Qantas to close its Avalon base

[Nigel C]

Qantas are currently holding a news conference announcing the closure of the Avalon maintenance base, citing the retirement of the B747 fleet as a contributing factor.

No doubt press releases will be out soon.

[Greg McDonald]

From News.com.au:

QANTAS has confirmed it is closing its Avalon heavy maintenance facility at the end of March 2014, resulting in the loss of around 300 jobs.

Qantas will continue to maintain aircraft at its major heavy maintenance facility in Brisbane and conduct line maintenance at 19 ports around Australia including Melbourne.

Qantas domestic chief executive officer Lyell Strambi said in a statement that after a comprehensive review it was clear there was no workable solution to continue operating the sub-scale maintenance facility.

"Qantas is gradually retiring our fleet of Boeing 747 aircraft, which means there is not enough work to keep our Avalon base viable and productive," Mr Strambi said in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange.

"Over the next four years there would have been up to 22 months with no scheduled maintenance at Avalon. No business could afford to continue operating a facility under those circumstances."

Maintenance on the 747 fleet will be done elsewhere, but where that is is yet to be decided.

Mr Strambi said Qantas was the only major airline that does heavy maintenance in Australia.

"Qantas is committed to engineering and maintenance in Australia and will continue to do the vast majority of its maintenance in Australia, employing thousands of people," he said.

"We have invested $30 million this year to upgrade our maintenance facilities in Brisbane and we will continue to do heavy maintenance on more than 110 aircraft in this facility, including our fleet of Boeing 737s, Boeing 767s and Airbus A330s."

The closure of the Avalon base will affect 53 Qantas employees and Qantas said it would work closely with Forstaff, which employs 246 contractors at Avalon.

Qantas would try to redeploy its staff or offer "generous" redundancy packages.

The decision follows an eight-week review into the Avalon operations.

[Stephen Brown]

Why doesn't it retool the place for the A380 and 787??

[Steve S... 2]

Because they prefer to get the work done cheap in Asia unfortunately.

[Greg Hyde]

Is it true that there is "less" work on the newer types with the addition of self monitoring systems etc. ?

[Ash W]

Originally Posted by Stephen Brown

Why doesn't it retool the place for the A380 and 787??

Considering it is just a heavy mainteance base they would presumably have the same issue of not enough aircraft in the fleet to keep the workers constantly busy.

The A330 and 737 fleets there are enough of them to justify the Brisbane base.

[Greg Hyde]

Also they are doing the RAAF A330 & 737 fleets as well

[Brad Myer]

Originally Posted by Steve S... 2

Because they prefer to get the work done cheap in Asia unfortunately.

Just like Virgin and Tiger who have all heavy checks done overseas....

[Daniel M]

Originally Posted by Brad Myer

Just like Virgin and Tiger who have all heavy checks done overseas....

Qantas - Spirit of Australia and Singapore and China and the Phillipines

[Dave Dale]

Australia is just too expensive. For anything. Whether it be getting maintenance on an aircraft, buying bananas, going on holidays. We are just too expensive.