Government-Paid Aviation Training?

With the Australian ‘Jobkeeper’ wage subsidy due to expire the end of this month, Qantas Airways has proposed that the federal government pay for training for the 9,000 Qantas employees and 3,000 more from Virgin Australia Airlines.

Unions have been pushing for an aviation-specific package, ‘Aviation Keeper’.

Qantas Head of Government Relations Andrew Parker told a hearing in Canberra,“We currently hope that there are a range of measures introduced in a very targeted way for our sector and our employees that will get us through. The government understands that for aviation, and particularly for international aviation, that some form of assistance is going to be vital”.

Qantas proposes funding both routine and advanced training for about 5,000 stood-down pilots, cabin crew, engineers and other workers to keep them ‘connected’ to the airline and enable overseas flying to resume rapidly when Australia opened its borders. Qantas reported a $1.08 billion half-year loss last week.

For more on pilot training funding, check out  Cadet Training Limbo.

Airline ground handling and catering company dnata (owned by the Dubai government) suggested support be shared across the whole industry; 1,500 dnata workers could not access JobKeeper. “Our employees are primarily Australian citizens who live here in Australia, they pay their taxes, raise their families here and support their local communities”, said dnata Australian CEO Hiranjan Aloysius.

Transport Workers Union federal secretary Michael Kaine urged future support to go directly to employees rather than via their employer, saying the original scheme had failed to prevent mass job losses. “The solution here is to funnel money into those workers who are currently in the industry”.