Qantas crisis: Abandoned luggage on Sydney Airport tarmac adds to airline’s woes

A single piece of luggage has been spotted abandoned on the tarmac at Australia’s biggest airport as the man who created Qantas’ famous slogan slammed the airline.

Qantas’ woes have gone from bad to worse as current, and former staff broke their silence on the troubled airline on Monday night, blaming poorly trained outsourced ground crew as a major factor in ongoing issues.

The Flying Kangaroo has struggled with cancellations, delays, staff shortages and lost baggage plaguing the airline in recent months post-pandemic.

The ongoing sagas prompted commentator Phillip Adams, who created the airline’s famous The Spirit of Australia slogan in the 1980s, to ask Qantas boss Alan Joyce to remove the tagline from branding.

In the latest scandal to hit the airline, Australian country music singer Fanny Lumsden shared a photo of a lone suitcase lying on the tarmac at Sydney Airport’s Qantas terminal on Sunday.

A solo suitcase was spotted abandoned on the tarmac at Sydney Airport on Sunday

‘Lol Qantas,’ the ARIA-winning performer captioned the photo.

Lumsden alerted Qantas staff about the abandoned luggage, who promptly sent three workers out to retrieve the luggage.

‘Here’s the recovery after I reported its little lost soul bag,’ she captioned the footage.

She later added: ‘I then reported it to a Qantas worker who then called it in. Not before I decimated Qantas with two words though.’

The photo sparked questions as to how a piece of luggage could be forgotten about on the tarmac.

‘Sure, they fall off all the time. But usually, someone is there to put them right back on the belt, which is usually still there, so it can get in the plane,’ one man commented.

Another joked: ‘Qantas isn’t responsible for mischievous luggage that tries to escape.’

Commentator Phillip Adams, who originally came up with the famous The Spirit of Australia slogan weighed in on Qantas’ ongoing woes on Monday night

Mr Adams, who coined one of the airline’s most iconic phrases: ‘Spirit of Australia’ continued his ongoing criticism of the airline after current and former staff Qantas lifted the lid on the troubled airline on ABC’s Four Corners on Monday night.

‘Joyce’s Qantas. The Spirit of Failure,’ Mr Adams tweeted afterwards.

Mr Adams has been an outspoken critic of Qantas in recent years after the airline refused to renew his exclusive Chairman’s Lounge membership in 2019.

In June, Mr Adams demanded Mr Joyce remove the national airline’s ‘Spirit of Australia’ tagline from all branding immediately.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Qantas for comment. 

It was recently revealed one in 10 pieces of luggage were either getting lost or weren’t loaded onto domestic flights flying from Sydney airport.

Qantas corporate executives were also asked to work as baggage handlers in an attempt to tackle the staffing shortages. The call-out sought at least 100 volunteers to work for three or five days a week in either four or six hour shifts.

Up to ground handlers contracted to Qantas and other carriers will walk off the job for 24 hours next Monday. 

Australian country music singer Fanny Lumsden (pictured) alerted Qantas staff to the abandoned piece of luggage on the tarmac, which was promptly removed by Qantas staff

By Ashley Nickel for Daily Mail Australia 

Systematic cost-cutting means it’s only a matter of time before a ‘devastating incident’ happens at Qantas, insiders have warned.

A short haul pilot with the embattled airline, speaking anonymously on Monday’s Four Corners, said the national carrier business model of threatening pilots with unemployment and continually outsourcing to cheaper inexperienced staff can only lead to ‘disaster’.

‘The stress affiliated with this is underestimated,’ the pilot said.

‘When you mix a safety critical role with the threat of losing your job then it really only ends one way.

‘A mistake will be made, there will be an incident and there could be devastating consequences as a result.’ 

The Flying Kangaroo has struggled since its return to the sky after the Covid pandemic with cancelations, delays and lost baggage plaguing the airline.

Employees say poorly trained outsourced ground crew are the main reason for the ongoing issues.

Former and current Qantas staff said the airline’s systematic hiring of inexperienced workers will lead to a major incident and is putting customers at risk

The Federal Court in September 2021 ruled Qantas illegally sacked 2000 workers when the Covid crisis took hold and replaced them with more cost-effective outsourced crew.

But when international borders reopened earlier this year, the under-trained staff were unable to meet the soaring demand of large-scale operations.

One groundsman who did not wish to be identified said about 50 per cent of all delayed flights have been caused by luggage problems – either planes taking off before its cargo has been loaded or with the previous flight’s still onboard.

‘Anybody who thinks the outsource of the in-house ground handling is not a problem is delusional,’ they said.

‘Bags aren’t making it to aircrafts on time, bags are being loaded onto aircraft incorrectly, flights are being cancelled because crew are running out of hours to operate these flights in the time it would take to fix the issues.

‘If you go to Sydney airport now they put garbage bags up on the windows where all these bags are being held that were lost or haven’t made flights.

‘Do they not want the people to see what’s going on?’ 

Workers said Qantas outsourced flight attendants, pilots and grounds staff which leads to massive pay differences

A anonymous current pilot with the Qantas (above) said the airline is continually threatening pilots to overwork themselves which will inevitably lead to an incident with ‘devastating consequences’

The worker said the limited numbers and inexperience of the outsourced contractor ground crews mean worker turnover is high, further straining the system to its limits.

‘We can’t build enough experienced people doing the job more efficiently and safely and so we do jobs more slowly and more haphazardly because people just don’t know, they’re still learning on the job,’ they said. 

The ground worker revealed the airline has already had several major incidents where staff error almost caused serious injury.

‘In one instance I’m aware of, the ground handlers loaded the aircraft incorrectly,’ they said.

‘So what should have gone in the front went in the back and what went in the back should have gone in the front.

‘These sorts of things are all to do with weight. There’s a certain way aircrafts have to be loaded down below and it was only realised it was done the wrong way just before the cargo hold was supposed to be closed.’

Qantas uses subsidiaries, outside companies who hire workers that are then contracted to businesses like Qantas, which means large pay and rights disparities among staff

Former flight attendant Matthew Allsop said he wore the Qantas uniform for more than 15 years despite never actually working for the company.

He explained Qantas hires its staff through subsidiaries, essentially meaning workers are hired by separate businesses who are contracted by Qantas to supply workers.

Mr Allsop said workers from four different companies can all be on the same flight, leading to massive disparities in pay and rights.

‘By creating these wholly-owned subsidiaries and small companies, they manage to water down the pay and conditions each time to slowly erode the high value of pay and conditions that once existed in the legacy part of the airline,’ Mr Allsop said.

‘We had a New Zealand based subsidiary, a UK based subsidiary and two Australia subsidiaries.

‘George Orwell summed it up perfectly in his quote that all animals are created equal but some animals are more equal than others. That was our working environment.’

Mr Allsop said flight attendants are expected to be the front line to dangerous situations on flights but Qantas’s hiring system means not all staff are valued the same, despite facing the same work conditions.

Former flight attendant Matthew Allsop (above) said he would work among employees from four different companies all on board the same Qantas flight

Flight attendants operating the same flight could be paid anywhere from $23 to $40 an hour, depending on which subsidiary they are hired by

‘I don’t work for a tea and coffee company, I work in a safety environment and I work on a heavy piece of machinery,’ he said.

‘I am the airline’s first responder. If there is a fire, I’m expected to run towards it. If there is a medical emergency, I’m expected to run towards it and render all help.

‘So for that critical safety sensitive role basically people are now being paid the same as if they worked for a fast food outlet.’

Data obtained by the ABC found domestic hourly rates can vary from $40 for Qantas legacy staff to just $23 for new subsidiary staff. 

Tony Lucas, a senior Qantas pilot and president of the Australian and International Pilots Association, said Qantas’s subsidiary system has also driven pilots to the edge.

Qantas recently announced the introduction of the longest non-stop commercial flight in the world but Mr Lucas said pilots were essentially forced to take up the difficult route, along with other harsh working conditions.

Senior Qantas pilot and president of the Australian and International Pilots Association Tony Lucas (above) said Qantas will ‘put a metaphorical gun to (pilots) head’ by threatening them with unemployment if they refuse to overwork themselves

‘They play one group of pilots off another group and essentially threaten to take the flying a group of pilots is currently doing and give it to another group of pilots,’ he said.

‘Ultimately they put a metaphorical gun to our head and said to us that if you don’t agree to these terms and conditions, that they would give that flying to another entity.’

Former Qantas pilot Keith Marriott explained pilots are easily susceptible to threats of unemployment because their job skills, while impressive, are limited.

When speaking of 2011 Qantas worker strikes over outsourcing, which ended in the company ignoring union requests, Mr Marriott said: ‘Not only did it cause massive anxiety to Qantas families but broke the trust between Qantas pilots and the company and I don’t think it’s ever been recovered.

‘To pilots, job security is everything.

‘There’s no other job that is under so much scrutiny and you’re trained to a very high level but your skills are not portable. 

‘Pilots cherish their job security and unfortunately that has been used as a threat.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce (above) has maintained that Qantas’s current issues are not the result of an inexperienced workforce but the repercussions of the Covid pandemic

‘If you don’t comply with what we want, we’ll find someone else that will.’ 

When asked what he thinks of Qantas’s current situation, Mr Marriott said: ‘I don’t think they value their workforce, the workforce are taken for granted.

‘I think the passengers are also taken for granted but their greatest asset is a loyal workforce.

‘They need to take a look at the whole business model and realise nickel-and-diming people is not the way to make this airline profitable and functional once again.’ 

However, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has maintained that his airline’s current difficulties with delays, baggage handling and customer service are the result of pandemic interruption.

During a press conference two weeks ago, Joyce addressed the companies $1.859billion loss and apologised for its ongoing problems. 

‘All of this resulted in well-publicised problems: long queues, delayed flights and misplaced bags,’ he said on Thursday.

‘It was incredibly tough for our people and deeply frustrating for our passengers.

‘It simply wasn’t good enough, and for that we have apologised.’