Qantas: Planes will fly Despite Industrial Actions

Australia based Qantas Airways (QAN) has claimed that the industrial action staged by the engineers of the airline will not lead to grounding aircrafts as out of hours call-outs and a ban on over time will be made effective today. The professional engineers of the airline are going to stage industrial action as they claimed that the working condition may put the operation of Qantas under threat. According to Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia (APESMA), the industrial action could lead several Jetstar and Qantas planes getting grounded. The union also stated that the bans on out-of-hours call-outs and overtime will start today at 5 pm (AEDT) and will remain till Monday 9 am. The action will be imposed again at 5 pm on Tuesday and will remain active till Tuesday 8 am. This will keep going in the same pattern everyday for an indefinite period.

However, the authority of Qantas Airways claimed that they have contingency plans to deal with the situation and the operations of the airline will not be interrupted. David Epstein, the corporate affairs manager of Qantas also added that safety and uninterrupted service is always the top priority for Qantas and the passengers of the airline can travel with full confidence. However Catherine Bolger, the director of APESMA claimed that industrial actions will disrupt the service. Ms. Bolger stated that some airplanes of Qantas and Jetstar will not be allowed to continue with their flights due to the industrial action. She also added that the professional engineers are expecting to see their roles being properly recognised by the management and the negative consequences like fatigue which occurs due to long hours of work and after-work call-outs are also needed to be addressed.

It is to be mentioned that Qantas currently has around 190 professional engineers operating for the airline in a workforce of around 5,500 employees. Although the professional engineers makes a smaller part of the entire workforce of the airline but plays the very important role of signing off on any major maintenance work before a plane could take off.