Next week, members of the Australian and International Pilots Association will begin voting on a new proposal that would involve an 18-month wage freeze starting from March 2014. Seventy-nine per cent of the short-haul pilots voted down the last deal, which involved them forgoing 18 months of back pay from September 2012.

That would result in a larger amount of back pay based on an increase in the starting wage of the back pay. The new in-principle deal also involves some changes to productivity measures in the original proposal.

Qantas is seeking an 18-month wage freeze in all of its new agreements with unions as a result of having been unprofitable for an 18-month period. The airline now expects to report a first-half underlying pretax profit of $300 million to $350 million, driven in large part by $350 million of cost savings measures kicking in during that period.

To date, it has succeeded in doing so in many of the deals under negotiation. Within the last week, 96.9 per cent of engineering, catering and freight workers represented by the National Union of Workers agreed to the pay freeze, while 81 per cent of freighter pilots voted in favour as well. Licenced engineers and Jetstar cabin crew have also agreed to the 18-month wage freeze.

But last week, nearly 95 per cent of Jetstar pilots rejected a deal that involved the pay freeze and the requirement to spend more hours on call in case they were needed for flying.

On Monday, chief executive Alan Joyce said the airline's position on the wage freeze had been very clear.

"The 18 months were picked because we said we had lost money for 18 months and we didn't believe it was appropriate in the scheme of things for pay increases when the company was losing money," he told Fairfax Media. "Management didn't take any increases as well as a lot of different groups."

Mr Joyce said the airline was having good dialogue with the Qantas short-haul and Jetstar pilots.

"I think there has been recognition of the company's position on [the pay freeze]," he said. "And we're hopeful that we can get agreement with every group out there on the same issue."

The Transport Workers Union is also in negotiations with Qantas on an enterprise bargaining agreement covering a large number of employees. In an update last week, the TWU said it did not support a wage freeze but it had put forward a number of other issues that would need to be addressed for the negotiating committee to even consider the wage freeze proposal.