Australia’s major airlines are set to continue flying when airport firefighters walk off the job for four hours next Friday morning as part of strike action their union claimed would significantly disrupt travel schedules.
United Firefighters Union (UFU) aviation branch secretary Wes Garrett said the strike from 6am to 10am on December 9 was a last resort as the union pushed for better pay and more staff to address a shortage it claims is compromising safety.
“We understand that this will be extremely disruptive for Australia’s air travellers and aviation firefighters sincerely apologise for the inconvenience,” Garrett said.
“But for over a year now, the safety of air travellers has been consistently put at risk each time they board an aircraft because we don’t have enough aviation firefighters to protect them if their plane crashes or catches fire, and that’s not acceptable.”
Firefighters will strike at all 27 airports across Australia where they are stationed, including all capital city gateways.
But Australia’s three major domestic airlines appear set to continue flying during the strike.
A Virgin Australia spokesman said it would work with the government’s aviation manager, Airservices Australia, and other agencies to ensure it could operate safely and with minimal disruption during the planned strike action.
Qantas declined to comment, but the airline and its budget arm Jetstar have not rescheduled any services during the four-hour strike and are still selling tickets on those flights.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) mandates that Airservices provides a set level of emergency services at major airports, including crew response times and having a certain number trucks available to respond to runway incidentsWhen asked on Tuesday, CASA could not say whether airlines could safely or legally operate during the strike.“We are currently working with all relevant parties to understand the impacts of this announcement,” a CASA spokesman said.Airport firefighters have been locked in wage negotiations with Airservices Australia for the past 12 months, and this month obtained Fair Work Commission approval to
take strike action until January 1.About 100 firefighters have left the industry through a voluntary retirement scheme since October 2021, which Garrett said has resulted in more than 600 flights every month operating with insufficient fire fighting protection.
A recent internal Airservices report released by the union shows “category reductions” – when a flight lands without the required emergency service provisions – have “increased significantly” since the redundancy round began.
Until late 2021, about one in every 1000 flights operated without the appropriate level of emergency crews on hand. By July this year, that increased to 130 in every 1000 flights, the report says.
But Airservices denied there was an airport firefighter shortage and said the union’s claims about safety were misleading and “designed to justify unnecessary industrial action to support an excessive wage claim”.
“The [United Firefighters Union] should abandon its strike threat and return to the bargaining table,” an Airservices spokesperson said.
“If they are so concerned about safety ... why are they increasing the safety risk by taking strike action and withdrawing (Aviation Rescue and Firefighters) altogether at Christmas time?”
The UFU is pushing for a wage increases of 15 per cent over the next four years, which follows a 1 per cent increase in 2020 and 0 per cent last year.
Australian Airports Association chief executive James Goodwin said it was “disappointing that industrial action could see disruption to travellers at a time when the sector is rebuilding confidence”.
Although Airservices is allowed to vary aircraft category in accordance with approved procedures that manage temporary changes to category, its recent internal audit found increasing instances of non-compliance with CASA’s reporting framework and “discrepancies between regulations and Airservices processes”.