Qantas workers have held strikes. Photo / Supplied
Qantas workers have held strikes. Photo / Supplied
Qantas Airways, Australia's biggest carrier, said it would cut almost 400 domestic flights affecting 60,000 passengers for the next month as a result of labour union strikes.
Bans on overtime by engineers caused a backlog of maintenance and forced the grounding of five aircraft from next week, Qantas said.
Whilea planned four-hour strike in Adelaide and one-hour stoppages in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide have been postponed for two weeks, this "will not help get these five grounded aircraft back up in the air", said Qantas spokeswoman Olivia Wirth.
Workers from the airline's engineering, long-haul pilots and ground crew unions have held strikes, used public address systems to criticise Qantas and banned overtime as they seek higher pay and job security clauses in contracts.
The union action comes amid chief executive Alan Joyce's plans to establish new carriers in Southeast Asia and Japan to tap Chinese travellers as he seeks to turn around A$200 million ($257 million) in annual losses from international operations.
Wirth said the biggest impact of what she described as the "co-ordinated attacks on Qantas and its passengers from the pilots' union, the licensed engineers' union and the Transport Workers' Union" came from the overtime bans and 'go slow' on work, which had caused the backlog of maintenance.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the government was able to intervene if disputes escalate.
