WA FIFO pilots seeking higher pay add yet another two days of stoppages, air concerns about local management

Striking Network Aviation pilots plan to walk off the job for another two days next week and have aired grievances about the Qantas subsidiaries’ local management. Members of the Australian Federation of Air Pilots have committed to another 24-hour stoppage taking place next week on Thursday and Friday, adding to the strikes already planned for Monday and Wednesday during that week in their fight to secure higher pay from Qantas. It means pilots will be on strike for nearly all of next week, working only on Tuesday. In announcing the additional strike the AFAP reiterated its “concerns” about the local management of employer Network Aviation. According to the AFAP, nearly 85 per cent of union members disagreed that Network’s management “actively and adequately address Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) issues.” The majority also do not have confidence in their chief pilot, according to the Union. A Qantas spokeswoman pushed back on the claims, saying they did not reflect what the airline was seeing with safety or fatigue data. “There are formal channels for pilots to raise safety or fatigue concerns and we have confidence that they will continue to manage safety and report any concerns so they can be addressed in the normal manner,” she said. “While we always take any safety concern seriously, we note this survey has been run alongside a wage dispute by the AFAP.” AFAP and Qantas are due to meet at the Fair Work Commission on March 14 and 15 to try and end the ongoing spat over the new enterprise agreement, which has been dragging on for 18 months. A GoFundMe established to support striking pilots has got nearly $62,000 in the kitty. AFAP senior industrial officer Chris Aiken said pilots had indicated pilots “may soon leave the company to fly for other airlines” offering better pay and conditions. “As attracting and retaining pilots becomes even more difficult for Network Aviation, the impact on Qantas and the WA economy will be significant if Qantas fails to address the inequities of treating Network pilots like second-class citizens,” he said. Pilots were on strike on Friday and will resume industrial action after the weekend, in what has been causing logistical headaches for WA’s mining industry. Mining companies rely on tightly-run fly-in, fly-out schedules to get workers to site, with the strikes forcing them to use other providers, reschedule travel or find spare capacity on other Qantas flights.