BTW Ophir...where are youe based out of?

I'm out of SLC. But my gal lives, and goes to school, in PDX. So I may be taking the upgrade there soon. We'll see. PDX is really senior for us and super hard to get.

Has anyone heard if ANZ is still going to hire due to the economic downturn?

Currently Air NZ is looking to park a couple of B744's, however one of them does not fly much anyway; more of a hot spare I think.

They are re-directing people to the B777, namely CA's and FO's, and taking some, but very little LOA's. They are not even allowing SO's to take LOA and as far as I know have still been interviewing as of late.

They still have the B787's on order, still have B777-300's coming as well. PKG was just started before the games and all the long haul flying appears to be keeping pretty full.

The over sixty thing hit's hard down here as there is no retirement age, meaning more guy's are staying after 65 by going short haul or back to the right seat, which is frustrating. The B787 delay and the integration of the Freedom Air pilots, which personally I think to be a nightmare (last time I showed up to work there were two other B777 SO's, one is 68 the other well into his 50's, who are there on full A320 captain pay and not in a rush to go anywhere now).

All that aside, people have to retire sometime and there appears to be a bit of expansion after 2010, so for a young guy I think it's an excellent place to go for a long term career.

Sorry . . . so yea, I think you'll see some hiring next year.

Koru,

I'm coming down to NZ for the airline ski race at Mt. Hutt next week. I'll be around a bit and hoping to make it up to AKL too.

It was a beauty off shore yesterday mate, we should do some surfing.

I'm in LAX now but will be back Friday. I'll email my phone num,ber and we'll do beers. Friday night is a bigone at the local social club if you are up for a day on the penninsula; good times (just ask Mayfly).

I wish I were there!
Cheers,
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Hi Guys,

Thought I'd make an introduction too.
I'm in the same spot as Ophir, couting on the Mrs to make it into the 'required skills list', studying to be a teacher.

If we manage to coordinate layovers in JFK, beers are on me.

Cheers!

I get to ORD and SEA in the States on the 744F now, and a couple of places in Europe and Asia.

I'm going to start posting my roster on Airline Friends.Net - Where Friendships take Flight! as I have a few buddies around the traps. If something syncs up let me know.