Qantas to outsource ground handling at 10 Australian airports

Qantas has rejected in-house bids from its employees after a three-month process and decided to outsource its ground handling at 10 airports across Australia. The move brings job losses across the group “as a result of the Covid crisis and associated border closures” to around 8,500 of its 29,000 pre-Covid workforce, the Australian flag carrier says Monday. Around 2,000 employees are affected by the decision. “Unfortunately, Covid has turned aviation upside down. Airlines around the world are having to make dramatic decisions in order to survive and the damage will take years to repair,” says Qantas domestic and international CE Andrew David, who describes the move as “another tough day for Qantas”. “While there has been some good news recently with domestic borders, international travel isn’t expected to return to pre-Covid levels until at least 2024. We have a massive job ahead of us to repay debt and we know our competitors are aggressively cutting costs to emerge leaner.” Qantas had already indicated in August that it intended to outsource the ground handling work at the 10 airports, but it gave its own employees an opportunity to bid for the work, saying they would need to “demonstrate they can deliver on the objectives Qantas needs to meet”. These objectives include reducing the overall cost of ground handling operations, avoiding large spending on ground handling equipment such as aircraft tugs and baggage loaders, and “better matching” its ground handling services and their cost with fluctuating levels of demand.<br/>