Qantas Airways has announced plans to outsource more than 2,000 ground staff roles across ten airports, a move that seeks to lower costs as it faces a financial hit from the global COVID-19 pandemic.
This means that Baggage handlers, ramp workers and cabin cleaners at airports including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Darwin, Cairns, Townsville, Alice Springs and Canberra will lose their jobs. The job cuts are on top of 6,000 roles already announced by the carrier earlier this year, where it spent around $600 million on related payments.
Qantas argues that outsourcing would allow it to match ground handling services with fluctuating levels of demand, on the basis that it expects its flying schedule to be more variable during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond. Furthermore, the airline hopes to save about $74 million annually, based on pre-Covid levels of flying, by switching to third-party providers instead of handling its own ground services.
Nevertheless, all affected employees will be entitled to a redundancy package and given support to transition to new jobs.
Qantas Airways Limited is Australia’s flag carrier and is the largest airline by fleet size, international flights, and international destinations. It is the third oldest airline in the world, after KLM and Avianca. It does not expect to fly internationally until late in 2021 – except for a potential travel bubble with New Zealand.
Qantas Group posted a $2.7 billion loss for the 2020 financial year and suffered a $4 billion hit to its revenue. The airline is expecting another significant loss this financial year and expects revenue to fall by another $10 billion. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Qantas Group has taken on more than $1.5 billion in extra debt.
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