Jetstar flights hit by weekend strike

Jetstar has been forced to cancel 90 weekend services as a result of impending industrial action by pilots.

Jetstar and its pilots are making conflicting claims about wage rises. Picture: Chris Raezer

Low-fare carrier Jetstar has been forced to cancel 90 services over the weekend as a result of impending industrial action by pilots.

A total of 44 services have been axed on Saturday and 46 on Sunday, with Jetstar working to re-accommodate passengers on other flights, including some run by parent company Qantas.

About 650 of the Jetstar's 800 pilots voted in favour of industrial action, including four-hour work stoppages over stalled enterprise bargaining negotiations.

Jetstar CEO Gareth Evans said the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP) strikes were “completely unjustifiable and cynically timed to hurt travellers at the busiest travel time of the year”.

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“To protect the weekend plans of tens of thousands of customers, teams across Jetstar have worked around the clock to develop a proactive contingency plan,” Mr Evans said.

“To minimise the impact on customers by the four-hour stop work periods, we are consolidating some services, up-gauging aircraft, retiming flights and Qantas and QantasLink will operate a number of supplementary services.”

On average Jetstar operated about 370 flights a day, so the cancelled services represented about 12 per cent of those, he said.

“We expect to get 95 per cent of our customers on their way on the same day,” said Mr Evans.

“Any customers travelling from 13 December to 20 December can also request a full refund prior to flying”.

Conflicting claims

Mr Evans said Jetstar would not agree to the pilots’ demands for a 15 per cent upfront pay rise.

“We know the union’s actions are creating uncertainty for travellers, but if we accept an effective 15 per cent net increase in pay that the union is demanding, there will be significant upward pressure on the low fares our customers rely on and we will be forced to review our investment in new aircraft and new destinations,” said Mr Evans.

“We remain committed to reaching a new agreement to support the great work our people do every day, but not any cost. Strong arm action from the AFAP will not change our position on this.”

AFAP executive director Simon Lutton accused Jetstar of fabricating the “15 per cent” figure and said they were simply seeking a 3 per cent annual pay increase.

“We are disappointed to have to take these actions but we have been left with little alternative after Jetstar’s unilateral decision to cancel all further negotiation meetings in response to our lawful decision to commence a protected industrial action ballot,” Mr Lutton said.

“Put simply, Jetstar have manufactured the 15 per cent increase based on inaccurate and flawed costings of our non-salary claims, such as those claims relating to rostering and fatigue mitigation.”

He said no industrial action would be taken by pilots from December 21 to January 3, 2020, in the hope Jetstar would reschedule meetings.

Jetstar is also facing industrial action by baggage handlers and other ground crew on Friday, but said the strikes were supported by less than half of those workers, and the impact on passengers would be minimal.