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Regions lose under Qantas plan
Qantas Airways Ltd stepped up it trans-Tasman flights at the same time as it began streamlining services to regional Australia.
The addition of nine extra return flights a week to New Zealand angered unions concerned about regional services.
Qantas, which makes much of its outback beginnings, said 23 positions were under review at the headquarters of its Southern Airlines subsidiary in Mildura, Victoria. Other staff face forced transfers.
Southern and Eastern Airlines will merge with Qantas' National Jet operations in what is believed to be a long-term plan to rationalise the five regional airlines operating under the QantasLink banner - Southern, Eastern, AirLink, Impulse and Sunstate Airlines.
The Australian Services Unions (ASU) accused the airline of ignoring employees' welfare to improve profits.
"This isn't about getting a bigger market share, Qantas already have 95 per cent of the regional market. All they're interested is making more and more money," ASU national secretary Linda White said.
"They're going gangbuster everywhere."
The Flight Attendants Association of Australia (FAAA) is negotiating with Qantas on a deal for its 60-odd members involved with the regional airlines, with a response expected early next week.
The larger-than-expected trans-Tasman expansion steps up pressure on Air New Zealand by taking the Australian carrier's total number of return flight between the countries to more than 100 a week.
Six of the additional flights - three each from Sydney and Melbourne - will travel to Christchurch on the South Island, where business leaders have been angered by recent service cutbacks by Air NZ.
The Qantas flight will use Boeing 767s, which have a much larger cargo capacity than the 737s currently used by Air NZ.
In addition, Qantas will operate an additional two return flights a week from Melbourne to Auckland and an extra Sydney-Auckland flight on Fridays, which will return on Wednesdays.
Air NZ, still reeling from the Ansett collapse, has faced increased competition from Qantas in its home market, with the Australian carrier expanding to claim about 20 per cent of the NZ domestic market.
Merrill Lynch aviation analyst Simon Gresham said Air NZ was having to carefully consider the services it offered on particular routes and Qantas had stepped into the breech.
"They (Qantas) appear to have seen a market need, particularly for the larger aircraft and you can only assume that they're doing that rationally," he said.
The move will fuel speculation that Qantas is aiming to run down Air NZ in order to make the NZ government sell its stake in the national carrier.
Last year Qantas proposed to buy a a 25 per cent stake in Air NZ but was blocked by the NZ government.
The government instead took the equivalent of $A475 million in new equity, in addition to an earlier $A244 loan, convertible to preference shares to keep its flag carrier in the air.
"We all know that Qantas has an agenda to gain a stake in Air NZ but whether there's a link between the two I wouldn't want to hypothesise," Mr Gresham said.
Air NZ chief executive Ralph Norris recently said the airline was looking at options to provide a third daily return service from Christchurch to Sydney as a matter of urgency.