Qantas admits it’s fallen short of customers’ expectations as executives asked to fill in as ground crew

“Overworked, exhausted and understaffed” outsourced ground crew at Qantas and several other airlines could strike next month over a new agreement they claim would see pay cuts doled out to experienced workers, pushing them below legal award conditions.

On Friday, the Fair Work Commission approved a Transport Workers Union (TWU) application to hold a protected action ballot which will go on to determine whether Emirates-owned Dnata workers will walk off the job.

Dnata is one of the third-party contractors Qantas uses to provide ground handling at Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne since it unlawfully sacked about 1700 of its own staff in 2020, but as Dnata services about 20 airlines, the strike would also affect carriers like Etihad and Singapore Airlines as well as thousands of travellers.

Dnata workers say their requests for management to boost part-time hours or invest in permanent positions to reduce the pressure on the chronically over-worked crews has so far been rebuked, and they claim it’s putting workers and travellers at risk.

A leaked memo said that aircraft and safety equipment had been damaged because of shortcuts and understaffing, while unsafe behaviour had seen several close-call safety incidents.

It warned staff to push back on any “pressure from airline reps” or managers to work faster.

“The problem here is that when Qantas says jump, these third-party labour hire companies in aviation ask how high just so they can keep the contract,” TWU national assistant secretary Nick McIntosh said.

“Dnata workers are just the latest casualty in the Joyce-led administration’s moves to wring aviation contracts dry, with working men and women expected to accept a shoddy deal while wealthy executives live the high life.”

But a Qantas spokesperson rejected the safety allegations.

“The TWU has been trying to discredit the safety of outsourced ground handling, despite data showing a lower rate of incidents compared to when this work was done in-house,” the spokesperson said.

“This kind of behaviour is hypocritical and it undermines the strong safety culture that exists throughout Australian aviation.”

It comes as Qantas’s chief operating officer Colin Hughes sent a note to staff asking senior executives and managers to sign up to a contingency program where they would work as ground crew for up to five days a week across a three-month period.

During the stint, senior staff would sort bags, drive the tarmac vehicles, and move bags from planes to terminals.

“During your time in the contingency program, you’ll be an embedded resource within the ground handling partners,” Hughes wrote.

“This means you’ll receive a roster, be scheduled to operate and be supervised and managed in the live operations by our ground handling partners.”

In a statement, a Qantas spokesperson told SmartCompany the airline appreciates that its operational performance “has not been meeting our customers’ expectations or the standards that we expect of ourselves”, and that it was working to remedy it.

“As we have done in the past during busy periods, around 200 head office staff have helped at airports during peak travel periods since Easter.

“While we manage the impacts of a record flu season and ongoing COVID-19 cases coupled with the tightest labour market in decades, we’re continuing that contingency planning across our airport operations for the next three months.”

It comes as a ballot of approximately 1000 Qantas engineers will vote on a potential strike in protest over their pay and condition, with the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) confident it will be backed in.

And it’s not just Qantas set to suffer from more aviation chaos. This week, the ALAEA launched a second vote for approximately 50 technicians working at Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (VARA).

The Fair Work Commission greenlit both ballots, which mention “work stoppages up to 12 hours in length” and “overtime bans”, meaning fly-in-fly-out workers across the country are set to feel the worst of the disruption if strikes go ahead.

FIFO workers at Rio Tinto and BHP frequent the routes in WA, with flights between Perth and Broome, Darwin, and Port Hedland among other places.

In June, VARA had the worst on-time performance of any airline with nearly half of all flights either delayed or cancelled, though Australia recorded its worst flight cancellation and performance rate ever in June, with only 63% of Qantas, Virgin, Jetstar and Rex flights hitting their arrival time in June; 61.9% departed on time.

“We intend to continue discussions with our team members and the ALAEA to understand the issues and work towards a new enterprise agreement,” a Virgin Australia spokesperson said.