This story is in 'SMH'/ 'The Age' on Saturday 11 July 2020 regarding QF flight crew:
(this is part):
(bear in mind that Victoria's Premier has threatened to extend the six week - 42 day - lockdown that commenced this week.
How can businesses like airlines - and many others - plan when it's such an uncertain external environment?)
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'Qantas has offered its 3000 excess pilots a smorgasbord of options including redundancies and early retirement as it scrambles to deal with a setback in the resumption of domestic flights and the likely extended duration of the hiatus in international flying.
Qantas’ expectation to be operating at 40 per cent of pre-COVID levels this month was dashed this week when NSW effectively closed its gates to Victoria, and Friday’s updated new infection figure in that state of 288 only increases the likelihood that the two-week border closure will be extended
This creates an even larger headache for Qantas...
Qantas has offered a range of options to its pilots.
The staff reductions form a major leg of the airline’s
$15 billion 'right sizing' cost reduction program. Qantas has now written to its pilots offering options ranging from early retirement to leave without pay, special leave without pay or voluntary redundancy. Those that don’t tick any of those boxes will remain in stand-down mode.
However, in recognition that it could be more than a year before long haul international flying resumes, the voluntary redundancy package is on offer only to those pilots.
The voluntary redundancies packages scale up relative to length of service ranging from those with 15 years or more receiving nine months pay and three months in lieu of service (plus holidays and long service) to those employed less than five years set to receive three months' base salary and three months' payment in lieu of service plus holidays and long service.
But Qantas retains the discretion to accept or reject any applications.
Additionally, the company is making no guarantees that it will not move to compulsory redundancies. The extent to which this will be necessary depends on the number who choose redundancy.
The airline is also offering all pilots the choice of leave without pay for a period of more than 12 months. But there are no guarantees that during that period they will not be made compulsorily redundant.
Those that take the special leave without pay option pilots will continue to accrue entitlements but they will need to exhaust all holiday and long service before signing up.
The pilot package will serve to quarantine the airline from the ongoing employee costs after Jobkeeper assistance runs out - an event which although scheduled for September may be extended for the hardest-hit sectors such as aviation and hospitality...'