Qantas, Australia's biggest airline, announced yesterday it will cut between 1,500 and 2,000 jobs -- about 6 percent of its staff -- blaming the impact of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks for the decision.
Chief Executive Geoff Dixon said the airline also would pare back its international flight schedule -- including ending all flights to New York -- because of sliding demand since the attacks on New York and Washington.
The airline has cut its international flights by about 11 percent since Sept. 11. The Sydney-based carrier also said it will retire its fleet of five Boeing 747-200 aircraft beginning in April. The aircraft had been scheduled to be phased out from late 2003.
Qantas said it will also make "extensive internal changes" by moving a largenumber of staff from its international operation to its domestic operations.
In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange, Qantas said all flights to New York will be cut from Nov. 25, and flights would be reduced to Rome, Johannesburg, Bangkok, Manila and Buenos Aires.
Dixon said the moves 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."
Qantas already is seeking a staff wage freeze for 12 to 18 months and substantial changes to domestic operations. Unions have threatened strike action over the proposed wage freeze.
Dixon said bookings from Japan are down 25 percent, while bookings from the UK have slumped 23 percent.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS