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Jetstar pilot sacked after criticising airline
Qantas's low-cost subsidiary Jetstar faces a legal challenge under unfair dismissal and freedom-of-association laws after it sacked a pilot who expressed safety concerns about the airline to the Herald.
Jetstar sacked Joseph Eakins, 31 - a pilot with the airline since 2007 with 5500 hours experience - a month after Fairfax Media news websites published his concerns last month.
Mr Eakins, 31, a Jetstar Airbus A330 first officer and a representative with the Australian and International Pilots Association, criticised the discount airline's ''offshore'' employment strategy.
In the opinion piece, Mr Eakins wrote that Australia's aviation safety culture '' … will be obliterated if the offshoring push continues … Draconian workplace conditions can be imposed through the use of foreign 'bases of convenience', allowing … Third World wages and working conditions.''
''I feel like my life has been destroyed for speaking up and telling the truth in a legitimate and measured manner,'' Mr Eakins said.