Qantas hit by more strikes
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Qantas will be hit by further industrial action tomorrow, when its ground crew and engineers down tools at airports across Australia. Friday’s strike will see Transport Worker’ Union members, including aircraft maintenance engineers, baggage handlers and other transport employees, stop work for two hours between 4pm-6pm local time. Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) members will continue a series of one-hour rolling strikes
The strikes will force Qantas to cancel 17 flights and delay further 29 by up to an hour on Friday, affecting an estimated 5,700 passengers. For Qantas and the Australian travelling public, the strikes have come at a bad time; tomorrow is the last day of the country’s school holidays.
Qantas Group executive, Olivia Wirth said the airline would again deploy management staff to undertake operational roles such as baggage handling and catering, and would put on larger aircraft on some routes.
“These unions are continuing to take industrial action which is intentionally causing disruptions to our passengers and hurting the Qantas brand,” Ms Wirth said. “This is a coordinated campaign by three unions, with the pilots’ union this week also starting new unauthorised in-flight announcements over the public address system on international and some domestic flights.”
There was one positive piece of news for Qantas today however; the airline announced that it has reached a new agreement with its flight attendants’ union. The deal includes a three percent pay rise every year for three years, and an annual AU$500 (
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