Australian airlines cut thousands of staff

QANTAS B737-838 VH-XZO (MSN 44577)   

Qantas Airways Ltd. is furloughing an additional 2,500 workers as state border controls inside Australia to stem Covid-19 outbreaks destroys air travel. The airline said it expects flights in and out of Sydney in New South Wales state -- which is fighting its biggest virus flareup -- to be closed for at least another two months. That’s weeks after the scheduled Aug. 28 end to the city’s lockdown.

“We’re now faced with an extended period of reduced flying,” Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce said in the statement. “It will take a few weeks once the outbreak is under control before other states open to New South Wales and normal travel can resume.”

The announcement takes total furloughed staff at Qantas to 9,500, including around 7,000 at the airline’s international business. The latest outbreak has put Qantas’ recovery from the pandemic into reverse as authorities wrestle with the highly infectious delta variant.

Qantas and its low-cost unit Jetstar had operated at close to pre-pandemic levels in May, before lockdowns in three Australian states cut domestic flying to less than 40% of normal volumes in July.

Workers who are stood down, or furloughed, remain Qantas employees but won’t be paid a salary. The airline’s current workforce is about 22,000.

VIRGIN AUSTRALIA'S B737-8FE's 

Qantas is not the only airline reducing its staff, Virgin Australia is poised to announce a fresh wave of stand downs across its workforce as soon as this week as the aviation industry struggles with lockdowns and border closures that have slashed travel around the country. Several industry sources familiar with Virgin’s thinking said the lockdowns could affect more than 1,000 staff at the airline.

Airline staff who cannot access the federal coronavirus disaster payment of up to $750 a week, which only applies to people who live or work in COVID-19 hotspots such as Sydney, will be eligible for payments of the same amount via the Retaining Domestic Airline Capability scheme. Those payments flow first to airlines that can show a 30 per cent downturn and then onto workers.

Rex also announced it’s to suspend or “greatly reduce” its services affected by state border closures and lockdowns. The airline has yet to release a list of the exact routes, but said it will affect its regional and domestic networks in NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania.
It comes after deputy chairman John Sharp said current COVID restrictions had closed 80 per cent of his business.