Qantas to ground more aircraft
Qantas will ground a further two wide-body Boeing 767 aircraft on Monday, blaming its ongoing industrial dispute with the Australian Licenced Engineers Association (ALAEA) for the decision.
The grounding of the two aircraft will see a further 80 domestic flights cancelled over the next month, and the removal of approximately 20,000 seats of capacity.
This will mainly impact flights between Australia's eastern states and Perth on the west coast.
Qantas said as a direct result of the ongoing ALAEA ban on overtime and work to rule, “Qantas has now been forced to ground seven aircraft, cancel around 500 flights and remove approximately 88,000 seats from sale over the next month”.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said, “The ongoing action from the licensed aircraft maintenance engineers’ union means we do not have the manpower to fulfil all of the necessary maintenance on our fleet of aircraft.
“The industrial action has caused a shortfall of more than 60,000 man hours of maintenance and this is increasing on a daily basis, forcing us to ground aircraft.
“If this overtime ban continues, we will be grounding even more aircraft.”
Qantas says its on time performance has slipped from 87 percent five weeks ago to 75 percent this week.
Joyce said the union’s claim that these aircraft were already going to be grounded was incorrect and was an attempt to divert attention away from the significant damage the union was doing to Qantas and its passengers.
“These aircraft are flying this week and from Monday they won’t be. When we clear the backlog of maintenance then the aircraft will be put back into service. It’s as simple as that,” he said.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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