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Coronavirus: Masks putting off passengers, says Qantas

Flight attendants have revealed airlines discouraged them from wearing masks because they were off putting for passengers.

More than half of the Qantas fleet remains parked at airports around the country, while its 12 A380s have been sent to the desert and remaining 747s retired early. Picture: Stuart McEvoy
More than half of the Qantas fleet remains parked at airports around the country, while its 12 A380s have been sent to the desert and remaining 747s retired early. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Flight attendants in Australia were discouraged from wearing masks and gloves in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak because airlines thought they would put off passengers.

The Flight Attendants Association of Australia was one of three unions to appear before the Senate Select Committee on COVID-19 on Tuesday, followed by Qantas executives.

International division secretary of the FAAA Teri O’Toole said heading into the pandemic there were depleted stocks of personal protective equipment due to the bushfires, and cabin crew were not encouraged to wear masks or gloves. “We were flying to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing in the beginning and we pushed for masks not only for our international crew for our domestic crews as well,” Ms O’Toole told the committee.

“We pushed hard for masks and gloves but the pushback we received was enormous. We were told ‘it wouldn’t look right and wouldn’t send the right message to passengers’.”

She said the FAAA wanted to see masks made mandatory for crew and passengers on flights with only Regional Express (Rex) taking that step to date.

“It’s not really being taken as seriously as I think it should,” Ms O’Toole said. “(At Qantas) we had 47 cabin crew infected and that’s probably the largest workplace cluster in NSW.”

Her concerns were raised by the committee with Qantas executives, including government group executive Andrew Parker, general counsel Andrew Finch and medical services director Ian Hosegood.

Dr Hosegood said Qantas was now enforcing the wearing of masks on flights in and out of Melbourne but it was “not appropriate” to do the same on services in other states.

“We strongly recommend passengers wear them but where there is no transmission of COVID-19 in the community there is a lot of resistance to that,” Dr Hosegood said.

“We’ll take a risk-based approach, upscaling and downscaling as appropriate.”

Qantas was also asked about the extension of the JobKeeper allowance which had enabled the airline to keep more than 20,000 staff stood down until demand for travel resumed.

Mr Parker said the extension to March next year was very welcome and urged the government to consider maintaining other forms of relief for airlines. “Relief on fees and charges we would very much encourage well into the middle of next year to help us in the start up phase,” he said.

The committee heard Qantas plans to ramp up domestic flights to 850 a week, or 40 per cent of pre-COVID capacity, were damaged by the Victorian outbreak.

Mr Finch said they now expected to be at about 25 per cent of capacity by late July, but were still hopeful of having 15,000 employees back at work by the end of the year. He said the process of reducing the 29,000-strong workforce by 6000 employees had begun but was unable to say how many people had left.

Treasury officials involved in a working group set up by the government to provide updates to relevant ministers on the Virgin Australia administration also faced the committee on Tuesday.

Former Macquarie Group CEO Nicholas Moore who was appointed as a government emissary to the administration, said he was one of a “very large team” involved in the process.

The role of the team was to provide advice on government policy and regulation to the administrators and bidders, and to inform ministers of the progress.

Read related topics:Coronavirus

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/coronavirus-masks-putting-off-passengers-says-qantas/news-story/ffd251e82b044702ce352d797aeb2d28