Wise Monkey
14th Apr 2007, 02:10
Qantas Airways yesterday confirmed its plans to cut 150 further jobs from its cabin crew roster barely five months after it cut 400 full time long-haul cabin crew positions in a bid to cut costs.
The Australian carrier revealed to the media that it was prepared to offer 150 voluntary redundancies to its long-haul flight attendants, after telling its 3000 strong long-haul staff only that they had informed the Flight Attendants Association of Australia international division that they were looking to “offer a limited number of voluntary redundancies.”
As Qantas head of customer product and services Lesley Grant said to staff: “Qantas representatives assured the [association] and I can assure you that this is not a plan for widespread or forced reductions in our long-haul cabin crew division.”
The plans to cut many of the Australian long-haul cabin crew has been becoming more evident in the recent months since the lifting of the cap on foreign crews by the unions two years ago. This gave Qantas the green light to use more lower-paid New Zealand crews and causal staff on its services around the Asia Pacific.
Qantas’ Auckland-based crews also work 30 per cent more hours and get paid half as much as Australian long-haul crews.
The Australian carrier revealed to the media that it was prepared to offer 150 voluntary redundancies to its long-haul flight attendants, after telling its 3000 strong long-haul staff only that they had informed the Flight Attendants Association of Australia international division that they were looking to “offer a limited number of voluntary redundancies.”
As Qantas head of customer product and services Lesley Grant said to staff: “Qantas representatives assured the [association] and I can assure you that this is not a plan for widespread or forced reductions in our long-haul cabin crew division.”
The plans to cut many of the Australian long-haul cabin crew has been becoming more evident in the recent months since the lifting of the cap on foreign crews by the unions two years ago. This gave Qantas the green light to use more lower-paid New Zealand crews and causal staff on its services around the Asia Pacific.
Qantas’ Auckland-based crews also work 30 per cent more hours and get paid half as much as Australian long-haul crews.