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The union representing most of Virgin Australia’s pilots has offered qualified support for the airline’s proposed deal with Qatar Airways.
In its submission to the ACCC, the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP) said the proposal – which would see Qatar take a 25 per cent stake in Virgin and wet lease its planes to the smaller carrier for flights to Doha – would create job opportunities for Australian pilots.
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“Without this deal, Virgin Australia would struggle to compete internationally, limiting career advancement and job security within the airline and not entering the international market in their own right at this time,” wrote AFAP president Ben Bollen, and AFAP Virgin Pilot Federation chair Steve Hungerford.
“By leveraging Qatar Airways’ resources and expertise, Virgin Australia can grow its operations more rapidly, eventually leading to greater demand for Australian pilots as the airline scales up its fleet and operations.
“The option for pilots to be seconded to Qatar Airways also presents a valuable opportunity for professional development, which will further benefit Virgin Australia when these pilots return with enhanced skills and experience.
“These pilots will need to be replaced in the Virgin Australia domestic operation as well, creating growth in Australian-based pilot numbers. The arrangement ensures that the long-term demand for pilots will increase, not decrease, under the partnership.”
The union has expressed reservations about the wet-lease deal, however, with Bollen and Hungerford asking for it to be limited to three to five years.
“The wet lease is an appropriate tool in the short term to establish the operations before transitioning to the operation of these services by Virgin Australia pilots based in Australia. However, the wet lease is outsourcing air rights reserved for Australian airlines to foreign-owned airframes utilising overseas labour,” they wrote.
“If indefinite, this has the potential to undermine public benefits from Australian airlines’ international air rights by limiting the number of jobs created for pilots and other employees in the aviation sector in Australia.
“Our concerns about ensuring that this arrangement does not undermine Australian pilot jobs or the local airline industry in the long term would be mitigated by limiting the wet lease to a five-year period with transition to dry lease determined at the end of the three-year period.
“Given that Virgin Australia does not currently operate a wide-body fleet internationally, the three-year period will allow a sufficient timeframe to assess the viability of the operation utilising Virgin Australia’s own crew and ultimately fleet.”
Virgin Australia says five years is the intended initial time frame for the wet-lease agreement, giving it a chance to see how well a return to international wide-body operations will serve it in the long term. In a statement, a spokesperson welcomed the union’s support.
“This reflects the significant opportunity that an early resumption – and carefully planned longer-term assessment – of long-haul international flying presents for Virgin Australia and our people,” the spokesperson said.
“And of course, for customers, the proposed alliance will enhance competition in Australian aviation and place downward pressure on international airfares to Europe, the Middle East and Africa as soon as mid-2025.
“It is estimated the direct economic benefit of Virgin Australia’s proposed new services to Qatar will add ~$3 billion of economic benefit in Australia over the five-year authorisation period due to increased inbound international visitor spend.”
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says:The Qatar wet lease agreement is a timely boost for VOZ and to be realistic their managements plan of a five-year lead in/howgozit before committing to a self-operating basis is excellent because a more accurate market and equipment assessment can be produced. In the meantime however, VOZ must seriously investigate and re-invest into the Oz regional transport needs vacated by the REX problem. With respect, their previous decision to opt out of their regional operations was purely financial at that time and failed to consider the national interest, the country folk’s welfare and wellbeing and the Govt, didn’t help either. The longer that problem is left unattended the greater the adverse effect on the country and the costs to fix it will skyrocket. In every respect VOZ, this is a winner for us all, goforit!