Virgin Australia was forced to cancel up to 30 flights over the weekend amid a shortage of available cabin crew, as increasing numbers of exhausted cabin crew reportedly refuse requests to work additional duties on their rostered days off.
The Australian carrier struggled to find last-minute cover for several services, with lengthy same-day return duties particularly affected.
According to Australian Aviation, affected routes included Perth-Brisbane, Brisbane-Cairns, Sydney-Cairns, Queenstown-Melbourne and Sydney-Nadi.
The disruption comes amid growing concerns among Virgin Australia cabin crew over fatigue, lengthy duties, workloads and working conditions as the airline and the Flight Attendants’ Association of Australia (FAAA) negotiate a new enterprise agreement.
However, Virgin Australia has stressed that the cancellations are not connected to industrial action and says negotiations with unions are continuing “productively and in good faith”.
There is currently no protected or unprotected industrial action taking place.
Crew ‘exhausted and fed up’
Cabin crew sickness levels have reportedly increased, while growing numbers of crew are choosing not to accept requests to cover additional flights on days when they were originally rostered off.
One anonymous crew member told The Australian that staff were becoming “exhausted and fed up” with existing working conditions.
Crew can reportedly receive around AU$300-AU$350 for agreeing to operate an additional duty on a rostered day off, regardless of whether they pick up a relatively short trip or a considerably more demanding duty.
The source said this was particularly unpopular on lengthy same-day return trips to destinations including Darwin, Perth, Nadi and Queenstown.
Some of these duties can result in cabin crew working for more than ten hours before returning to their home base.
Crucially, the crew members involved are not refusing to operate duties for which they are already rostered. Instead, they are increasingly exercising their right to say no when asked to sacrifice a rostered day off to cover gaps elsewhere in the operation.
FAAA industrial relations manager Steven Reed said crew are entitled to refuse additional work on their days off, particularly where fatigue and working conditions are a concern.
Union wants shorter duty periods
Fatigue is also emerging as an important issue in the ongoing negotiations between Virgin Australia and its cabin crew.
The FAAA wants the maximum cabin crew duty period reduced to nine hours and 45 minutes — a limit the union says existed before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Current maximums can reportedly reach ten hours for duties involving four sectors and 12 hours when operating two sectors.
FAAA national secretary Teri O’Toole has described the existing rostering arrangements as unreasonable and says reducing maximum duty periods will form part of the union’s negotiations with the airline.
Meanwhile, Virgin Australia has rejected suggestions that the weekend cancellations were connected with its ongoing enterprise-agreement negotiations.
The airline confirmed that there is currently no industrial action involving its cabin crew and said negotiations with employee representatives remain constructive.
Cabin Crew Cleaning Aircraft
But lengthy duties aren’t the only source of frustration.
The union is also calling for Virgin Australia to restore greater use of professional aircraft cleaners between flights.
Cabin crew currently undertake cleaning and tidying duties during aircraft turnarounds, and the FAAA claims the workload has increased considerably.
Reed said what was once essentially a quick cabin tidy-up has developed into a much more substantial cleaning job.
One Virgin Australia crew member told the Sydney Morning Herald that changes to onboard catering have resulted in more passengers bringing their own food onto flights, creating additional rubbish for crew to clear between sectors.
The union claims crew can consequently be left with barely enough turnaround time to use the bathroom before boarding begins for their next flight.
However, the disruption highlights a wider operational question increasingly being raised across the airline industry: how dependent should an airline’s schedule be on employees voluntarily working on their rostered days off and If an airline regularly needs employees to give up their days off to keep the flying programme running, is that really overtime — or is it understaffing?
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