Qantas plans ahead for strike

With tomorrow’s Australian Licensed Engineers Association four-hour strike coming up, the Australian flag carrier Qantas has said it has put measures in place to assure the strike will affect its passengers as little as humanly possible. Though the ALAEA’s overtime bans will be starting tomorrow afternoon, Qantas’ chief executive officer Geoff Dixon says the most effect the actions would have on scheduling would be some delays Friday afternoon between 14:00 and 18:00.

Dixon said to the press, “To address this, we have cancelled a limited number of domestic services during that period. We have begun contacting affected customers and re-booking them on other services and everything will be done to get them to their destination as quickly as possible.”

Dixon claimed that the ALAEA was playing the same card as it usually did when it was experiencing confrontations with the airline, the issue of safety. Dixon said however, that “Of course, it is no coincidence that when the union is on a crusade for more money it decides to play the ‘safety card’. Safety is our top priority – we never have and never will compromise this.”