Qantas doesn’t expect disruption to passengers from strike that targets busiest travel day

The airline says it’s ‘well-prepared’ for 500 engineers walking off the job on Friday morning with 97 per cent of flights getting away on time in morning peak time.

A Qantas engineers’ strike targeting one of the busiest travel days of the year has made little difference to passengers in the morning peak, with 97 per cent of flights getting away on time.

The engineers alliance, made up of three unions, said up to 500 line maintenance engineers would walk off the job at 3.30am on Friday through to 7.30am on Saturday at Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide Airports. 

Despite the action being timed to coincide with the start of school holidays in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia, Qantas was confident travellers would not be affected.

Sydney Airport was expecting Friday to be the busiest day for domestic travel this summer, with 81,000 people booked to fly in or out of the gateway. 

Qantas said a number of contingencies had been put in place to ensure customers got on their way during the industrial action on Friday. 

“Around 160 aircraft maintenance engineers are rostered on during Friday’s industrial action and only members of the alliance unions can take industrial action,” said Qantas. 

“Qantas has been able to manage the impact of this to date, and they have previously not resulted in any delays or cancellations for customers.” 

The strike followed a six-week hiatus in industrial action in an effort to resolve the engineers’ dispute, which centred on demands for a pay rise.

Engineers were seeking a 15 per cent hike in the first year, followed by annual 5 per cent increases. 

Inside Qantas’ Brisbane maintenance hangar. Picture: Jack Tran

But Qantas said the alliance was actually seeking a figure closer to 40 per cent over three years “which is not sustainable”.

“We’re offering our engineers a competitive package including pay rises, upskilling and career progression that will enable them to earn significantly more over the next few years,” said a Qantas spokesman.

The alliance said Qantas had failed to bargain in good faith during the hiatus the company had requested.

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union secretary Steve Murphy said as a result, workers were left with no other choice but to take industrial action to bring Qantas back to the bargaining table. 

“Qantas is to blame if there’s any disruption to commuters over the holiday period,” Mr Murphy said. 

“They had six weeks to simply do what they said they would.” 

Electrical Trades Union secretary Michael Wright said it was “disgraceful Qantas was not respecting its workers and the crucial work they performed”.

“These highly skilled workers have been bargaining in good faith with Qantas,” said Mr Wright.

“They have suffered pay freezes during Covid and are only asking for the fair pay they deserve. Qantas only has the safety record it does because of these workers.”

Friday marks the start of the official summer holiday travel period, with more than 13.5 million people booked to fly in or out of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane over the next six weeks.

Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia have all assured customers they will have spare aircraft on standby, and extra crews to add extra resilience to their operations.

The Qantas spokesman said their teams were working hard to ensure Friday’s industrial action had mnimal impact on customers’ holiday plans.