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Qantas Airways
said today it would reduce staff positions by between 1500 and 2000 as a
result of the sharp and continuing deterioration in the international
aviation market.
Qantas Chief Executive Officer Geoff Dixon said the reductions in staff
would take place before the end of December and would be achieved by
redundancies, attrition and by not filling budgeted vacancies.
Every effort would be made to keep compulsory redundancies to a minimum.
Mr Dixon said the downsizing by Qantas was considerably less than for
other international airlines. The industry had shed over 250,000 jobs in
the past eight weeks.
Mr Dixon said a range of other initiatives would also be introduced
immediately to meet the market downturn. These include:
* Taking of annual and long service leave;
* Job sharing by interested staff; and
* Leave without pay.
Mr Dixon said Qantas would also make further reductions to its
international flying, taking the reduction in capacity since the
terrorist attacks on America to around 11 per cent:
* All flights to New York will be withdrawn from November 25;
* There will be a reduction in flights to Rome, Johannesburg, Bangkok,
Manila and Buenos Aires; and
* Paris services will be, from March, routed over Frankfurt.
In addition to the reduction in services, Qantas had decided to retire
its fleet of five 747-200 aircraft from April next year. The aircraft
were planned to be phased out from late 2003.
Qantas would also make extensive internal changes, moving a significant
number of people from its international operation to its domestic
operation.
Mr Dixon said these moves by Qantas were designed to bolster decisions
made last month to respond to the international aviation downturn
resulting from the terrorist attack, to lower its cost base and to put
it in a strong position to take advantage of the inevitable recovery of
the international aviation market.
These decisions included:
* Seeking a wages pause for 12 to 18 months from all staff;
* The purchase of new, more cost efficient 737-800 aircraft for domestic
flying; and
* Substantial changes to the domestic product offering.
Mr Dixon said Qantas, while currently benefiting from a larger market
share domestically following the collapse of Ansett, was still
principally an international airline. Last year, 78 per cent of the
airline's profits were generated by the international operations.
"The events of September 11 have affected services far beyond the United
States," he said. "There has also been a significant downturn for travel
to and from Europe, South East Asia and Japan.
"Bookings from Japan are down 25 per cent and from the United Kingdom 23
per cent. Some other markets are similarly affected and overall traffic
levels have declined market by market between 10 per cent and 20 per
cent.
"While we need to continue to monitor the international situation
closely, every effort will be made to resume withdrawn services as
quickly as possible to help arrest the downturn in inbound tourism."
Mr Dixon said Qantas had worked extremely hard to become competitive
during the six years since privatisation.
"We have done this principally through sound economic and operational
decisions, wise investment and tremendous staff enthusiasm." |
