Qantas asks executives to work as baggage handlers to ease staff shortages

Australian airline Qantas has asked its executive staff to work as baggage handlers to help ease labour shortages and avoid the chaos seen by its competitors.

Management and office staff are being called on to load and unload bags, scan bags and load them on to belt loaders, drive a tug between the bag room and aircraft, and offload bags to the baggage carousel.

Around 200 head office staff have helped at airports since Easter, the airline said.

The latest programme will see top office staff - who are able to lift up to 32kg - take up the roles from mid-August and will run for three months.

In recent months, many passengers at airports around the world have suffered severe disruption, with long security queues and baggage system breakdowns.

Tens of thousands of flights have been cancelled to cope with the demand for air travel amid staffing shortages.

Australia fully reopened its international borders to travellers vaccinated against coronavirus in February 2022, after nearly two years.

As a result, Australia’s national carrier reported a loss of more than 1.1 billion Australian dollars (£594 million) in the second half of 2021.

Despite being given almost $2bn (£1.15bn) in government support during the pandemic, the airline made 1,700 baggage handlers redundant.

The airline has been further hit by high levels of winter flu and a Covid spike across the community in recent weeks.

A Qantas spokesperson said: "We've been clear that our operational performance has not been meeting our customers' expectations or the standards that we expect of ourselves - and that we've been pulling out all stops to improve our performance.

"As we have done in the past during busy periods, around 200 head office staff have helped at airports during peak travel periods since Easter.

"While we manage the impacts of a record flu season and ongoing Covid cases coupled with the tightest labour market in decades, we're continuing that contingency planning across our airport operations for the next three months."