Qantas Engineers’ Alliance strike threatens travel chaos

A massive union strike is hitting Qantas over the next week, as thousands prepare to fly to Melbourne for the big AFL grand final on Saturday.

Strike action is threatening to cause chaos of travellers this week, including for travellers heading to Melbourne for the AFL grand final.

Qantas union workers walked off the job at Melbourne Airport on Thursday, the first step in a larger nationwide strike against the airline giant.

Further action is expected on Friday as fans of the Brisbane Lions and Sydney Swans head to Melbourne for Saturday’s big clash.

The Qantas Engineers’ Alliance, a union made up of the Australian Workers Union, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and Electrical Trades Union, say the industrial action will begin in Melbourne and spread to all major airports across the country during the next two weeks.

“It is highly likely to affect Qantas flights in all major capitals,” the union said on Wednesday evening.

The workers will pursue a range of work stoppages at airports around Australia on Thursday and then next Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

A Qantas spokesman said Thursday’s action had not affected flights.

“As of early Thursday afternoon, we haven’t had any impact to customers as a result of the industrial action.”

“We have contingencies in place for the industrial action planned on Friday and the weekend and, like today, don’t currently expect this industrial action to have an impact on customers.”

The airline said it had contingencies in place on Thursday to limit the effect on passengers,

“We’ve held a series of meetings with the unions and made progress on a number of items. “We want to reach an agreement that includes pay rises and ensures we have a sustainable business.”

AMWU national secretary Steve Murphy said the airline’s engineers were “undervalued, underpaid and underappreciated”.

“If you’ve had a bad Qantas experience, well that’s nothing compared to how Qantas makes their workers feel every day,” he said.

“Our highly skilled members deserve fair wages for the incredible work they do to keep us all safe in the air.”

The employees taking part in the industrial action are from Qantas’ Aircraft Maintenance Engineers teams.

The enterprise agreements for the 1100 employees who make up the teams expired in June 2024 and the union is pushing for a 5 per cent pay bump per year plus a 15 per cent first year payment.

Qantas is facing a week of union action but says it has contingencies in place to limit the impact on passengers. Picture: NewsWire / Ian Currie

On Thursday morning there had been cancellations out of Melbourne and Sydney, however, those were believed to be weather related.

Qantas said on Thursday Airservices Australia had a ground delay progam in place, affecting all airlines, because of weather conditions, causing some cancellations.

Adding to the woes in Melbourne is a tech outage at the bag drop for Qantas subsidiary Jetstar.

Posting on social media about 6.45am on Thursday, one man said a Jetstar tech outage at Melbourne Airport had slowed check in considerably.

“Departure terminal already filling up. Going to be a messy day. Checking bags in manually (flight by flight) on baggage carousel in arrivals,” the man posted.