Qantas staff’s masterclass in the art of adaptation

When Qantas flight attendant Pablo Grover heard Sydney’s MCA needed volunteers to enable it to reopen, he leapt at the chance.

Qantas staff Chelsea Smith and Pablo Grover at the MCA. Picture: John Feder

As a Qantas flight attendant, Pablo Grover has a favourite routine in one of his favourite cities, New York. “You get into New York in the evening, I’m up at nine the next morning and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge then do the art galleries for the next four to five hours, and that afternoon we fly back to LA.”

Of course all that has now changed, with the majority of international flights grounded, and Mr Grover along with them. He hasn’t worked since the end of March, when he crewed the last Qantas 747 from Santiago to his home city of Sydney.

He is grateful to qualify for the JobKeeper scheme but says the days have been long and monotonous during the past 2½ months, the longest time he’s spent at home since he began working with Qantas 31 years ago.

When he heard through a Qantas colleague that Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art was in need of volunteers to enable­ the museum to reopen, he leapt at the opportunity.

“It gives me something structured and positive to do, my wife’s really happy because it gets me out of the house, I’m meeting ­people who are really happy to be here and I’m surrounded by art,” Mr Grover says.

“I’ve seen hundreds of mus­eums around the world and the MCA is definitely a world-class museum, we’re lucky to have it.”

The benefit goes both ways. The MCA was forced to close overnight in March, along with the rest of the arts and entertainment industry, resulting in a loss of one-fifth of its annual revenue from outside hires of its function spaces, gallery shop and cafe.

When it finally reopened on June 16 it was with reduced staff, as the museum’s 29 casuals didn’t qualify for JobKeeper, meaning it has only been able to reopen two of the gallery’s five floors.

Outgoing chairman Simon Mordant suggested the MCA put out a call for volunteers and Qantas responded, greenlit by its chief executive and MCA board member Alan Joyce. The volunteers carry out a shift a week in a meet-and-greet capacity that does not require them a knowledge of art.

MCA director Liz Ann Macgregor says she’s “thrilled we now have 13 Qantas volunteers helping our front-of-house team and using their customer-service skills. It’s meant we’ve been able to open the whole Biennale of Sydney exhibition at the one time, rather than one floor in the morning and one in the afternoon.”

Ms Macgregor says despite the sector’s uncertainty she is relieved the MCA is open again. It is aver­aging 500 visitors daily versus 2000 pre-COVID, which she expects to pick up on the weekend.