Domestic pilots win fight

Press, 3 December 1985, Page 8

Domestic pilots win fight

PA Wellington Air New Zealand’s domestic pilots have won their courtroom fight for a share in flying the airline’s new glamour aircraft, the Boeing 767 ER. Command priority for the 200-seat $lOO million jet was established by the Aircrew Industrial Tribunal in favour of international pilots. Guided by the Feller award of 1980 which established the rules for pilot staffing and duties when Air New Zealand and National Airways Corporation merged, the tribunal said the jet was long-haul equipment and not for domestic pilots.

That decision was challenged in the High Court at Wellington last month by the domestic pilots’ independent committee of the Air Line Pilots’ Association. In his decision handed down yesterday, the Chief Justice, Sir Ronald Davidson, said the tribunal had “fallen into error” and was “wrong in law.”

The Feller award made it abundantly clear the 767 was not long-haul equipment as defined for command positions, he said.

His Honour said the tribunal was wrong in law in its interpretation of who had command priority and had considered the award’s clauses in isolation rather than reading them together. The decision means domestic pilots will have as much claim to fly the 767 ER as their international counterparts.