Pilots say Qantas should pay to bypass them

afr.com:

The Australian International Pilots Association has told the Federal Court that Qantas should have to pay its pilots if it bypasses them to hire from outside the company to fly its biggest planes, saying the pilots “reasonably” considered the airline’s request before declining it.

In May, Qantas took its case to the Federal Court after failing to reach agreement with AIPA in the Fair Work Commission over a request to hire 20 new pilots to train as second officers on its A380s, which fly long-haul international routes.

Qantas has taken its pilots to court saying they acted unreasonably in withholding agreement. Steven Siewert

Under the enterprise agreement, Qantas pilots sought to be promoted to the bigger aircraft from smaller Boeing 737s, A330s, and A350s and to enter a queue, from which they should be selected. But the agreement says Qantas can ask to directly allocate pilots and this “should not be unreasonably withheld” if requested for operational reasons.

Qantas asked AIPA for permission to allocate externally hired pilots directly to the A380s, saying its training pipeline was broken because of COVID-19 and because of the significant impact of “restarting an airline from a global pandemic”.

In court on Tuesday, barrister Matthew Follett said: “COVID had a dramatic effect on the operations of Qantas, in particular the international operations and effectively through the best part of two years there were almost no international flights.“

“Regular passenger transport function was largely, if not entirely, not being performed. The consequence of that was very large numbers of the international pilots were stood down, without pay, for considerable periods of time.

“When would it ever be unreasonable if not now? In what