Flight attendants vote to strike one day after Qantas’ $150m profit upgrade

Qantas is facing another bout of industrial action from its biggest employee group a day after the airline upgraded its profit forecast for the second time in six weeks.

Almost 100 per cent of the airline’s 1200 domestic flight attendants voted in favour of protected strike action if the carrier does not offer a better pay deal.

While no dates or scope for the industrial action have been set, the Flight Attendants Association of Australia said the demonstrations would minimise disruption to travellers to avoid airport chaos.

This escalation of Qantas’s pay dispute follows the carrier’s ASX announcement on Wednesday of a $150 million upgrade to its profit forecast, to between $1.35 billion and $1.45 billion in underlying profit before tax, in the first half of its financial year. The carrier’s debt is now expected to fall to between $2.3 billion and $2.5 billion by 31 December, about $900 million more than forecast.

Qantas’s enterprise agreement offer would extend domestic cabin crew shifts from 9.5 hours to 12 hours, and up to 14 hours if there’s a disruption. The proposed agreement also reduces rest periods to 10 hours, which concerns the union who said it would increase fatigue issues.

Qantas has offered 3 per cent annual pay rises to its workers after they accepted a two-year wage freeze when planes were grounded due to COVID-19. About 33 per cent of the carrier’s employees, or 6500 people, who are covered by an enterprise agreement have signed up to a post-COVID agreement.

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The flight attendants are the latest group to vote to take industrial action unless the offer is improved. In August, the licensed engineers servicing the carrier voted to take industrial action and have so far contained their protected action to a one-minute stoppage to avoid disruption of passengers and continue negotiations in good faith.

The airline said in its trading update yesterday that it was “on-track to share the benefits” of its profits with 20,000 non-executive employees through a $5000 boost payment and 1000 shares if key performance conditions were met.