In the midst of a crisis, an airline asks its executives to work as baggage handlers
The Australian Qantas has to cancel many flights due to a lack of ground staff. She asks the company’s executives to help.
To deal with the labor shortage that has crippled airlines since the pandemic, Australia’s Qantas appears to have found a solution. She offers her executives to leave the offices to work as a baggage handler on the tarmac. According to an internal memo from Qantas COO Colin Hughes, forwarded by The Australian , senior staff would work on a voluntary basis three to five days a week as material handlers at Sydney and Melbourne airports. 100 jobs are being sought.
“You will receive a task list, an operational plan and will be looked after by our ground handling partners‘ Colin Hughes specifies in the internal memo, specifying that participating personnel will not have to combine this role with their usual missions. It’s unclear how the company intends to ditch a hundred of its senior executives, or how many of them have followed the call. When contacted, the Australian company did not respond to inquiries from the Figaro.
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“Our operational performance does not meet the expectations of our customers or the demands we place on ourselvesa Qantas spokesman said, according to Australian Aviation. The company is indeed paralyzed by recruitment difficulties after laying off almost 2,000 ground staff in 2021 due to the Covid crisis. The country’s federal court found that these layoffs violated Australian law in part, but Qantas has appealed. The airline is also facing strikes by ground staff over demands over wages and working conditions.
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Qantas has come under fire in recent weeks after posting its worst performance in its history in June 2022. Almost half of its flights were delayed or canceled and many bags were lost or damaged. ” Getting an airline up and running again after a two-year shutdown is complex and the airline industry job market, like many others, is very tightdefended Andrew David, the company’s national and international managing director in July 2022. In addition to the flu season, Covid cases are also increasing again (It’s winter in Australia, editor’s note). »
Flight delays and cancellations have hit airlines around the world in recent months, with Qantas ranking just fourth among airlines to have canceled the most flights between April 26 and July 26, 2022. European airports have also experienced chaotic situations at the beginning of summer, such as Heathrow in London, Schiphol in Amsterdam or Kastrup in Copenhagen. More than 25,000 scheduled flights had to be canceled from the August timetable, almost 60% of them in Europe.
