domestic flights – Michmutters

Tag: domestic flights

Categories
Business

Qantas engineers to hold one-minute work stoppage

Qantas engineers to hold one-minute work stoppage

More than 700 aircraft engineers from Qantas, Jetstar and Perth-based FIFO subsidiary Network Aviation will conduct a “one-minute work stoppage” in August.

The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers’ Association (ALAEA) federal secretary Steve Purvinas told members in a meeting on Wednesday that the majority had voted in favor of industrial action.

Airline engineers are asking their employer for a 12 per cent pay rise to make up for stagnant wages the last four years.

The union’s first action will be a one-minute stoppage across all airlines sometime in late August.

“The first action will be a token one,” Mr Purvinas told members.

“A one-minute stoppage of course is not going to harm any airline and also demonstrates our willingness to negotiate in good faith and not try and harm the airline.”

Mr Purvinas said the token stoppage aimed to give the airlines an opportunity to come to the table.

“We do want to give some time for resolution of these matters before we have to do anything that may even be close to disrupting the public,” he said.

The strikes come at a difficult time for Australia’s national flag carrier, as the aviation industry struggles with staff shortages that have led to flight cancellations, delays and missing luggage.

If the stoppage does not motivate negotiations, the union plans to notify the airline of more work stoppages.

During these stoppages, the union has offered to provide “alternative labor provisions” to the airline.

“We want to assure the public that we won’t be harming their services,” Mr Purvinas said.

“Our target is the airlines who are not negotiating in good faith.”

ALAEA members voted against using overtime bans to avoid “exacerbating” already challenging conditions in the industry.

A Qantas spokesman told the NCA NewsWire in July that the 12 per cent pay rise was something the airline “simply can’t afford”.

They said Qantas had a policy of 2 per cent annual increases for all employees across the Group.

The airline has a history of not holding back when it comes to dealing with union industrial action.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce infamously grounded the airline during a dispute with the ALAEA and two other unions back in 2011, leaving 200,000 passengers stranded without notice.

Qantas was contacted for comment.

Read related topics:Perth Qantas

.

Categories
Business

Qantas moves managers and executives into baggage handling

Qantas moves managers and executives into baggage handling

Qantas senior executives and managers will step down from their usual roles to pitch in as ground handlers, as the airline continues to suffer from major staff shortages.

The shake-up is part of an extraordinary contingency program expected to last three months and help the airline get back on its feet before the busy summer holiday period.

While the airline has rehired close to 2000 staff after letting about 1700 ground handlers go during the pandemic, it has struggled to stay on top of baggage, flight delays and cancellations.

Chief operating officer Colin Hughes told staff that during the contingency program, they would be an “embedded resource within the ground handling partners”, Australianreports.

“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.”

Staff participating in the program would be required to sort through and scan bags, and drive airport tugs to carry luggage onto planes and between terminals.

“It’s our singular company focus to support our teams to get our operation back to where it should be and provide our passengers the experience they expect from the airline,” Mr Hughes said in his note to staff.

A Qantas spokesperson said the measures were introduced as a result of staff shortages caused by flu and Covid, as well as the tight labor market.

“We’ve been clear that our operational performance has not been meeting our customers’ expectations or the standards that we expect of ourselves – and that we’ve been pulling out all stops to improve our performance,” they told news.com.au .

“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 cases coupled with the tightest labor market in decades, we’re continuing that contingency planning across our airport operations for the next three months.”

Qantas is filing an appeal in the High Court after the Federal Court found it was in breach of the Fair Work Act for sacking almost 2000 staff during the pandemic.

It has yet to fully staff its operations since domestic and international travel summarized following the Covid shutdown period.

Qantas’ reputation has suffered immensely in recent months with furious customers complaining about delayed and canceled flights, missing luggage and extreme customer service wait times.

Read related topics:qantas

.

Categories
Business

Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin: Broome airport hit with massive flight delay record

Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin: Broome airport hit with massive flight delay record

Flights leaving one Australian airport have had the largest delays in the entire country, with almost 70 per cent of planes delayed.

Figures, released by the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics report, found less than 30 per cent of flights headed from Broome to Perth left on time, the worst route in the entire country.

The report looked at delays and cancellations across all major Australian airport in the month of June.

Airlines included in the report were Virgin Australia, Qantas, Jetstar, QantasLink and Rex Airlines.

The figures for on time arrivals in June reached all time lows for all 58 travel routes looked at.

Qantas recorded the highest percentage of cancellations at 8.1 per cent during the month, followed by QantasLink, Virgin Australia, Jetstar, Virgin Australia Regional Airlines and Rex Airlines.

Australia’s signature airline company Qantas recorded just over half of their airlines arrived on time in June, at 59 per cent, while Virgin achieved the highest level of on time departures among the major domestic airlines at 60 per cent.

A Qantas spokesperson told NCA NewsWire these flight delays and cancellations are not the kind of performance that they were delivering pre-Covid.

“A rise in COVID and other illnesses among airline crew as well as the tight labor market led to flight disruptions for all domestic airlines in June.” they said.

“We had rostered additional crew on standby which helped lessen the impact of COVID-related crew absences and meant 85 per cent of our domestic flights for the month departed within an hour of schedule.”

“Flight cancellations in July were lower than they were in June, call center wait times are now better than they were pre-COVID and our mishandled bag rates are close to what they were before the pandemic.”

Mildura Airport, which is located in northwest Victoria, recorded the lowest percentage of on time arrivals sitting at more than 47 per cent, while Alice Springs Airport recorded the highest rate of on time arrivals at 87 per cent.

Cancellations were highest on the Sydney-Melbourne route at 15.3 per cent, followed by the Melbourne-Sydney route at 14.9 per cent, and the Sydney-Canberra route at 11.1 per cent.

The report follows after more than 21 flights were canceled in Sydney across the Qantas, Virgin Australia, Jetstar and Rex networks on Tuesday.

Virgin dumped 10 flights, Qantas nixed eight, with two pulled from Jetstar and one from Rex, combined with an additional 20 flights scrapped at Melbourne Airport as of 8.30am on Tuesday.

Both domestic and international flights with major aussie airlines alongside Emirates, British Airways and American Airlines were also dumped on Monday between 6.30am-7am.

.

Categories
Business

Qantas nightmare: Australian traveller’s horror overseas flight saga

Qantas nightmare: Australian traveller's horror overseas flight saga

As I found myself stranded in Athens airport, surrounded by unsympathetic airline staff and forced to splash out an extra $2700 on new flights back home, I couldn’t help but feel this all could have been avoided.

Like thousands of other Aussies, I too had a nightmare experience flying with Qantas.

It’s amazing what can happen to a beloved national airline when it sacks 9000 staff, outsources thousands of jobs, moves customer service teams overseas and hands out millions in bonuses to executives.

My nightmare all started when I fell for the trap that is ‘frequent flyer flights’.

I applied for a credit card back in May (disastrous idea), splurged on a new laptop to secure 120,000 bonus Qantas points and booked my first overseas holiday in years.

There was a slight catch, my flights to Europe were from Adelaide – but given I had spent less than $1000 on taxes in addition to my points I thought I had scored a bargain.

I called up the Qantas helpline in a bid to see if they could help me book connecting flights from Sydney to Adelaide – mistake 1.

Instead of booking me a simple flight home from Adelaide to Sydney, they REPLACED my overseas return leg from Athens to Adelaide.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I noticed my overseas leg had vanished and been simply replaced with the domestic flight.

I spent over five hours that night on hold as I desperately tried to explain what had happened to call center workers who struggled to even speak to me let alone understand my complaint.

This is of course not their fault, they are doing the best they can in difficult circumstances. The blame lies with an airline that sacrificed quality, local customer service for cheaper labor.

Just one Qantas call center is located in Australia – and that Hobart team specifically services the airline’s premium clients (the big spenders).

I would wait two hours on hold, before finally getting onto someone – who would then spend 30 minutes attempting to understand my issue, only for them to hang up on me.

After over five hours I finally got onto someone who told me they could no longer get me on my original flight (Athens to Doha to Adelaide) as it was now full.

Qantas has since informed me that the domestic leg wasn’t ticketed correctly – which resulted in my overseas flight being cancelled.

With my trip approaching and still no return leg, I took matters into my own hands and booked another flight via Vietnam.

With so few options available I had to book the Vietnam to Sydney leg with a different airline – Jetstar.

I called up Qantas to make sure that I would be able to get a transit visa at the airport in Ho Chi Minh as I would need to check my bags in and out again during my short four-hour layover between flights.

A spokesperson told me there would be no problems getting a visa at the airport – mistake 2, blindly trusting Qantas again.

Three weeks of blissful travel – visiting my best mates in picturesque Switzerland, a romantic trip in Santorini – finished with me being stuck in Athens after Qantas’ advice was swiftly shot down.

Airline staff refused to let me on my flight as I had no visa – despite the assurances of Qantas it would be fine.

Ironically, the only option presented to me was to spend almost 2000 Euros to get back onto the Athens-Doha-Adelaide flight that I had originally booked months ago – only for Qantas to inexplicably cancel without telling me and then assure me there were no seats on the flight.

Turns out there were seats on the flight Qantas.

And while a seedy room above an Adelaide pub wasn’t exactly how I pictured closing out my trip – I was just glad to get home and be done with travelling.

Qantas’ statement:

“Unfortunately, it appears that the additional domestic flight was not ticketed correctly when it was added to your booking which led to the Qatar Airways booking being automatically canceled by their system.

“Our agent was unable to secure you another seat on that Qatar flight as there were no more reward seats available on the flight.

Our contact centers are not trained to provide visa advice, rather they should direct you to the relevant consulate, and we apologize that this process wasn’t followed.

“We are following up your experience with a full review to help prevent it happening again.”

Read related topics:qantas

.