More Qantas aircraft groundings from Mon.
Qantas has just announced that ongoing industrial action will force the flag-carrier to ground two additional Boeing 767 aircraft from Mon.
The move will result in 80 more domestic flights to be cut over the next month, mainly between the eastern states and Perth.
“As a direct result of the ongoing ALAEA ban on overtime and work to rule, Qantas has now been forced to ground seven aircraft, cancel around 500 flights and remove approximately 80,000 seats from sale over the next month,” the carrier said.
Qantas ceo Alan Joyce said the groundings were caused by the backlog of maintenance on the Qantas fleet.
“The industrial action has caused a shortfall of more than 60,000 man hours of maintenance and this is increasing on a daily basis,” Joyce said, and indicating that further aircraft groundings were not out of the question.
Joyce stressed that parking aircraft was not due to safety concerns, “but it is causing ongoing and unplanned disruption to our customers.”
He said that once the backlog of maintenance was cleared the aircraft would be reintroduced to service.
More information in tomorrow’s Travel Daily.