Qantas’s defence arm looks for new opportunities

When one thinks of Qantas, one doesn’t usually associate Australia’s flag carrier with defence and third party support work. But the airline has a division which is dedicated to just that. Qantas Defence Services, recently moved from under Qantas Engineering into the new Qantas Aviation Services (QAS) division headed by Glenn Brown who joined the company in late 2007.

“I report into Lyell Strambi (executive general manager operations) who is basically the COO for the airline,” Brown told us in a recent interview. “We tend to look at our group as very much something different from QF engineering which we were previously a part of.” Indeed, the QDS portfolio is a diverse one and, although still very much an engineering expertise based organisation, many of its responsibilities and plans go far beyond that.