Qantas Airways' top management has ruled out selling the airline's profitable frequent flyer programme, and has taken a swipe at the airline's maintenance unions.
"Industrial action [last year] by Qantas engineers cost us around A$130 million ($120 million), created a maintenance backlog that damaged punctuality and hurt our reputation," Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford said earlier today at the company annual general meeting in Perth.
"There has been a lot of misrepresentation about our maintenance practices" and the implication is that "our standards have slipped", he says, alluding to last year's Civil Aviation Safety Authority's audit of the airline's maintenance practices.
CASA intervened after the airline's maintenance unions complained that Qantas was outsourcing too much work overseas and standards were slipping.
Clifford says "the fact remains 80% of all heavy maintenance is carried out here in Australia" and "next year we expect that over 90% of aircraft heavy maintenance will be conducted in Australia".
Qantas' Brisbane maintenance, repair and overhaul base will start doing Qantas/Jetstar A330 heavy maintenance checks next year, and Tamworth in Australia has become the base for Qantas' Bombardier aircraft heavy maintenance, he adds.
In recent months Qantas has laid of managers to cut costs and conserve cash.
The airline was also looking to float its profitable frequent flyer programme to generate cash.
But Clifford says "the Qantas frequent flyer programme is of significant strategic benefit to the group and there will be no public offering."
In an effort to conserve cash, Clifford adds that the company will pay no dividend.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
