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Home is where the heart is,but also the expensive labour force.Credit:Getty

Given all that,you’d expect staff morale to be flying as high as the share price. But sadly not. Qantas received around$2 billion in government support partly to “retain” staff during the pandemic. But Qantas is now not retaining Australian staff and outsourcing many positions. As a taxpayer,that doesn’t feel like home. Not because I wasn’t retained,it was my decision to leave.

You may recall,early in the pandemic,that1700 ground handlers were sacked and their jobs outsourced. Many positions within the airline have now been outsourced,from catering to engineering. Once upon a time,Qantas had a great and proud engineering tradition where almost all components of the aircraft – from cabin interiors to engines – were overhauled at their wonderful engineering hangars in downtown Mascot.

The Qantas catering building supplied meals prepared by chefs in Australia,not just to Qantas aircraft but other carriers as well. Nowadays,the food you eat onboard and the maintenance of the aircraft are outsourced to facilities that are either owned offshore or are actually offshore.

And now it appears some cabin crew and pilots will also be outsourced. I read with despair that the airline will“wet lease” two A330s from Finnair for four years. A “wet” lease means the aircraft comes complete with pilots and cabin crew. I’m sure the Finnair crew are highly professional and qualified,however,they are not Australian and not what the travelling public expects or has paid for.

I also read in online pilot job forums that Qantas are recruiting offshore forAirbus A220-qualified pilots. The excuse is that there are no A220-qualified pilots in Australia,so the airline has started a search overseas for pilots with that qualification

Newsflash:any time Qantas has introduced a new aircraft “type”,there haven’t been pilots with those specific qualifications in Australia. Take the mighty A380,for instance. There were no A380-qualified pilots wandering the streets of Australia looking for work in 2005. Qantas had to train their own Australian pilots. The same was true for the 747 back in the ’70s,and the 767 in the ’80s,as well as other new aircraft types as they arrived over the years in shiny new Qantas colours.

Yes,there are no qualified A220 pilots in Australia because there are no A220s in Australia. The Airbus A220 started life as the Bombardier C series and the project was subsequently bought by Airbus and rebranded as the A220. It’s a wonderful aircraft that Qantas is planning to introduce to the QantasLink fleet to replace the ageing 717 airliner.

The A220 has its origins in the Bombardier Global Express. In fact,the Global 6000 that I currently fly around the world has the same Rockwell Collins “Vision” flight deck,so we do have qualified pilots in Australia! Qantas,give me a call,I may be able to help.

Cabin crew are not immune to this outsourcing epidemic,and there was news last week that Qantas is seeking to staff its renewedAuckland to New York service with NZ-based flight attendants who reportedly have fewer rest entitlements. Qantas has employed non-Australian cabin crew in the past,originally for language and cultural skills. Qantas once flew to many and varied destinations where some passengers were not English speakers and were unfamiliar with Australian culture.

Over the years,offshore bases have popped up. Not for language or cultural reasons but for cost. The bean counters quickly realised that some of these foreign-based crew were not only cheaper but their industrial relations agreements were more “elastic” than those of their Australian colleagues. And so more foreign offshore cabin crew bases started appearing.

These days Qantas employs locals in the UK and New Zealand. Does that bother the average passenger? If they’re jumping aboard the new Sydney to New York service,I suppose they need to ask themselves if they’d prefer a stop in quieter Auckland or chaotic Los Angeles.

Perhaps most people would vote for whatever feels like home.

David Evans was a Qantas pilot for 37 years.

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correction

This article has been updated to say that ‘many’ jobs at Qantas have been outsourced,when an earlier version said ‘most’ jobs. Qantas currently has 23,000 Australian-based jobs and,according to a spokesman,are committed to creating 8,500 new Australian-based operational roles (pilots,engineers,cabin crew,and airport staff) over the next decade,driven by investment in new aircraft and increased flying.

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