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Virgin Australia was forced to cancel up to 30 flights over the weekend due to a lack of available cabin crew, as crew cite mounting concerns over work conditions.
According to a report in The Australian, Virgin cabin crew are calling in sick at higher rates and increasingly opting not to put their hand up for additional shifts on their off-days, citing being “exhausted and fed up”.
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As such, the airline was unable to find last-minute cover for several flights throughout the weekend, particularly on same-day return routes, or ‘turns’, that amounted to 10+ hour days for cabin crew.
Impacted routes included Perth–Brisbane, Brisbane–Cairns, Sydney–Cairns, Queenstown–Melbourne and Sydney–Nadi.
According to an anonymous source, many cabin crew have refused last-minute shifts on their rostered day off because of current working conditions.
“The payment for [picking up a shift] is around $300 to $350 — the same whether you work a short Melbourne return or a gruelling day trip to Darwin and back,” the source told The Australian.
“Every time crew says yes, the problems get papered over for another week. So more of us are saying no.”
The source said that the issue largely impacts “long day returns” the most, including trips to Darwin, Perth, Nadi and Queenstown.
“These are long, draining duties flown out and back in a single day,” they said.
It comes as Virgin continues to negotiate its new enterprise agreement with its cabin crew, with the Flight Attendants Association of Australia (FAAA) pushing to see a reduction in maximum duty hours for cabin crew to 9 hours and 45 minutes, from the current maximums of 10 hours for four-sector days and 12 hours for two sectors.
FAAA national secretary Teri O’Toole said that the current rostering regimen was “ridiculous” and leaves crew feeling overworked.
“Duty limits of 9 hours and 45 minutes is what they had pre-COVID, and it’s something we will fight for,” she said.
In a similar vein, the FAAA’s industrial relations manager, Steven Reed, has called on Virgin to introduce professional cleaning crews between flights, rather than relying on cabin crew.
“It used to be a tidy-up but now they practically have to wear hazmat suits,” Reed said, adding that crew now barely get time for a bathroom break between flights.
One crew member told The Sydney Morning Herald that reduced onboard catering was leading more passengers to bring their own food, creating more mess and rubbish for crew to clean up.
“Virgin Australia really needs to spend some money on professional cleaners. It’s fallen to cabin crew for long enough,” Reed said.
Virgin Australia denied that recent cancellations were connected to ongoing enterprise agreement negotiations, noting that no protected or unprotected industrial action is currently taking place.
An airline spokesperson said that negotiations are “continuing productively and in good faith”.
Meanwhile, Reed said crew were well within their rights to refuse to work on a day off, particularly given current operational conditions and fatigue.
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Rod
says:One can’t single out Virgin here as Qantas does similar things too and, understandably, the companies are only looking at the bottom- line financial period reporting data but, what about the folk that make that result, the customer and the staff involved in the process. Take for instance “the industry standard 1cabin crew member per 50 Pax” – that may well work but if you then reduce the transit time allowed per service then reduce and or cancel cabin cleaning staff and expect cabin crew to fill the void, seriously, management is causing the problem, on top of that, at the end of that particular sector considering all the reductions as above there is no time for the crew to take a comfort break ashore. Now we have the poor old paying customer/guest who is pushed/rushed onboard to make an on- time departure only to find that the cabin is really not ready for them and the cabin crew most of which should be at home baby-sitting their grandies (sorry girls but true) are flustered and in real terms the customer is not getting a full service which they paid for. This standard may well be ok in the eyes of a hi density low cost operator (not even in my eyes) but for a full service outfit it is totally unacceptable. In my view, for a standard B737/A320/21 the minimum cabin crew should be 5 and increased to 6 on the A321ULR with maybe an over the top number of JCL seats.
I know things have changed over the years but when systems/procedures are changed for goodness sake seek counsel from those that have to do the job before an inappropriate and revenue reduction change is made.