Qantas boss issues warning of more flight pain to come
QANTAS CEO Alan Joyce says he cannot bring aircraft back into service fast enough to meet demand for international travel despite horror stories from travellers in the northern hemisphere.
The airline expects to have five of its 10 remaining A380s back in the air by the end of the year and is awaiting delivery of another three Boeing 787-9s.
With demand for travel outstripping supply, Qantas expects to be back to 85 per cent of its pre-covid international capacity by December and 100 per cent by mid-2023.
The flying kangaroo will farewell its inaugural PerthRome flight on Wednesday and Mr Joyce told a business breakfast in Perth, negotiations were under way in Paris for a suitable slot at Charles de Gaulle Airport.
But he was mindful of the problems at a number of European airports, with the expectation the summer period would be “terrible”.
After meeting other airline CEOS at the International Air Transport Association summit in Doha, Mr Joyce said the short-term outlook was not good.
“British Airways was saying they had 18,000 bags stranded at Heathrow on Saturday,” Mr Joyce “KLM and Lufthansa … think it’s going to get worse. KLM and Air France were flying empty aircraft out because they couldn’t let people go out of the country.”
In Canada, airports were using “metering” to try to stagger the number of people going into terminals for processing.
The strategy meant aircraft were held on the tarmac or at the gate until passengers were allowed to disembark and in some instances the waits were longer than the actual flight.
Labour shortages were also a major issue for many airlines, with Mr Joyce pointing out American Airlines had grounded 100 aircraft because there were not enough pilots.
IATA senior vice president of operations Nick Careen said there was a need to explore greater automation at airports in order to help overcome staff shortages.
Remote control technology already existed for the positioning of aerobridges and aircraft tows but was not widely used, he said.
Loading bags onto aircraft was another area where automation could be used in the place of workers, many of whom had not returned to the aviation industry after being laid off early in the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The labour market is very tight and we’re competing with many industries now, and many people are selecting jobs that are less onerous than throwing bags on the ramp, doing shift work and so on,” said Mr Careen. “There’s also the challenges of security clearances (for airside workers). In the UK it’s taking six months for someone to be security cleared and badged, which is clearly unsustainable.”
Mr Joyce also tackled the issue of business class airfares on transcontinental flights in Australia, with Qantas charging $2500 one-way whether on a wide-body A330 or a narrowbody 737.
He said the small number of seats available was driving up fares.