Qantas Fleet Speculation
 

Qantas A220 & A320 domestic fleet replacement. Who will fly them? Who will maintain them? Who will manage them?

Tech crews, CAMO, AOC, AMO etc etc.

I think the business has other priorities at this current moment.

Whatever is cheaper. That’s how it will work. That’s how it’s worked in recent times and I doubt that will change in the future. Most of us will be retired, or near, before all these new fleets are completely rolled out, as well as executives. Long term plans they are a matter for the next generation!

All these big plans for the future are a matter for the 20 and 30 year old somethings of today to deal with. One thing I do know, they will bite themselves in the ar$e with lowest price wins.

320/321 will be mainline SH. 220 I’d assume cobham or whatever they’re called this week.

Mainline SH also negotiating for the A220.

Why not wait to see if they order them first. The recent announcement was about a potential order at the end of this year.

Alan would, of course, have to actually order an aircraft for mainline.

The Kalgoorlie refueller tells me A320s in the west will be operated by Network (including Jetstar's routes in the west); A220s operated by Cobham.

If you think NA could get their hands on 321s you may want to check the Integration Award and what that has to say about aircraft labelled as a replacement for current aircraft in the fleet, which the company has certainly said the A321 is. They’ve had trouble crewing the hand me down 320s in the best time in aviation history to find crew, so I don’t think they’re getting any bigger in the future.

I think the discussions may be on whether the 321 with its range and potential destinations could be considered more in part a LH replacement?

The A220 is another kettle of fish, the 717s and their crew are now within the group so that would be the natural location for their replacements. However those aircraft/crew aren’t covered by something like the Integration Award so that isn’t a necessity.

Looking at the A220-300 it certainly has the range and capacity to be a lower density 737 replacement in part, possibly that could come under the IA too, maybe that’s why SH could be a possibility?

The problem with giving it to mainline is what do they then do with the 200 NJS pilots when the 717 is retired. They’ve already spent millions relocating 30+% of them out of Perth, Darwin and Cairns do they really want to pay redundancies?

One possibility is to integrate them into the mainline group in a similar fashion to the “A” pilots post 1994 merger? Given the numbers I’ve heard about future recruitment needed they would only make up a fraction of the new pilots required. Maybe the “N” pilots would get x number of reserved positions on the A220 and then be worked into the seniority list somehow, but any further positions would go to general bidding in mainline?

Although that would go against the current tactics of more entities and more separation however.

Realistically what will happen is NJS will have the 20 smaller planes and do what they do now. Mainline will get the 320/21s and/or maybe a big version of the A220.
They will threaten to give the flying to NJS at the Mainline negotiations and threaten to give all the aircraft to Mainline at the NJS negotiations. The fact is they won’t do either of those things as the result of doing that will be too expensive (massive redundancies/crew shortages ect).

The most important thing for pilots is to remember who the true enemy is. Don’t listen/fall for the BS at the town halls that will be thrown at you. The threats of “it’s ours to lose” and “it’s important we reach an agreement quickly” is all part of the game. Don’t forget that folks!

Beat me to it mate!

The subtle undertones and time pressured “negotiations” are already being trotted out by management and those who wish to be seen as “good company men”. Everybody should read the above post and keep reading it until it sinks in. Pilots should be giving absolutely nothing away in order to earn a living, especially when the industry is dead without us.

Really? Did Qantas pay the relocation costs of the NJS pilots?

Yes. NJS was in the group by then.