Qantas is taking five aircraft out of service – resulting in a reduction of 97 flights per week – as a result of continuing industrial action by its maintenance engineers.
Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne will bear the brunt of the cuts.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said the aircraft groundings were necessary because go-slows and overtime bans by maintenance engineers meant there was a shortfall in maintenance capacity of over 1,200 hours per week, or about eight percent.
“Regrettably, the industrial action from the licensed aircraft maintenance engineers’ union is now making it difficult to clear maintenance tasks in a timely fashion,†Joyce said.
“This means a number of aircraft are not available each day which has caused a decline in schedule reliability. On-time performance has fallen from 87 percent four weeks ago to 77 percent today.
“This is not a safety concern as problems are addressed before planes fly. But it is causing ongoing and unplanned disruption to our customers,†Joyce added.
Qantas said the measure would have no impact on QantasLink, Jetconnect and Jetstar.
