August

Meanwhile, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announces the state will extend its border closure on Saturday morning to cover all of NSW and the ACT. “We’ve seen that Victoria is not getting better and we’re not going to wait for NSW to get worse,” Premier Palaszczuk says. “We cannot risk a second wave, we have to act decisively.” Separately, NSW announces that citizens who had travelled through Victoria will still be allowed to return home but now must undertake 14 days of hotel quarantine at their own expense.

14 August

Air New Zealand announces it will reduce services to and from Auckland after the whole city is put back into lockdown, following a cluster of cases. The rest of the country is moved into lighter ‘alert level 2’ restrictions, which limits mass gatherings to 100 people and sees the return of social distancing.

17 August

Australian Aviation reports that the TWU’s relationship with new Virgin owner Bain is unravelling because the group will not publicly comment on speculation that former Jetstar chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka could be the new chairman. Hrdlicka had a notoriously fraught relationship with unions in her role at the Qantas Group. While Bain beat out Cyrus Capital Partners in May to become the administrator’s preferred bidder for the airline, the decision won’t be rubber-stamped until a final creditors’ meeting in early September, with the TWU’s backing likely to be crucial. The business’ employees together account for 9,020 of the total number of creditors and are owed $451 million.

25 August

Qantas drops a bombshell and announces nearly 2,500 more jobs are at risk because the business plans to outsource its remaining ground handling operations. The proposed cuts, in addition to the 6,000 already announced, could include 370 job losses at Jetstar and more than 2,000 at Qantas. This plan, not yet confirmed, will take place after a review that will compare the efficiencies of using external ground handlers versus doing the work in-house.

The TWU responds and says Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce should resign. National secretary Michael Kaine says, “This is not shrewd management, it is economic violence. Qantas has taken millions in JobKeeper wage subsidies, more than any other company, with the express intent of keeping people employed. But now Alan Joyce wants to destroy thousands more livelihoods. This is callous abuse of public money.”

Qantas’ plans could see the airline brand remove operations at the 10 Australian airports where the work is done in-house, which includes Adelaide, Alice Springs, Brisbane, Cairns, Canberra, Darwin, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Townsville.

28 August

The industry body representing international airlines in Australia predicts it will take its members six months to return all citizens stranded abroad if the current cap system isn’t relaxed. The Board of Airline Representatives of Australia (BARA) argues on Friday that it thinks the actual number wanting to come back is as high as 100,000, and not just the 19,000 who have registered with the government. BARA’s airlines provide 90 per cent of all international passenger flights to and from Australia, and notable members include Qantas, Virgin, Qatar, Singapore, Etihad and Emirates.