Qantas to create thousands of new roles, unveils new engineering academy
Qantas has announced plans to create 8500 new jobs over the next decade to grow Australia’s biggest carrier now it’s back to reporting billion-dollar profits after COVID-19.
The group made the commitment amid announcing plans to open an engineering academy in 2025 to train up to 300 engineers each year. Qantas said the academy will not only provide engineers for the airline but the broader aviation industry, including defence contractors, and said a particular focus of the academy will be to encourage more women to join the field.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the carrier expects to create more than 2000 new jobs over the next 18 months.
“Aviation is so important to a country like Australia and you need a big skills pipeline to power it. That’s not just about the major airlines but also small regional operators, defence and general aviation. It’s a whole ecosystem that pilots and engineers, in particular, make their way through, and the long-term skills base required means it relies on constant renewal.
“Qantas is already the single biggest investor in aviation skills in Australia, especially when you consider the constant training of our pilots, engineers and cabin crew just to maintain the status quo.”
The new roles include 4500 new cabin crew positions, 1600 pilot roles, 800 engineers, and a further 1,600 in other operational positions.
Qantas currently employees about 23,500 people. The new recruits and replaced roles will bring the carrier up to a total headcount of 32,000 by 2033.
Qantas said it will soon need to add 200 new engineers to its operations every year, a number which exceeds the current national supply. A fully licensed aviation engineer typically takes a minimum of five years of practical and classroom training.
Earlier this month, the airline approached former flight attendants who took voluntary redundancies or resigned during the COVID-19 pandemic to rejoin.
The airline said it will work with unions to finalise how the academy will operate, including how it may work with existing apprenticeship programs run by Qantas and Jetstar.
Qantas was found to have breached the Fair Work Act in 2020 following the outsourcing of baggage ground handling, resulting in 1700 redundancies as part of a $1 billion restructure. The airline is appealing the verdict in the High Court.
Joyce recently credited the restructure as a driver of its return to profit as he revealed the group had posted a $1.4 billion profit for the six months to December, following $7 billion of losses accrued over the three years of COVID-19.
“When we restructured the business at the start of COVID, it was to make sure we could bounce back quickly when travel returned.”
Ahead of the group’s results, Joyce unveiled a $100 million investment to transform its lounge network over the next three years on Tuesday, including a new first-class lounge at London’s Heathrow Airport and a revamp of the international business-class lounges at Hong Kong, Sydney and Melbourne.
The airline announced in 2022 it had ordered and secured purchase rights for up to 299 narrow body and 12 wide body aircraft for delivery over the decade. Last week, Qantas said up to 22 midlife and wet leased aircraft will arrive over the next two years to meet the growth of key markets including leisure and freight.
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Source: Thanks smh.com