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Business

WA regional and FIFO flights at risk of disruption as Virgin aircraft engineers prepare to strike

WA regional and FIFO flights at risk of disruption as Virgin aircraft engineers prepare to strike

Air travel in WA — including in the FIFO sector — is at risk of further severe disruption as aircraft engineers servicing Virgin Australia’s regional fleet this week joined their Qantas Group counterparts in preparing for a wave of industrial action.

A ballot of about 1000 Qantas Group engineers on their support for a potential strike in protest over their pay and conditions closes on August 10, with the union representing the workers confident it will be decisively backed in.

The West Australian has revealed the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association this week launched a second ballot of the approximately 50 technicians working at Virgin Australia Regional Airlines.

Both polls — launched after obtaining protected action orders from the Fair Work Commission — canvas “work stoppages up to 12 hours in length” and “overtime bans”.

Between them, Qantas Group — which includes Jetstar and Network Aviation — and VARA operate the vast majority of both regular passenger and FIFO flights in WA.

VARA provides FIFO services for Rio Tinto and BHP and flies between Perth and a number of regional destinations including Broome, Darwin, Kalgoorlie, Karratha, Newman and Port Hedland.

ALAEA federal secretary Steve Purvinas said engineers at both airlines had endured years of pay freezes despite larger workloads, leading to fatigue and burnout.

He said Qantas Group engineers would commence “a token move of industrial action” within the next three weeks in the hope of prompting the national carrier back to the negotiating table.

The earliest VARA engineers would be able to engage in industrial action would be seven working days after their ballot closes on September 14.

Mr Purvinas claimed the union “do not intend to structure industrial action to disrupt services”.

“Our contest is with the airline, not the public,” he said.

“To that end we can have work stoppages but offer labor via overtime to cover the deficit in work. Certain options appear on the ballot paper but that does not necessarily mean they will be used.”

It remains to be seen what impact any kind of engineering downtime would have for airlines accustomed to operating on finely-tuned schedules.

Virgin Australia did not directly address questions about whether the airline was concerned about disruption to its WA services, a spokesperson saying only that the company was aware a protected action ballot had been launched.

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

In a previous statement, Qantas Group said it was “disappointed” the union was threatening “completely unnecessary” industrial action.

“The latest claim by the ALAEA was for a one-year agreement with a 12 per cent pay rise for Qantas engineers,” the statement said.

“That’s something we simply can’t afford and is well above wage increases for other employees across the group.”

Mr Purvinas said the 12 per cent claim equaled to 3 per cent for each of the four years engineers’ pay had been frozen.

Both Qantas and Virgin Australia made headlines for their poor performance during the winter school holidays, including hundreds of flight cancellations and widespread delays.

In June, VARA had the worst on-time performance of any airline with nearly half of all flights either delayed or cancelled.

Travelers at Perth Airport endured another evening of chaos on Tuesday after severe storms cut off power to the site and backup generators servicing the terminals failed.

That forced all outgoing flights to be canceled — wrecking the travel plans of thousands of West Australians.

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Categories
Australia

These plane enthusiasts track flights near Melbourne Airport, and more people are joining

four people stand in a row smiling, they are holding cameras and a plane flies above them.

For Liz Carnuccio there is nothing quite like the sound of a plane flying directly overhead.

“You can really hear the roar of the engine and feel the wind hit your face, it’s pretty amazing,” she said.

She’s part of a plane-spotting group in Melbourne with hundreds of members.

These enthusiasts spend their free time traveling to viewing areas outside Melbourne Airport in Tullamarine, where planes fly right above, on their way to land or take-off.

“I am a fan of the whole thing,” Liz explained.

a woman is smiling at the camera. She is holding a phone and wearing a red jacket.
Liz Carnuccio says she enjoys every element of plane spotting.(ABC News: Billy Draper)

“Traveling to the airport, watching plans, tracking them… and imagining where people are going.”

She shares her aviation passion with her cousin Kieren Andrews.

“It’s something that my parents used to do when they were younger and then took us out as kids as well,” he said.

At the viewing area, plane spotters track flights on apps on their phones. Members each have a favorite plane model to spot.

A man in a black jacket who is smiling. He is holding a camera.
Kieren Andrews says his parents used to spot plans.(ABC News: Billy Draper)

“At the moment the 737 is pretty good,” Kieren said, although he does miss the 747s.

Fellow plane spotter Linda Ramage has loved planes since she was a small girl but said she didn’t always get a positive response when telling people about her passion.

“They look at me weirdly,” she laughed.

“But to me it is no different to anyone liking cars, trucks, trains. We just love planes.”

a woman with short hair holding a red camera. She is smiling and wears a black jacket.
Linda Ramage says some people are judgmental when she tells them about her passion for plans.(ABC News: Billy Draper)

There are two dedicated viewing areas outside of Melbourne Airport.

Plane spotters say they are so popular they have become a local tourist attraction in Melbourne’s north-west.

Here, children flock to the food trucks serving hot chips and ice cream, while couples rug up around steaming cups of coffee and look to the skies.

a person holds a phone with a map open on it.
Plane spotters use phone apps to track flights.(ABC News: Billy Draper)

Linda said since lockdowns ended and flights returned, the viewing areas had become busier and busier.

“The more people that get involved with our hobby, our passion that is great,” she said.

“The more the merrier.”

Chris has seen nearly half a century of aviation

While train and bird spotting are more recognized pursuits, plans have always been Chris Daley’s love.

It has been nearly fifty years since he first started plane spotting.

He said when he first started, the jets “were a lot louder, a lot smaller, a lot smokier.”

a man with a beard and glasses who is smiling. he is holding a camera.
Chris Daley hopes plane spotting will keep growing in popularity.(ABC News: Billy Draper)

Chris has watched nearly half a century of aviation history from right under flight paths.

He can’t even estimate how many photos he has taken of plans in that time.

“It would be impossible to count them, just in the last 10 years it would be multiple tens-of-thousands,” he said.

Like his fellow enthusiasts, he hopes his hobby continues to dream of popularity.

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Categories
Business

BITRE data reveals WA’s Broome Airport has worst flight delays in Australia

BITRE data reveals WA's Broome Airport has worst flight delays in Australia

A popular tourist town in WA’s far north has been outed as having the worst airport delays in Australia, according to new data.

A monthly report by the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics has revealed that Broome experienced the lowest percentage of on-time arrivals and departures this June, with little over 30 per cent of flights to Perth leaving within 15 minutes of their scheduled departure.

Flights arriving in Broome provided only marginally better, with 37 per cent landing on time.

In Broome, Virgin Australia delivered the brunt of these delays with none of the 14 scheduled flights from Broome to Perth departing on time.

Virgin Australia Regional Airlines also suffered delays, only 38 per cent of flights to Perth managing to leave at the scheduled time.

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Categories
Australia

Mildura Airport says instrument landing system will be used only a handful of times per year

The outside of Mildura's Airport terminal

Mildura Airport bosses have revealed a new multi-million-dollar navigation system will only be used “a maximum of two or three times” per year outside of training purposes.

The $4 million category 1 instrument landing system (ILS) began to be installed at the airport last year with a promise that it would reduce flight delays caused by fog and low visibility.

It was funded by the federal government, local council, and the airport, and is expected to be operational by early next year.

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Airport chief executive Trevor Willcock said the system was installed primarily for safety to help land planes when visibility is low, but he said this may only occur “a maximum two or three times per annum.”

“But there’s no price you can put on safety,” he said.

“We at all times want this to be the safest airport possible.”

foggy rationale

In July, a QantasLink plane arriving from Melbourne was forced to fly west of Mildura for 40 minutes before flying back to Tullamarine airport due to foggy conditions.

Passengers were stuck on the flight for more than three hours.

Mr Willcock said it was “very hard to say” if the system would have helped in that instance because fog changes quickly in depth and density.

“But that’s what the ILS is for, so we have to assume that they would have been able to land [if the ILS was operational],” he said.

“Most airports in the world have [an ILS] so they certainly do enhance the ability to land in poor weather conditions.”

Maintenance and testing of the ILS is also expected to cost the airport more than $100,000 per year.

Pilot says system won’t work

However, Mildura-based airline captain Andrew Carrigan, who has more than 20 years of experience flying regional airliners, said the ILS would not have made a difference in July.

“It really annoys me that they are putting it out there as a safety thing, it’s not really,” he said.

“It won’t allow us to land in fog.”

a tree and two houseboats on a river are visible in the foreground with the background shrouded in fog
Mildura is affected by foggy mornings during winter, such as on this occasion in July 2020.(ABC Mildura-Swan Hill: Christopher Testa)

Mr Carrigan said to legally land an airplane with the assistance of an ILS in Mildura, visibility would need to be at least 1,500 meters.

“I was supposed to work that day so I was monitoring the automatic weather service,” he said.

“The fog was ranging from 300-900 meters for most of the day, with the occasional foray to around 1.2 kilometers or 1.3km.

“But they were very narrow windows. So the chances of plans getting in on that morning were minor.

“You would have to be extremely lucky to get a five or 10-minute window where the visibility would get close to a level where you could land.”

Mr Carrigan said in addition to a category 1 ILS larger airports like Sydney Airport also had high-intensity approach and runway lighting which allow pilots to land with a minimum visibility of 800 metres.

He said without the lighting the ILS would make minimal difference to passenger planes in Mildura.

“What I’m scared of is when [the ILS is] operational and we aren’t able to land in fog. People are going to ask, ‘Why not when we were told it would allow that?'”

Mr Carrigan said these were his personal views and not the view of his employer.

Nothing to do with flying school

Anne Webster, Simon Clemence and Michael McCormack smiling in a photo with Chinese pilots.
Anne Webster, Simon Clemence, Michael McCormack, and three pilots at Mildura Airport when the first funding announcement was made for the ILS in 2019. (Facebook: Dr Anne Webster MP)

Mr Willcock said a secondary reason the ILS was installed was to help flying school students train in Mildura.

To receive a commercial pilot’s license students are required to have experience using an ILS.

Mr Willcock said nine flying schools were within range of the airport and could use the ILS for training purposes, with a booking system and strict restrictions on what times it could be used.

A sign that reads "Mildura Welcomes You" along with a photo of a group of people smiling outside the Mildura Airport.
A plane flying in the air over Mildura Airport in 2020.(ABC News: Christopher Testa)

Chinese-owned company International Aviation Alliance also started training pilots at Mildura Airport in 2019 under a 10-year tenancy agreement.

However, Alliance CEO Simon Clemence said the ILS would be of minimal benefit to its flying school.

He said students were required to undertake “long navigation” flights which they would combine with ILS training at airports in Melbourne or Adelaide.

“It has absolutely nothing to do with the flying school,” he said.

Worth the funding, MP says

The ILS first received funding from the federal government in April 2019, 21 days before a federal election.

Mildura Rural City Council committed $1 million in June 2020 and the airport also contributed $1 million.

Nationals Mallee MP Anne Webster said Mildura Airport deserved the same safety standards as other airports and even if it was used only once a year the ILS was worth funding.

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Categories
Entertainment

Aquaman star Jason Momoa poses as flight attendant, hands out water to surprised Hawaiian Airlines passengers

Aquaman star Jason Momoa poses as flight attendant, hands out water to surprised Hawaiian Airlines passengers

If acting doesn’t work out for Aquaman actor Jason Momoa, he could pick up a career as a jet-setting flight attendant.

Lucky passengers on a Hawaiian Airlines flight were witnesses to Momoa’s first day on the job as cabin crew as he handed out bottles of his water, called Mananalu, from a trolly.

A woman named Kylee Yoshikawa, who goes by the username @livinglikekylee on TikTok, posted the clip which has now been viewed by 3.5 million people on the platform.

“My aunty sent me this vid, i just thought i’d share,” she captioned the video which had an instrumental version of Disney’s Under the Sea — very fitting — playing over the footage.

The 43-year-old even dressed the part in a gray suit complete with a pink flower tucked behind his ear.

He has since shared a behind-the-scenes clip on Instagram, introducing himself to passengers as the “water master” on board the flight.

“Mahalo @hawaiianairlines for allowing me and my team to capture this special moment,” he wrote.

“It’s a dream come true. My idea to create @Mananalu.water came to me while on a flight.

“I’m grateful for your support and it’s an honor to have Hawaiian Airlines be the first airline to partner with Mananalu. We’re on a mission to end single-use plastic. Drink one, remove one – For every bottle of Mananalu sold, we remove one plastic bottle from the ocean. We have removed 3 MILLION plastic bottles from the ocean this year. Don’t stop making waves to save our beautiful planet. hello j”

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Categories
Business

Flying electric aircraft by 2024 a realistic timeframe for short-haul trips, insiders say

A side picture on a plane sitting on a runway

It might seem ambitious, but passenger airlines could be using electric aircraft for short trips within two years, an aviation expert has said.

It comes as Rex Airlines announces plans to trial the emerging technology by 2024 on selected regional routes.

“The technology is working. It’s been proven in trial flight, and we can do a lot in two years,” Aviation Projects managing director Keith Tonkin said.

It is not just Rex making the switch to electric.

Across Australia there are several other airlines and aircraft manufacturers working towards a similar goal using a number of different aircraft.

“There’s some companies in Australia that are really heavily involved in the battery charging systems and infrastructure elements of the technology,” Mr Tonkin said.

A light plane in a hangar
Some plane operators are already using electric propulsion technology.(ABC News: Elicia Kennedy)

Driven by environmental concerns

Like many other recent technological innovations, the current push towards electric is being driven by environmental concerns.

“There’s a worldwide effort towards reducing carbon emissions from all aircraft operations, which contributes about 2 per cent of the world’s carbon pollution,” Mr Tonkin said.

But there are hurdles to overcome before reaching that future. Foremost is passenger perceptions around safety.

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