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14 November, 2024

Qantas Engineering looks to invest in local labor while reversing offshore maintenance

Edited by Travel Weekly

Qantas Engineering is looking to reverse offshore maintenance time while also overcoming local labor shortages, the head of base maintenance said during a panel discussion at Aviation Week’s MRO Australasia, at the Sofitel Brisbane Central, this week.

Viv de Beus, head of base maintenance at Qantas Engineering, says the flag carrier still sends “a lot” of maintenance offshore, but is looking at ways to reverse that to some degree, Aviation Week reported.

“It’s not what I would envision to be the best thing and it’s something we want to work on going forward, but obviously there are constraints to that,” de Beus told the audience.

De Beus oversees base maintenance at Qantas’ MRO division’s facility in Brisbane, home to its main widebody and narrowbody operation, with base maintenance services covering Airbus A330 and Boeing 737 classic and NG variants and full technical handling on other specific aircraft types.

Talent retention was also an issue, alongside a nationwide labor shortage he said.

“We have the facilities, but they’re not being utilised as much as they should be,” he told Aviation Week.

To address the issue, Qantas Engineering has already increased the number of apprenticeships in-house and is working with a specialist training provider to bring additional apprentices into the company.

“Next year, we’re bringing in 30 into Brisbane, and across line maintenance, there’s another 50 or so,” he said.

Previous apprenticeships had also not been conducted to a set pattern or time, resulting in workforce shortfalls, he said.

“They missed out on apprentices through certain years and as we all know, when you do that in a big organisation, [when] you get five to 10 years down the track, there are some big holes.”

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