We are writing to give you an update on bargaining and the status of our application to terminate the EA.
Current state of play and where are we going?
On 3 September 2025 the AFAP, with the support of the TWU and AIPA, made an application to terminate the EFA EA. This step was not taken lightly. This action was taken as it had become apparent the Company was in no hurry to negotiate an industry standard agreement. We had reached a ‘stalemate’. In order to ensure the pilot group would not be further disadvantaged and to encourage EFA to progress negotiations, it was decided that the application to terminate the agreement was our best option. The current EA has nothing substantive in the way of conditions that benefit the pilot group and at a minimum going to the Award will allow consistent pay rises if the negotiation of a new EA continues to be a drawn-out process. In the coming weeks we expect the matter will be listed before the Fair Work Commission (FWC). At this time (or before), we expect the Company to either support or oppose the application.
To be clear, the unions preference, and indeed the Company’s alleged preference, has always been to negotiate a new EA, however we will never endorse a substandard agreement. Unfortunately, as at the time of writing this update, the Company has not scheduled more bargaining meetings.
PIA
A reminder that several forms of protected industrial action (PIA) are still in force as follows:
- A ban on working on the following days as scheduled in the pilots’ initially published roster:
- rostered days off;
- non-work days for part time employees;
- annual leave days; and
- long service leave days.
- A ban on being contactable by EFA unless on a rostered duty or during a reserve period. This includes that a pilot will not answer phone calls, acknowledge texts, acknowledge updates to their roster, acknowledge emails or respond to any other form of communication unless they are on a rostered duty or in a designated reserve period.
- A ban on signing on within 120 minutes of being called in off a reserve period.
- A ban on reporting and/or performing any work duties before the scheduled sign-on time for a duty.
We ask that all members continue to enact the above PIA.
Disappointingly, there have been reports of pilots accepting day off payments. We ask that this stop. By accepting a day off payment, you undermine the very reason we are doing PIA, not to mention the disrespect it shows to your colleagues who are participating in the action.
If you are contacted by management to work on your day off and feel as though they have pressured, you should contact your union immediately. Being pressured when attempting to exercise a workplace right is completely unacceptable. The only contact from the Company in relation to rostering should be by crewing, and only during your designated contactability periods.
Threats and misinformation by the Company
There have been reports that the Company has implied that under the Award pilots must lose the current meal allowance structure. The Award does offer meal allowances that are less than the ATO rates, however it needs to be made completely clear that the Award is the legal minimum payable. The Company can choose to pay more than the Award. If they choose to reduce the meal allowances, this will be entirely their decision and will demonstrate just how little they value the pilot group!
Similar comments from the Chief Pilot have suggested that check and trainers will lose their C&T allowances if we go to the Award. Again, the Company does not have to do this! They can choose to continue to pay trainers the same as they have always done. Indeed, all current training pilots receive a quarterly bonus that is outside of the EA. Again, these threats are entirely punitive in nature, inaccurate and are designed to divide the pilot group.
Ad hoc Leave
It’s come to the AFAP’s attention that a large amount of ad hoc leave requests are being denied. If a pilot has had a leave request denied since the start of the year, please email your union with the details of this.
The current leave system and rules around it are still being worked through in negotiations. A major source of contention has been that pilots are not getting the leave blocks requested and are receiving unwanted leave allocations. Having clear evidence of this will assist in the event that we need to get the FWC involved.
Fatigue
Pilots have expressed concern that fatigue reports are not being actioned in a timely manner, and when they are, the comments are brief and at times appear to imply that the pilot may be to blame.
The pilot reps have significant concerns about the FRMS not being fit for purpose.
We ask that when pilots Intelex a fatigue report that they save or screen shot a copy for themselves. If they are not satisfied with the response from the Company to please send the report and any correspondence to your union. The aim is to ensure accountability and transparency with the FRMS.
The unions have a range of EA claims that aim to minimise fatigue. The Company continues to refer to the FRMS when these claims are mentioned even though there are significant shortcomings in the EFA FRMS.
Where to from here?
The AFAP genuinely wishes to negotiate a replacement EA that the pilot group will endorse. Unfortunately, EFA continues to push a completely substandard EA that we could never endorse. The unions are open to and will continue to offer ideas that will get us to a point where we have an EA worthy of voting for, however the continued antagonistic EA updates from the Company are causing significant irritation to the very pilots they are hoping will vote up the next agreement. As we saw with the Network Aviation EA negotiations there will be a point where the pilot group will vote with emotion rather than reason. It’s up to the Company to do its part to make sure this doesn’t happen! It’s time for the belligerent stance to be replaced by a collaborative discussion. EFA pilots deserve nothing less!
We hope our next update has some more positive news.
Thank you again for your support as we work to achieve a fair and reasonable agreement at EFA.
If you have any questions on the above, please contact us directly or Simon Lutton at the AFAP on mobile: 0419 482 582 or email simon@afap.org.au.
In Unity
Susha Semenikow and Dean McMahon
AFAP EFA Pilot Representatives