I just spoke with my friend at Jet Star and he tells me that they are still on for upgrades out of CHC early in the new year. There are six A320/321's still slated for delivery by April and he says, as far as he's been told, that there will be hiring in February. However, thing's could change fast and perhaps my friend has not heard the latest, but his news is from last week.

On another note, Air NZ is now talking about down training, and very subtly alluding to redundancy if the down training didn't work to shore up numbers; this is from the top, but I'd take it with a grain of salt as they tend to exagerate thing's like that. They denied not only my request for LOA, but that of people on the B744, so if they turned around and laid guy's off I'd say that they would be in a bit of trouble. I'd personally be pretty miffed.

Jetconnect is supposed to be getting NG's from QF mainline, which is good as they constantly cancel flights. They were hiring like mad as people were not sticking around, but their last contract was pretty good and with the current situation the hiring there might not be so slick.

Lucky, you don't need residency to get an NZ licence if that's what you are thinking; not sure but that's kind of what I read in your post. I'd check with Chris regarding getting an interview with no licence. Realistically you might need at least a commercial in your pocket, but maybe not. Tweet is a bit different as he's a known entity, but check anyway. Chris or Margie should get back to you via email.

For Jet Star, yes, at the moment you'd need residence in OZ or a Kiwi passport, NZ residence will not cut it as they employ out of OZ. If Kenny is correct it's a moot point though.

You could always try a commuting contract out of Asia for the time being. . .