The union representing flight attendants for American Airlines says about 100 flight attendants have tested positive for the coronavirus. The Association of Professional Flight Attendants, representing more than 27,000 flight attendants, disclosed the figure in a message to its membership and said the airline has "agreed to start providing face masks for frontline team members while at work should you choose to wear one." The union said masks are being distributed this week. APFA president Julie Hedrick said Tuesday the union has "been pushing the company since January" to provide personal protective equipment for flight attendants. "We have consistently advocated for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for all of our flight attendants to be available on every aircraft, for social distancing between passengers and crew jump seats, for thermal scanning in the airports, and to receive immediate notification of flight attendants who have tested positive for the virus," Hedrick said. "Flight attendants are aviation's first responders, who are transporting medical personnel and supplies into COVID-19 hotspots, and they need to be treated and protected as such." American would not comment directly on the union's claim of flight attendants testing positive for the virus at the world's largest airline.<br/>
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Qantas is moving to recruit cabin staff from its New Zealand subsidiary to operate scheduled flights to rescue Australians trapped overseas, after it failed to get sufficient volunteers from its Australian cabin staff to operate planned flights. Amid news that 50 Qantas and Jetstar staff have contracted coronavirus there has been growing anxiety among Qantas staff about plans to resume flights to Los Angeles, London, Auckland and Hong Kong later this week. Four were infected after operating a flight to evacuate Australians from Peru on 29 March. A resumption of scheduled international flights has been requested by the federal government as part of measures to get Australians trapped overseas home. But despite Qantas standing down 80% of its crews and requiring them to take their annual leave, the company’s call for volunteers has encompassed staff based in New Zealand as well as Australia. The Flight Attendants Association of Australia said talks had broken down, after the union accused Qantas of trying to walk away from key consultation mechanisms in the enterprise agreement, including involving the union in decisions about the flights beyond the current four-week timeframe. But the reluctance also stems from anxiety about catching the virus on board. The FAAA vice-president, Bruce Roberts, said his members were “incredibly fearful” and that members had rung in tears after receiving a positive diagnosis. Story has more.<br/>
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce will soon make a call on the airline’s future flight plans for June and beyond, in the face of continuing uncertainty over the trajectory of the coronavirus and when national and international travel restrictions may ease. “We’ll have to make a decision sometime in April about what we do for June and July,” Joyce told media following an announcement on March 19 that Qantas would suspend all international flights until at least the end of May 2020, accompanied by a 60% reduction to domestic flights. “We have a range of options, to cut further and deeper, or to add capacity back,” Joyce said, allowing that “things are moving very fast and this is all about flexibility and maintaining flexibility. We have a plan for three months, six months, nine months, a year,” Joyce revealed. “Nobody knows when this is going to end.” Qantas has grounded almost all of its international jets. At the same time, Qantas has formed a dedicated “startup team” tasked with ramping up operations when clear bright light shines from the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. “If it’s more than three months you’ll have recurrence training (for pilots), you’ll have particular engineering items you need to do. The start-up team is working out what that looks like so that we can activate it when the market turns, so we can be ahead of the curve, because we need to be ahead of the curve to help Australia get back on its feet."<br/>