Qantas Airways Ltd chief executive Geoff Dixon said Australia's largest carrier will offer its workers a 3 percent pay rise as the airline improves labor productivity, simplifies its fleet and cuts overheads.
Dixon said he met 50 union officials in recent days to discuss the wage increase.
"We made it very plain that we appreciated their support and we obviously appreciate the support of all our people," Dixon told Channel Nine's Business Sunday program. "What we're doing is investing hugely in the company and they understand that."
Last week, the Sydney-based carrier said net income rose 1.5 percent in the six months ended Dec. 31 to a record A$357.8 million (US$276 million) as a surging Australian dollar reduced fuel and equipment costs. The airline saved A$73 million in labor productivity and A$113 million in fleet simplification.
This week Qantas will release details about its Jetstar discount airline, which is schedule to start in May, Dixon told Nine. The company started Jetstar in an effort to win back sales from Brisbane-based Virgin Blue Holdings Ltd, which has grabbed about a third of the domestic market since it started offering a discount service in August 2000.
Jetstar, which will be based in Melbourne, will start with 14 Boeing Co. 717-model planes. The service will expand with 23 single-aisle Airbus SAS A320 planes, which can carry 150 passengers each.
The airline's routes will be "quite extensive" on Australia's east coast traveling as far north as Cairns, Dixon told Nine. Qantas plans to extend the business to the western seaboard later, he said. Dixon wasn't specific.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS