Qantas Offer To R.A.F. Pilots

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30561, 2 October 1964, Page 7

Qantas Offer To R.A.F. Pilots

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, September 30. Fifty pilots with the Royal Air Force Transport Command want to leave the service to join Qantas, the “Daily Sketch” reported.

Qantas was offering them jobs at three times their weekly pay, the newspaper said. Pilots were interviewed yesterday at the ■ company’s Piccadilly office.

A spokesman was quoted as saying: “We need pilots badiy. At the moment we urgently want highly-experi-enced men to train as captains on Boeing 707 jets. “Any pilot we recruit who gets through our 707 command course will, after about 18 months, become captain of a round-the-world Boeing jet” “We have set up our recruiting office in London to attract both R.A.F. pilots and pilots from other airlines. We have budgeted to spend £2 million in an all-out effort to get the best men available.” Britain’s major state-owned airline—B.O.A.C.—would dismiss 3600 employees, including about 250 pilots under the streamline plans of the chairman, Sir Giles Guthrie, air observers forecast last night. The airline would pay them £9,000,000 compensation. Details of the plans will be announced at separate talks with 8.0.A.C. management and leaders of 18 unions at London Airport on Friday. British air correspondents reported that Sir Giles Guthrie planned to dismiss about 250 pilots, 150 flight engineers and 1000 staffmen in the flight operations department, as well as supervisory, technical and clerical workers. The average compensation would be about a year’s pay, with variations according to length of service. 8.0.A.C.’s annual report, which will not be published until after the General Election on October 15, would disclose a record profit of more

than £lO million for last year, say newspaper reports. At the present rate of earnings, 8.0.A.C. was likely to make a profit this year of more than £l5 million.