Airline industry faces its biggest change in 30 years
Mr Geoff Dixon, the Chief Executive Officer of Qantas, says the price of aircraft fuel will never drop back down again to the prices we had two years ago.
Mr Dixon was criticising the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association for choosing strike action again today in their ongoing pay dispute. The engineers are demanding a five percent pay increase, whereas the Australian national carrier, Qantas has offered only three percent more.
The union says Qantas’s has predicted a record profit for itself this year, and that means they can afford the engineers 5 percent pay rise.
Mr Dixon says it is extremely bad timing, since all airlines are trying to cope with record fuel prices. He said that fuel prices are now a greater challenge to the worldwide airline industry, than even September 11 or the SARS outbreaks in Asia.
He claims the Qantas engineers do not realise that the cost of aviation fuel is already out of control.
“I’m hoping (fuel) will go down to a level where we can still continue to do quite well as an airline, but to do that we’ll still have to restructure.
The Qantas CEO said, “It’s the biggest change the industry has faced in 30 or 40 years.”
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