Qantas pain goes on State’s COVID cases could cost more jobs

QANTAS faces having to sack even more workers if Victoria’s new coronavirus outbreak delays the resumption of interstate air travel and plans for a “trans-Tasman bubble”, experts say.

Already 6000 jobs and $15 billion of costs will go over three years as boss Alan Joyce “right sizes” the Flying Kangaroo to confront what he described as the biggest crisis in aviation history.

The cuts equate to 20 per cent of its workforce, but analysts said that was likely to rise if the Andrews government’s “suburban testing blitz” in Melbourne fails to curb new case numbers.

Airline Ratings founder Geoffrey Thomas said he expected more staff would lose their jobs unless Victoria got on top of the situation – and the Federal Government extended wage subsidies.

“It’s a very dynamic situation,” Mr Thomas said. “You’ve still got 15,000 people on furlough.”

Strategic Aviation Solutions chairman Neil Hansford said Victoria’s infection spike could see Queensland Premier Annastacia

Palaszczuk use it as an excuse not to open the borders.

Mr Thomas said there were also implications for travel across the Tasman.

“Joyce is expecting the New Zealand ‘bubble’ to go ahead. If it doesn’t then a lot of their plans will be scuppered,” he said.

After Qantas made its axings public, Prime Minister

The – possibly more – will be across Qantas and Jetstar and represent about 20 per cent of the total workforce. Qantas CFO Vanessa Hudson said the cuts would include cabin crew, ground services, engineering and corporate, and that the international workforce staff will be more significantly impacted than domestic service staff.

Airline CEO Alan Joyce said the company was offering voluntary redundancies first before moving to involuntary redundancies. There would be “a lot of interest” in voluntary redundancies, he said.

There would be 1450 jobs lost in its corporate division, 1500 in ground operations, at least 1050 among cabin crew, and at least 630 jobs in engineering. At least 220 pilots would be made redundant but

Scott Morrison revealed a plan was being developed to provide financial help to the airline industry beyond the scheduled end of the JobKeeper subsidy in September.

The PM said he spoke with Mr Joyce on Wednesday evening and “was very clear … that we know that those sectors that continue to be significantly affected will need continued

Qantas advises customers that any existing, unused flight credits issued after January 31, 2019 originally booked for travel until October 31, 2020 are now valid for bookings and travel until December 31, 2022. support and so we are just working through the best way to target and deliver that support”.

“To all of the Qantas family who will be hurting badly … I extend my deepest regrets.”

Responding to the PM, Transport Workers Union national secretary Michael Kaine said the airline’s employees were “much less interested in you extending your regrets and much, much more interested in you extending JobKeeper.”