How Australian is Qantas?

The flying kangaroo is in danger of loosing it's identity.

Qantas has temporairly fooled the public and union officials by getting rid of 480 positions in its work force in Sydney by moving the airline's heavy maintenance operations to Avalon,Victoria to cut costs.

Airline management has not ruled out sending heavy maintainance on its fleet of Boeing 747's to China, cutting another 2500 jobs, but has decided to wait until after the Commonwealth Games to make that announcement. Of course this appeases unions for the time being and means the Games will not be disrupted.

I cannot believe the unions are as gullible as they seem to be by believing what Qantas management is saying and not realising Qantas is only delaying the inevitable announcement. But this deception apparently has worked as threats of industrial action disrupting next week's Commonwealth Games receded with today's announcement of a restructure Qantas says will save $100 million a year.

Believe me when I say an industrial brawl remains on the cards.

Qantas will review its position as it battles to contain costs in the face of $US60-plus a barrel oil prices, even though they add a surcharge to all tickets to cover the cost of fuel. My question is who believes Qantas, the worlds most expensive airline, is in danger of financial collapse?

How convenient for Qantas Chief Geoff Dixon to claim, "We have severe space limitations at Sydney and the limitations will increase in future years." Mr Dixon said the tone of his meeting today with union leaders was "very co-operative and very sensible". Asked if he anticipated industrial action in the lead-up to May's job losses, he replied, "No I don't, but I cannot predict that."

Qantas also rejected unions' concerns the job cuts could jeopardise the airline's safety.
AWU secretary Bill Shorten stated, "Our concern is how on earth can the airline (Qantas)maintain the same standard and take out 500 skilled technicians. Our warning to Qantas is, don't cut too close to the bone because you can't compromise the (safety) record that you enjoy of superb public confidence in the world's safest airline."

In todays economic climate 500 people, a lot of them with families, will be put on the unemployment scrap heap. Perhaps Geoff Dixon and some of his airline executives will take a wages cut to help keep the Qantas unemployment figures down. Oner could only dream!

I wonder if Qantas will change their logo from the flying kangaroo to the flying panda.