Qantas Plans Full Throttle Expansion

Australia’s biggest domestic and international airline will employ more than 30,000 workers in the next 10 years. They will also purchase state-ofthe-art aircraft and create a new academy.

Qantas’ biggest move to fill the gaps in its workforce after the pandemic, when it cut thousands of jobs, is the hiring spree.

On March 4, a major Australian airline announced that it would have 32,000 employees by 2033, compared to approximately 23,500 at the moment. It will also create more than 8,500 high-skilled jobs in Australian aviation.

These include 4500 new cabin crew roles, 1,600 pilot roles and 800 engineers. There are also 1,600 other operational positions.

The airline expects to double its headcount over the next 18 months and replace natural attrition.

Qantas will also be enhancing its capabilities with the purchase over the next ten years of 12 wide-body and 299 narrow-body aircraft.

National carrier opened its first academic pilot in 2020. It would also invest millions in the construction of an engineering academy, which is expected to open its doors by 2025.

The academy will recruit approximately 200 engineering students each year to provide Qantas with general aviation engineers, defense contractors, and aviation engineers. These are all highly-sought areas.

Qantas stated that the retirement rate of aviation engineers is higher than the national supply each year. This means that a new pipeline of training is necessary.

“Aviation is so vital to a country such as Australia and you need a large skills pipeline to support it. This applies not only to the large airlines, but also to small regional operators, defense and general aviation.” Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce on Friday.

“It’s an entire ecosystem that pilots, engineers, and in particular, pilots, navigate through. The long-term skills required mean it depends on constant renewal.”

Qantas’ boss pointed out that aircraft were ordered up to 10 years ahead of schedule. Therefore, a similar long-term strategy must be used for people and the skills required.

“In the short term, we are preparing to meet the growth of all the markets that we serve.” He said that we have more aircraft arriving each month, which means we need more engineers, pilots, and cabin crew, among other things.”

“We look forward working with the industry and training organisations, unions, governments to finalize details for the engineering school.”

Criticised for Job Slash

This latest move was made after the airline eliminated 9,800 jobs from its 30,000-strong workforce over the past three years. The Federal Court found that the airline had illegally outsourced 1,700 baggage handlers from third-party air service providers such as Dnata in 2020. Qantas appeals the verdict.

According to the Transport Workers Union (TWU), Qantas’ hiring spree will not replace decades of experience that management used to “use the cover of COVID-19” to “displace the workforce and pay people less for the same jobs.”

Qantas’ “overzealous Redundancies” were alleged by the union. Qantas had vacated 300 of its most experienced pilots. Many of them also held CASA-authorized check and training duties.

Qantas wants to bring back cabin crew with lower pay and conditions than before. This is similar to the jobs in Qantas Freight, which was published shortly after Qantas illegally fired nearly 1700 ground crew.

“Rebuilding aviation requires more than just an announcement of inferior jobs. It requires a return to terms and conditions that were deliberately culled by Joyce-led management’s opportunistic Approach to COVID-19,” TWU National secretary Michael Kaine stated in a Press release Friday

Qantas won’t be the same airline again unless there is a significant shift in strategy and ideology under a new management group. Workers who worked at Qantas were able to build the Spirit of Australia, but these workers are no longer available and their jobs are less secure and well-paid.

‘We Made People Redundant To Survive’

However, Qantas boss David McLean defended the job cut, saying it was a survival move.

Joyce stated that “we made people redundant in order to survive” and that many people quit the industry because there was no work for almost three years. Joyce spoke on the Today Show.

“So we are now recruiting to fill that gap, and to take on the growth we have because there will be a lot more aircraft flying new routes.

Brendan O’Connor, Federal Minister for Skills and Training, stated that Australia has the second-highest labour shortage according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

“This is an important economic challenge. He said that Friday was a great opportunity for people to acquire the skills needed for the jobs they want.

“Australia requires thousands of engineers and workers to enter the aviation sector to ensure security jobs and a thriving industry. Qantas welcomes this investment to meet these future skill needs.