Australia’s Qantas seems to have come up with a solution to deal with the labor shortage that has paralyzed airlines due to the pandemic. It offers its executives to leave the offices to work on the tarmac as baggage handlers. According to an internal message from Qantas CEO Colin Hughes, which was passed on The Australian , senior staff will work on a voluntary basis as material handlers at Sydney and Melbourne airports three to five days a week. A hundred positions would be sought.
“You will receive a list of tasks, a schedule of activities and you will be monitored by our ground support partners,” Colin Hughes notes in an internal memo, noting that participating crews will not have to combine this role with their normal missions. It’s unclear how the company plans to do without its hundred senior executives, or how many of them answered the call. The Australian company did not respond to requests for comment when contacted Figaro.
2,000 cuts in 2021
“Our operational performance does not meet our customers’ expectations or the standards we expect of ourselvesAccording to Australian Aviation, a Qantas spokesperson said. The company has indeed been crippled by recruitment difficulties, laying off around 2,000 ground staff in 2021 due to the Covid crisis. The country’s federal court found these layoffs to be a partial breach of Australian law, but Qantas appealed. The airline is also facing a ground crew strike over pay and working conditions.
Qantas has come under fire in recent weeks after posting its worst performance in June 2022. Almost half of its flights were delayed or canceled and many bags were lost or damaged. ” Getting an airline back up and running after a two-year layoff is difficult, and the airline’s labor market, like many others, is tight.advocated Andrew David, the company’s domestic and international chief executive in July 2022. Add to that the fact that Covid cases are on the rise again in tandem with flu season (It is winter in Australia, editor’s note). »
Flight delays and cancellations have affected airlines around the world in recent months, with Qantas only the fourth airline to cancel the most flights between April 26 and July 26, 2022. like Heathrow in London, Schiphol in Amsterdam or Kastrup in Copenhagen. More than 25,000 scheduled flights had to be withdrawn from the August flight schedule, including almost 60% within Europe.
Source: Le Figaro
