Qantas Airways Ltd announced yesterday it was slashing its workforce by 1,500 people worldwide, the latest in a string of measures to try to offset skyrocketing fuel costs.
Chief executive Geoff Dixon said the cuts — about 1,300 of them coming in Australia — represent 4 percent of its total workforce.
The airline said it would also close call centers in Tucson, Arizona, and London, causing the loss of 99 jobs.
Dixon said the cuts were necessary to ensure that Qantas survives what he called a crisis in the aviation industry caused by large rises in the price of fuel.
“I think it’s as tough as I’ve seen it,” Dixon told reporters. “It’s not just aviation being hurt by oil prices, it’s other things, such as food. It’s tough — there’s no doubt about it.”
Fuel accounts for about 35 percent of Qantas’ expenses and rising fuel costs are expected to add more than A$2 billion (US$2 billion) to the company’s fuel bills this fiscal year.
The airline’s work force of 36,000 people accounts for another 30 percent of costs.
The first step in the job-shedding plan would be to ask for voluntary redundancies, Dixon said.
“But unfortunately, with these numbers we will have compulsory redundancies,” he said, adding that the redundancies would be completed by December.
Australian Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said the government would provide assistance to those who lose their jobs.
“Certainly the government is disappointed with any job losses and we want to make sure that the workers are given every support,” Albanese said.
To reduce costs even more, the firm will maintain an executive pay freeze for the foreseeable future.
The airline is also abandoning plans to increase its capacity by 8 percent in the next 12 months, with no growth whatsoever now expected in that period, Dixon said. Also, 22 older planes in Qantas’ 228-strong fleet would be retired.
Qantas’ budget subsidiary Jetstar would also be hit by the cuts, with its hiring program suspended. A Jetstar cabin crew and pilot base in the southern city of Adelaide will be shut by September.
Qantas has already increased fares twice and cut capacity twice in recent months.
The Australian Services Union (ASU), which represents airport administrative staff, said service standards would fall with the new cuts.
“To cut 20 percent of back office staff undervalues what they do, it’s not as if people are sitting around doing nothing,” said ASU assistant national secretary Linda White.
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
Taiwanese exports to the US are to be subject to a 20 percent tariff starting on Thursday next week, according to an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump yesterday. The 20 percent levy was the same as the tariffs imposed on Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by Trump. It was higher than the tariffs imposed on Japan, South Korea and the EU (15 percent), as well as those on the Philippines (19 percent). A Taiwan official with knowledge of the matter said it is a "phased" tariff rate, and negotiations would continue. "Once negotiations conclude, Taiwan will obtain a better
RSS