Virgin Australia is in a Santa Claus mood, promising to fast-track a new enterprise bargaining agreement for its pilots that saw them snag a 15% pay rise, with a further 6% over the next two years. But over at the Scroogy Roo, Qantas is ready for a fresh fight with its short-haul pilots after they nixed a September pay offer.
“Qantas’ insistence on a two-year wage freeze despite being highly profitable while also seeking concessions on key conditions was viewed by pilots as unreasonable,” the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP) said in a statement after 63.4% of 736 short-haul pilots voted the deal down.
In a note to Virgin pilots, obtained by Crikey, the company’s general manager of flight operations Alex Scamps said the implementation of the proposed enterprise agreement was still being assessed for approval by the FWC. But he added the company wanted “to ensure that you receive the higher salaries and back pay ahead of Christmas. I am pleased to confirm that we will be paying the new salary rates and back pay earlier than required, and before FWC approval.”
Virgin Australia pilots began receiving increased pay rates on November 9 and were back paid on November 26. According to Scamps’ note, the base salary for Virgin captains is $281,750 with an hourly rate of $322. For first officers, the base salary is $183,137.50 with an hourly rate of $209.30. Direct comparisons are difficult as pilots’ salary and conditions deals are fiendishly (and deliberately) complex.
But for Qantas, its main pilots union, the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA), has been thrown into turmoil by the resounding rejection of Qantas’ EBA proposal. AIPA president Tony Lucas recently announced he is quitting his position, too, citing medical reasons, only weeks after strongly backing the deal. As part of the overhaul, AIPA’s entire negotiating team has been replaced, union sources said, in the hope of recovering from the unexpected rebuff from its members and getting a deal they can live with.
AIPA still covers the majority of Qantas short-haul pilots, but rival union AFAP — which was instrumental in gaining a no vote for the last short-haul offer — is seeing a steady increase in membership, according to union sources. Unsurprisingly, Mascot (Qantas HQ) is paying attention. AFAP is also Qantas’ opponent in the ongoing, landmark FWC ruling over a dispute at subsidiary Network Aviation. The case is one of the first under the “intractable bargaining” provisions of the Albanese government’s “closing loopholes” legislation designed to provide fairer outcomes for workers.
Qantas negotiators are said to be desperate to settle a deal with short-haul pilots before the FWC hands down a workplace determination that could set expensive precedents for the airline. Qantas is even more wary after it was forced to back down in a dispute with cabin crew under new “same work/same pay” rules that cost the airline $60 million.
To add to the industrial relations woes of Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson, pilots at Alliance Airlines in Queensland — which provides a whopping 30 Embraer 190 planes, pilots and crew (under a wet-lease deal) to Qantas for regional operations — have taken the first step towards protected industrial action as the pilot shortage continues to embolden lower-paid regional pilots.
The wet-lease deal has been a neat way for Qantas to get around the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s knockback in April 2023 of the national carrier’s planned $614 million takeover of Alliance. Just like Jetstar, it’s the competition you have when you are not having competition.
In the meantime, Qantas’ ageing fleet limps on. To bolster its fraught Perth-based Network Aviation division saddled with fragile 30-year-old Fokker 100s and 20-year-old second-hand A319s, it has brought in Andrew Page as head of engineering. “We know there is more work to do to strengthen our engineering operation and respond to increased demand in WA,” QantasLink CEO Rachel Yangoyan said in a staff note, obtained by Crikey. Pilots said that is a vast understatement, with as many as five Fokkers still grounded.
If Virgin, which has also ordered a fleet of new aircraft for its WA operations, is the ghost of Christmas present and future, Qantas remains very much the ghost of Christmas past.
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