David Eyre 
VH-EBC Airbus A330-203 (MSN 506) of Qantas, named 'Surfers Paradise', at Perth Airport – 22 November 2019. Flight QF409 to Melbourne, preparing for departure from bay 12, Terminal 4, at 5:23am. Photo © David Eyre.
6 January 2021 © David Eyre
Delayed delivery of Boeing 787s and A321neos; Airbus A380 fleet stored for three years
In May 2020, Qantas announced it would delay delivery of its next three new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners (VH-ZNL, VH-ZNM, VH-ZNN), all of which were flown to Victorville in California for storage.
Jetstar was also expecting the first of 18 Airbus A321neo LR aircraft to be delivered from August 2020, but these are also being delayed.
Qantas’ fleet of 12 Airbus A380s will be stored in the USA for three years.
Qantas does not expect international flights to resume before July 2021 at the earliest. The airline group aims to cut $15 billion in costs.
Cuts 8,000 jobs, stands down 15,000 workers
In June 2020, Qantas announced it would make 6,000 workers redundant and continue to stand down 15,000 of its workforce due to the impacts of travel restrictions during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. About 7,500 of the 15,000 stood down workers are not expected to return to work during 2020.
Of the 6,000 redundancies, there are 1,450 office jobs; 1,500 baggage handlers; 1,050 cabin crew, 630 engineering and 220 pilots at Qantas and Jetstar.
In August 2020, Qantas announced a review of ground handling services across 10 major Australian airports, with the possibility of an additional 2,500 redundancies. Following the review, in November 2020, Qantas confirmed it would make 2,000 workers redundant, despite employees bidding to save their jobs. The redundancies will be completed early in 2021. This is a total of 8,500 workers (around a third of its pre-COVID workforce) retrenched since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Qantas Group recorded a statutory loss before tax of $2.7 billion for the 2019/20 financial year.
Closure of airport sales and service desks
Qantas announced in November 2020 that it would expedite a plan to close sales and service desks at all airports and lounges from early 2021, due to increasing shift by customers to booking and checking in online. This will result in 100 redundancies, most of which will come from a voluntary redundancy program.
Qantas will retain 1,500 customer service representatives to help customers deal with issues such as cancelled flights or to assist those with mobility problems.
