but not for the ‘normal’ establishment.

PS: the only A380 category that go even close to being considered ‘in surplus’ would be the S/Os. And perhaps only 20-30 of them. If they keep talking about all 12 jets coming back that number gets smaller.

April fools day has been and gone. 6 at best and that will be a year away or more. A350 sunrise brown eye in 2024. Will they need the 380 at all?

They could paint the 380s silver and orange, refit with 880 Y seats and fly them to Bali and Phuket🍻🍺🍻🍺🍻

It's not so much will they need them but whether they can operate them for a dollar greater benefit than another fleet on any particular route. Given that they are now significantly written down in value, the cost of operating them may well see them used as demand grows.

AJ is keen as mustard to get the party started. offering free flights for a year for 10 families of 4. Lets see JH come to the party or Mr turner throw a carrot. This is not going to happen unless we all get the jab. May NSW should of held off with those vouchers, imagine the uptake of the vaccine if they were the carrot.

How about the Federal and State Governments be made to financially compensate every Australian? It is they who are responsible for closing borders which in turn is resulting in many many people losing their jobs, their businesses, their houses and their financial nest eggs, and in many cases their financial futures. The Guvmint has no issue spending hundreds of billions of dollars on armoury and they have no issue with ‘printing more paper money’ so why shouldn’t we be compensated financially.

These arseholes are making it up as they go. We need to learn to live with it, to manage the virus. I had truly hoped that with a fourth lockdown the entire state of Victoria would have protested en masse and taken to the streets, in fact taken back the streets. The politicians remain financially cocooned from the financial mess that has been inflicted on the rest of the population. Enough is enough.

They sure are making it up, if you have the play book on how to handle a pandemic please send it ASAP to the gov sounds like the book you have they could benefit from.

Simple solution available SHVC , keep the diagnostic PCR cycle (Ct) thresholds to less than 28 cycles as stated by the inventor of the system , rather than the 40-50 cycles presently being implemented and 95% of your (false) positive diagnoses disappear , the Covid hysteria ends , the forced experimental mRNA gene therapy vaccines no longer required and we can all begin to get back to normal !

No community quite like pilots when it comes to willingness to push utter tripe and deny it's ignorance.

Mullins died before COVID even existed. There is bupkis evidence that he stated a cycle limit of 28 for the Ct thresholds in the context of COVID. Ct values up to 45 are frequently used as a threshold or detection of HIV. I assume you're aware that your precious Mullis denied that Aids was caused by HIV whilst we're on the subject?

https://www.publichealthontario.ca/e...cle-thresholds

Independent statistical analysis of confirmed hospital cases demonstrate Ct's well into the 30's.

https://www.dovepress.com/cycle-thre...t-article-RMHP

As for 'covid hysteria' and 'no vaccines required', feel free to move to India and let me know how that works out for you. I'm sure its all in their imaginations.

This is conspiracy theory nonsense propagated by an accomplished idiot and should be deleted post haste out of this forum. Now, off with you, no doubt you've got 5g towers to sabotage in the defense against the Lizard people.

Alliance are training and expanding. Qantas have also chosen not to cancel over 100 training vacancies from 2019 and instead defer and train. The majority of these have not gone to 380 pilots. Qantas are not in a position to say they can't afford training.
Keg's position is clear that he believes senior pilots should remain stood down and no RIN or movement should occur. It clearly supports his individual position which is fine, but pretending he has the interests of those most affected at heart is disingenuous.

If AJ wants to keep the A380 pilots on standby he’ll have to pay them. Once any A330/B787 training vacancies are advertised he can’t stop them bidding for that useful work. I suggest at that time he’ll have to pay for them to stay where they are.

No. Quite the contrary.

Do you recall who it was that was advocating a lower MGH if it meant we could move crew across from the A380 to the A330 and carry them as a surplus? There weren’t many others advocating for that outcome. There were some caveats to that plan to make it palatable for the A330 pilots (who were going to be the ones needing to vote the variation up and were going to be the ones taking a hit beyond what they may have otherwise). Where is that discussion at these days? Why hasn’t that been progressed?

There are also a couple of other ideas being looked at that I’m aware ofl- that I’m supportive of as well- but your characterisation of my position that ‘senior pilots should remain stood down and no RIN or movement should occur’ is so false as to be laughable.

Very close to the mark as to just one of the options.

So why did Qantas defer over 100 training positions from as far back as 2019 when they knew they would have many 747 and 380 pilots on long term stand down? Would have avoided 90% of a RIN even being needed or contemplated.
Qantas are not going to be able to keep pilots stood down till it's the optimum commercial timepoint for Qantas.

Of course they are, who’s going to stop them?

The courses were all paused or not started as of about 30 March 2020 when the stand down started. More than 3/4 of courses from the 19/20 training year had commenced as at that date.

More than 1/3 of those deferred courses were listed as going to A380 or 747 crew who had bid for them in that training year.

You feel the other 60ish slots should have been cancelled? Or cancel them all? Of course if you cancel them all the 737 F/O going to the A330 doesn’t go which means the A380 S/O taking the 737 F/O course is no longer needed. I think we’d end up in the same practical outcome perhaps? Qantas just waits a bit longer to fill the A330 F/O vacancy.



Well when borders are open again it looks more like a commercial decision to keep crew stood down. There’s two issues that arise from that.
1. All crew should be pressuring their local members about a timeline for this. Vaccine roll out and unrestricted borders* is the major factor in getting people back flying more quickly.
2. Lack of travel restrictions changes the legal dynamics behind the stand down.

Other ideas will get a few people back in seats doing some flying in the interim (or perhaps no flying but some income) but it’s tinkering around the edges compared to freeing up travel again.

(*substantially unrestricted. Obviously we may fly some places earlier than others).

It isn’t either/or. It may be tinkering, but it may stop some from losing their house.

Of course. However moving pilots onto a fleet with some flying and then diluting that by another 1/3 comes a long second to getting borders open more quickly and having a significantly larger amount of flying to share around.

Would it be safe to say QF international is dead for the foreseeable future? I mean, think about it Feds have no intention on opening our international border for many many yrs if they’re willing to contribute 200 million into Victoria’s quarantine facility, QLD have just had their 300 million faculty rejected due to changes the feds want. I’m sure it will get approved at some point tho.

Im thinking 2022 is a pipe dream and untill world elimination of Covid we will be seeing borders closed and state wide lockdowns over 1 case.

No i don't think its 'safe to say' that.

Why spend half a billion dollars plus ongoing cost on facilities then?

maybe that’s where we are going to lock all the anti vaxxers.

F&%k that made me laugh!! Thanks.. I needed it ;))

jokes aside it may be used from time to time for unvaccinated travellers

Disagree. Rhetoric is changing - a push for vaccinating and opening up is becoming part of the conversation.

Experiencing first hand the rapid changes in the US and UK. The media / sentiment in both places is positive and getting closer to opening up to travel in a safe and structured way. Once we in Oz see what’s happening and see how safe and easy it can be, even the local “but they’ve kept us safe” evangelist will be chomping at the bit..

Dont know if there would be any such thing - I’d say most of the world, including Oz will require a vaccination to enter the country.

It’ll become the next immigration detention centre post covid.

There’s a few years worth of asylum seekers to catch up on now, and there will be a flood of them when the world starts to open up again. Australia has done relatively well through this crisis and there will be many ready to try their fortunes when the time comes.

I hope I’m wrong. However I doubt it.

I think the zero tolerance is embedded in the public’s brain now, international travelers will not be welcomed by the average John and Jane. We will watch rest of the world move on and we will be still squabbling over 1 or 2 cases here and there watching the Victoria circus whilst still casting opinions on Lord Farquaad over in the west.
What we have now is what we will have in 2023, not that I want it I’m keen to open up and travel but one has to be realistic no one is going to put their name to open the international border then have the next covid death even if it’s not related to an international traveler on their watch.

To be seen as doing something while in reality achieving nothing to appeal to the masses, this applies to both the State and Federal governments.

I honestly think people are confused about the role of vaccines. The main job of a vaccine is to prevent serious illness requiring hospitalisation and death, not to stop you from getting infected all all. If that is the case, we'd shut down 12 months a year cause the flu season is opposite to each other in the Northern and Southern hemisphere ...

This and many more FACTS about vaccination could easily be propagated by some decent advertising by the government.

By contrast, every TV / Radio ad in the UK and the US is pro vaccination and urging people to get the jab..

Meanwhile in Melbourne more anti vaxers wee arrested today, in a place where you think they would want it so they could protest legally. Australia!..... can’t make this sh!t up haha

The transmissibility of the virus from vaccinated people is difficult to get data on in the early stages. But more and more data is coming in, and it’s looking good.

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/cli...cines-do-reduc

Arent these anti vaxxers actually anti everything!
They pop up as human rights fighters,as BLM promoters & whatever other agenda suits them at the time.
They should go to china or nth korea & see how that plays out.

Confused by radio talkback hosts who question every medical fact produced even though they have no medical qualifications themselves & let down by a government too interested in promoting irrelevant facts about the vaccination program rather than as you say tellling people how it works & what protection it gives.

The fact is the government is not going to allow “normal” outbound international travel until all Australians “stuck” overseas eventually get home.
Right now that’s a relative trickle, and without a change in policy, this will continue on at roughly the current rates.
Hopefully with inter-Europe and Europe-USA travel picking up, more and more aussies become jealous/envious and change their tune on the old “I’m good with keeping the borders closed”.
Ideally at some point freedom to travel in and out will be allowed, meaning anyone who wants to come home can - but as long as there is supervised quarantine required, this is a pipe dream in Australia

Australia will be a lonely country in a big world soon. Life will go on and w will be still fussing over a cough we heard in the supermarket. That is the reality ppl.

100% spot on.
And the economic fallout will be massive in the long term. Sure we are sailing right now but it’s all short lived. The rest of the world will move on without us sadly.

Seriously though, does anyone actually really believe the borders will open again?

not going to happen open! Sorry!

There's way too much fear and paranoia