Qantas-link pilots in Western Australia are on strike over stalled wage negotiations. The 24-hour stoppage is causing problems for the state's large fly-in-fly-out operators.
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00:00 There have been massive changes to flights across regional WA today with pilots from
00:07 Network Aviation, which is a subsidiary of Qantas, going on a 24-hour strike.
00:13 Now about half of the scheduled Network Aviation flights across the state have been cancelled
00:19 during this 24-hour strike, with many scrambling to re-book.
00:24 Now Qantas says it's managed to protect the plans of about 3,500 customers and they've
00:30 redeployed jets to regional WA and engaged charters and other planes to help with the
00:37 situation.
00:39 Not everyone's plans were saved and it's been a scramble for some.
00:44 I'm in Geraldton Regional Centre north of Perth and I spoke to passengers this morning
00:50 who had to jump to a different carrier this morning to get their flight.
00:56 Some of those customers told me how their plans had been affected.
01:00 Travelling for work most weeks as I do on Qantas and experiencing the delays and then
01:04 on Monday flew to Perth for a whole heap of meetings yesterday and then one this morning
01:09 and we got wind of the strike so we had to actually change straight over to Nexus yesterday
01:15 not to be impacted by the pilot strike today.
01:18 The impacts have been felt in centres across the state, particularly in those with a strong
01:24 resource sector that rely on fly-in, fly-out workers.
01:29 Now as Qantas has said, using charters and other planes, many of those workers have still
01:34 been able to get to work but it's still been a big scramble in the lead up.
01:40 We've heard from the Australian Federation of Air Pilots today who said their pilots
01:46 are unhappy about the strike action.
01:48 They felt for the public whose plans were having been shifted but they felt pushed into
01:54 a corner by Qantas.
01:56 They've said that their pay and conditions are 40-50% worse than that of mainline Qantas
02:02 pilots.
02:03 Now that's despite, they say, the same training and undergoing the same work.
02:09 Qantas Group has put out a statement today.
02:12 They've said they are welcoming a decision by the pilots group to come back to the negotiating
02:17 table so time will tell how this situation unfolds from here.
02:21 [BLANK_AUDIO]