2,000 Qantas jobs to be axed, reportedly as early as next week
With Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon telling workers this week, “The outlook for our industry is dire,” it has been revealed that Qantas will slash about 2,000 jobs, reportedly as early as next week including, senior managers, flight crew, engineers and ground staff, as the airline struggles with crippling fuel prices.
With the cuts anticipated to affect about 5% per cent of Qantas’ 36,000-strong worldwide workforce, loss making domestic and international routes also face the chop, with Dixon also told workers that rocketing fuel prices had changed forever the way Qantas did business.
Only last month Qantas cut about 100 staff, cut services and retired four older 747 aircraft, but since then the situation has worsened with the cost of jet fuel to a record level on July 3 of $US181.43 a barrel, with Qantas and Jetstar fuel bill will double to more than $2 billion this financial year.
The cuts come as the airline and the International Airline Pilots Association have agreed to a new pay deal giving long haul pilots an 3% per cent per annum pay rise, plus a 1% increase in company superannuation contributions every year for the next five years, with this deal expected to put pressure on the airline’s engineers, currently taking industrial action to secure a 5% pay rise.
At the same time the desperate situation was exemplified by Qantas overturning a 10 year ban on the in flight sale of duty free cigarettes on the same day the airline appointed a new Board member, Paul Rayner, the former chief operating officer of British American Tobacco Australasia, with Qantas saying the appointment had nothing to do with the decision to overturn the ban on duty free cigarette sales.
Federal Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, described the move as “a backward step for public health†and the Executive Director of the anti-smoking organisation Quit, Fiona Sharkie, said international passengers were a captive audience for duty-free promotions, and selling cut-price cigarettes to those suffering withdrawal symptoms on long-haul flights undermined a common strategy many smokers used in their attempts to give up, adding, “You have to ask, are the two events purely just a coincidence?”.
A special news report by The Mole
John Alwyn-Jones
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