Qantas calls for crew who took redundancies or resigned to come back

Qantas is asking crew members who took redundancies or resigned during the pandemic to come back now it’s “back in profit”.

Qantas wants to rehire cabin crew members who took voluntary redundancies or resigned during the pandemic.

A call for former employees to apply for new jobs was posted on the Flight Attendants’ Association of Australia private Facebook group and shared with 2GB radio host Ben Fordham.

“Recruitment opening up to crew who took VR or resigned,” the post read.

“As one of our cabin crew members who made an incredibly difficult decision to leave Qantas during the pandemic – we want to provide an update on how our recovery is going and the very different circumstances we’re operating in today.”

It said the business was “now back in profit and growing again” after an “extremely challenging time” for the aviation industry.

A call out from Qantas was posted on the Flight Attendants’ Association of Australia Facebook group.

The post added: “To support our future growth, we are recruiting and training more cabin crew than ever, with more than 1500 crew expected to join us by the end of 2023.

“As an experienced former cabin crew member, we are reaching out to see if you are interested in being part of Qantas’ next chapter.”

There are 12-month contracts and permanent ongoing positions available.

It states the applicants who took a voluntary redundancy must have left the company a minimum of two years ago “in line with Qantas Group policy”.

A Qantas flight crew celebrating getting back in the air in November 2021. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

The recruitment process involves submitting an application, an interview, reference check, medical and aviation background checks, and then a training program if offered a job.

The training program varied in length depending on how long it had been since the former employee had last operated emergency procedures.

Qantas confirmed the recruitment efforts to news.com.au.

“When our airline operations were grounded as a result of the pandemic and we had to stand down most of our workforce, a number of people made very difficult decisions to leave the company,” a Qantas spokeswoman said.

“Now that we are back in profit and growing again, we’re reaching out to some of these people to see if they’re interested in coming back to the Qantas family.

“We’re also recruiting externally in line with demand for a wide range of roles and we’ve been getting great responses to our recruitment drives.”