You get the feeling Qantas really doesn’t like its staff.
You think after a couple of years of your frontline workers copping customers’ ire and frustration on the daily you might cut them some slack, but not Qantas.
It appears Qantas boss Alan Joyce is seeking a meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to lobby against workplace reforms aimed at increasing wages.
According to The New Daily, the airline told a senate committee that the Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill would set the aviation sector back 40 years and lead to ‘cascading’ job losses.
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This is from the man who earns $2.27 million a year and who earnt $10.86 million in 2018 with bonuses and stock options.
Qantas earlier in the week also announced an expected $150 million increase in its half-yearly profit, which could now total as much as $1.45 billion. Qantas shares surged 9 per cent on the back of the announcement.
That’s nice. Maybe it could pay back some of the $2 billion it received in government support during the pandemic, all the while illegally sacking about 2000 workers and standing down close to 20,000 workers in total.
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By the way, Qantas said if it was forced to reinstate the workers it illegally sacked, it openly admitted it would just sack them again as soon as legally possible.
And while other countries such as New Zealand, Germany and Hong Kong handed over pandemic support money in return for a share of the airline, the suggestion was never even raised for Qantas.
In Question Time in Parliament this week, transport minister Catherine King pointed out the missed opportunity.
“Had the previous government done what we suggested and actually provide JobKeeper with an equity stake in Qantas, we’d be making quite a bit of money at the moment,” Ms King said.
And what do we get for all that money we handed over? According to the online magazine Traveltalk, Qantas did improve its domestic Airline On-Time performance figures for October 2022 to 73.9 per cent, up from 69 per cent in September, but that figure still means about one in four flights are either delayed or cancelled. Hardly anything to be proud of.
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Just weird
On a lighter note, I’m not sure who thought Irish dancing and tourism in Dubai was a good combination, but it certainly has made for an interesting tourism promo.
The bonkers video features professional Irish dancers, the Gardiner Brothers, dancing their way around some of Dubai’s major attractions.
After viewing it a few times, I’m still neither seeing the connection nor am I in the least bit motivated to travel there, but the brothers have a strong online following of 2.5 million on TikTok and more than 700,000 on Instagram so maybe it’s aimed at a younger crowd.
What’s been your experience with Qantas since the travel sector reopened? Why not share your thoughts in the comments section below?
It is time greedy Company Executives were dragged back to the real world and focussed more on their customers and less on profit. After my Qantas flight experience and their price-gouging in September, I will now be using alternative travel arrangements.
The headline should be “greedy Company under pays workers” this I what’s been happening for 9 Years !
Alan Joyce needs to get over his flights of fancy regarding the airline. The frontline aviation staff and behind the scences personnel deserve recognition and also a raise in pay. It is hard to reconcile the amount airline tickets have increased to fuel prices, yes fuel has risen but there is a very healthy profit – which then converts into bonuses for Mr Joyce. I am horrified by the way alot of Qantas customers treat the staff – verbally and physically abusing them (mostly verbally). Just remember they’re workers and trying to work in a safe environment.