Qantas is asking its executives to work as baggage handlers amid a staff shortage.
(Picture: Getty Images)Qantas is asking the company’s senior executives to work as baggage handlers as the Australian airline tries to combat its staff shortage, the BBC has reported.
Airports around the world have been suffering from staff shortages with travellers left facing long queues at security, passport control, and baggage collection.
In June, Heathrow Airport warned that customers would face 18 months of travel chaos due to a lack of staff.
Thousands of airport staff lost their jobs during the pandemic, and now airports are struggling to meet the spike in demand now that travel restrictions are easing up.
But Australian airline Qantas has an unconventional approach to combating its staff shortage–by asking its top employees to chip in.
The company is asking for around 100 volunteers to work at Sydney and Melbourne airports for three months. The executives would be expected to work for three or five days a week in shifts of four or six hours.
They will be expected to load and unload bags, and to drive luggage around the airports, and will need to be able to move bags that weigh up to 32kg.
This call out from Qantas comes nearly two years after the airline outsourced nearly 2,000 baggage handler roles across 10 airports during the pandemic.
At the time the Australian airline said the move was financially necessary and would save the company $100 million (AUD), as reported by the Guardian.
But The Transport Workers Union (TWU) argued the decision to outsource staff was motivated by an anti-union sentiment, as it came a month before the union members’ bargaining agreement was set to expire.
Australia’s Federal Court rejected Qantas’ attempt to overturn a ruling that said it fired workers illegally, but the airline has again filed an appeal against the ruling.
Meanwhile, the TWU has called on the Qantas Board to fire Qantas CEO Alan Joyce and CEO of Domestic and International Andrew David.
Australia’s News.com reports that some of the baggage handlers that were fired by Qantas have claimed that they have been refused new jobs at airports despite staff shortages.
Almost half of the outsourced staff are still unemployed or in insecure work, according to a survey by the TWU, which also found that a third of the former employees surveyed have since developed depression or anxiety.
