Qantas Set To Shed Jobs In Regions
The Age
Monday May 6, 2002
Qantas looks certain to shed hundreds of jobs in its regional airline as concerns mount over the future of country flights.
Many of the job losses will take place in provincial centres where aviation is a community mainstay.
The airline is undertaking a six-month cost-cutting review, prompted by the absorption of Impulse last year. Its five regional divisions, operating separately under the QantasLink umbrella, will be folded into two: one for jets and the other for turbo-prop flights.
Qantas will seek to centralise its accounting and ticketing but the company has pledged to maintain its existing regional flight routes. Most operational positions, such as pilots and flight attendants, will be secure.
The review, yet to be completed, has created angst in rural centres, particularly in Tamworth and Mildura, where Eastern and Southern airlines are based. It coincides with Qantas' desire to use half of Ansett's old terminals exclusively for rural flights.
It also follows Qantas' decision to buy six Boeing 717 aircraft and shift some of its operations to Tasmania to cut costs.
QantasLink, with Eastern, Southern, AirLink, Sunstate and AirConnex, employs more than 2000 workers and operates 2500 flights a week.
Combining the airlines means that five air operators' certificates - the safety criteria required by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to conduct passenger services - can be reduced to two documents.
This will require fewer chief pilots and less administrative support.
A Qantas spokesman said the review was to ensure the long-term viability of regional flights, where margins were often thin. He denied it was a forerunner to dropping unprofitable services.
``It is a consequence of history that there are five different entities in our regional airline network," he said.
``There are clearly areas where there is duplication and the potential for some jobs to be done more efficiently. There will be some redundancies."
A Southern Airlines manager, who declined to be named, said the review had been a sham, with no objective contribution from individual operators.
``The regional businesses are already very viable in their own right, but someone in head office wants to cut costs even further," he said. ``But this might end up costing them more than it saves. Qantas started in the bush, but there is growing anger.
``It has been reaping huge benefits in regional Australia since the demise of Ansett and many people believe it is repaying bush communities by killing regional jobs."
The review comes at a precarious time for the regional aviation industry. Uncertainty surrounds the future of Ansett's former regional airlines, Kendell and Hazelton.
A spokesman for Hazelton's administrator, Michael Humphris, said talks were continuing with two bidders who wanted to buy an airline to be forged out of a merger with Kendell. At a meeting last week, Mr Humphris said if a preferred bidder was not identified by the middle of the month steps would be taken for flights to be cancelled.
© 2002 The Age