Qantas shorthaul pilots vote in favour of pay deal

QANTAS’S shorthaul pilots have voted in favour of a pay deal thrashed out this month.

QANTAS’S shorthaul pilots have voted in favour of a pay deal thrashed out this month, locking them into an 18-month wage freeze from last March but giving them annual rises of 3 per cent until 2018.

Even so, the airline faces a looming battle with its Jetstar ­pilots, who are yet to back a new pay deal.

The 560 Qantas shorthaul ­pilots covered by the agreement fly the single-aisle Boeing 737, which is regarded as the workhorse of the fleet and is generally used for domestic trips.

Qantas has 65 of the 737s, with a further eight in a hybrid arrangement serving New Zealand. Pilots that fly international flights have a separate longhaul agreement, as do Jetstar pilots.

The shorthaul pilots were given until Sunday to vote on the deal, with the results coming in on Monday.

While 69 per cent backed the pay deal, any vote above 50.1 per cent would have been binding.

Adam Susz, a spokesman for the Australian and International Pilots Association, said the outcome was a positive one.

But he warned that the negotiations over Jetstar pilots were “in quite a sticky situation’’ in the wake of a rejection of the deal by an overwhelming 95 per cent of Jetstar pilots.

He said the Jetstar pilots were “on a different pay scale, with different conditions’’. “I don’t think this shorthaul deal is going to translate into any likely agreement between Jetstar management and pilots,” Mr Susz said.

“Those talks should resume in earnest in January and they will have to come up with an agreement.”

Qantas has seen its share price recover sharply in recent months after a lurch down to near $1 in March this year, not least because global oil prices are at five-year lows.

Qantas shares closed yesterday at $2.41, just off their recent high of $2.44, while the price of benchmark Brent crude oil sank in US trading to $US58 a barrel after hitting a session low of $US57.61, the lowest since May 26, 2009.

The other positive for Qantas has been the end of the scramble for market share with rival Virgin, which had put passenger numbers ahead of profits.

The airline reported in early December that while November passenger numbers on domestic flights were down by 8 per cent on the previous November to 1.323 million, the vital revenue seat factor was up by 1.8 per cent to 78.5 per cent.

Including Jetstar, Qantas group operations reported that passenger numbers were down by 1.1 per cent in the month to 4.05 million and the revenue seat factor, which measures the number of paying passengers against distance flown, climbed by 2.8 points to 79.4 per cent.

For the 2015 financial year to date, the revenue seat factor was reported as being up 1.8 points at 79.7 per cent.

That told a much more upbeat story than the August results briefing, which included a record $2.6 billion writedown on the value of the aircraft fleet, bringing the full year reported loss to $2.8bn.

The airline now expects to report an underlying pre-tax profit of between $300m and $350m for the six months to the end of December.