[Mike W]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...-23349,00.html

Steve Creedy, Aviation writer | October 24, 2008
VIRGIN Blue has urged its pilots to burn outstanding leave balances as part of a plan to avoid redundancies.

The warning comes as traffic figures from both Australian airlines showed planes are flying less full and Deutsche Bank yesterday downgraded airline earnings forecasts for the financial year.

Deutsche cut its post-abnormal net profit forecast for Qantas by 16 per cent, to $481 million, and Virgin's by 44.6 per cent, to a loss of $51.1 million.

In a memo warning that the airline is still in the eye of a storm with the economy slowing and recession a possibility, Virgin chief operations officer Andrew David says low pilot turnover of less than 2 per cent means the airline has a surplus of 737 flight crew.

The memo says a plan to re-deploy pilots and avoid redundancies had seen people seconded to Pacific Blue, the extension of existing assignments to the Embraer fleet, opportunities with V Australia, part-time work and a move to reduce leave liability from 73 per cent to 25 per cent this financial year.

But the leave reduction has hit a snag because the airline can only force people to take leave if they have more than 10 weeks banked and it does not have enough pilots with that kind of surplus to achieve its target.

Continues