Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson has acknowledged that air traffic control (ATC) staff shortages need to be addressed, revealing that 60,000 Qantas customers were impacted by recent staffing issues.
Speaking at today’s full-year results briefing at Qantas’ head office in Mascot, Hudson said the situation was “not okay” and that the airline was “working with ATC” to address the issue.
Hudson drew a distinction, however, between the operational impact of ATC shortages and concerns about safety.
While she acknowledged that staff shortages had contributed to delays and needed to be addressed, she did not concede that they had compromised safety.
“Safety has always been our number one priority, shared by all carriers and shared by the ATC,” she said.
“Safety is a highly sophisticated network of controls,” Hudson added, saying Qantas remained comfortable with the safety systems in place.
Hudson’s comments come as concerns around safety at Sydney Airport increase, with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) launching two new investigations into incidents at the airport, bringing the total number of investigations into Sydney Airport occurrences to six in a month.
In the first occurrence, on 16 August, a Virgin Australia 737 that had landed on runway 16 left was taxiing north on taxiway B, while a Qantas 737 that had landed on runway 16 right was vacating the runway at taxiway B8.
ATC instructed the Virgin crew to give way to the Qantas aircraft, but the instruction was not read back by the Virgin crew, and ATC did not identify the incorrect readback.
As the Qantas aircraft vacated the runway, its crew observed the Virgin aircraft approaching from the right. The Qantas crew stopped the aircraft using normal braking and clarified the taxiing sequence.
In the second occurrence, on the morning of 25 August, incomplete traffic information about taxiing aircraft was passed to a Jetstar Airbus A320 before pushback at Sydney Airport.
This resulted in a conflict with a second aircraft taxiing behind the A320. The A320 pushback crew identified the conflicting aircraft, a Bombardier Dash 8, and stopped the pushback before returning the aircraft to the gate.
The ATSB said there was no immediate risk of collision in either occurrence, with flight and ground crews identifying the situations and responding appropriately.
As a result, key safety defences remained in place and the ATSB has not categorised either occurrence as a near collision. Both have instead been classified as safety “incidents”, rather than “serious incidents”.
The ATSB said its investigations will examine the safety defences in place and seek to establish or rule out any underlying safety issues and contributing factors common across the other Sydney Airport incidents currently under investigation.
The incidents are currently being investigated separately, although the ATSB’s investigation teams are working closely together and coordinating their activities. Any decision to widen the scope of the investigations or combine them will be made after analysing the available evidence.
The investigations will include interviews with air traffic controllers, flight crew and ground crew, as well as the retrieval and review of recorded data and other relevant information.
The ATSB expects to publish preliminary reports on both investigations, outlining factual information, in approximately six to eight weeks.
