Qantas subsidiary Network Aviation pilots strike in Western Australian

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Qantas-link pilots in Western Australia are on strike over stalled wage negotiations. The 24-hour stoppage is causing problems for the state's large fly-in-fly-out operators.

Transcript

00:00 There have been massive changes to flights across regional WA today with pilots from

00:07 Network Aviation, which is a subsidiary of Qantas, going on a 24-hour strike.

00:13 Now about half of the scheduled Network Aviation flights across the state have been cancelled

00:19 during this 24-hour strike, with many scrambling to re-book.

00:24 Now Qantas says it's managed to protect the plans of about 3,500 customers and they've

00:30 redeployed jets to regional WA and engaged charters and other planes to help with the

00:37 situation.

00:39 Not everyone's plans were saved and it's been a scramble for some.

00:44 I'm in Geraldton Regional Centre north of Perth and I spoke to passengers this morning

00:50 who had to jump to a different carrier this morning to get their flight.

00:56 Some of those customers told me how their plans had been affected.

01:00 Travelling for work most weeks as I do on Qantas and experiencing the delays and then

01:04 on Monday flew to Perth for a whole heap of meetings yesterday and then one this morning

01:09 and we got wind of the strike so we had to actually change straight over to Nexus yesterday

01:15 not to be impacted by the pilot strike today.

01:18 The impacts have been felt in centres across the state, particularly in those with a strong

01:24 resource sector that rely on fly-in, fly-out workers.

01:29 Now as Qantas has said, using charters and other planes, many of those workers have still

01:34 been able to get to work but it's still been a big scramble in the lead up.

01:40 We've heard from the Australian Federation of Air Pilots today who said their pilots

01:46 are unhappy about the strike action.

01:48 They felt for the public whose plans were having been shifted but they felt pushed into

01:54 a corner by Qantas.

01:56 They've said that their pay and conditions are 40-50% worse than that of mainline Qantas

02:02 pilots.

02:03 Now that's despite, they say, the same training and undergoing the same work.

02:09 Qantas Group has put out a statement today.

02:12 They've said they are welcoming a decision by the pilots group to come back to the negotiating

02:17 table so time will tell how this situation unfolds from here.

02:21 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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