Hundreds of Qantas ground workers walked out for 24 hours on October 28 at Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth airports over pay, job security and safety, while Qantas said passenger flights were not disrupted.
Hundreds of Qantas ground workers staged a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, October 28, at Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth airports, in a dispute over pay, working conditions and job security.
The workers, employed across Qantas subsidiaries Qantas Airways Limited, Qantas Ground Services and Australian Air Express, move freight, including for Australia Post, and support some QantasLink passenger operations in Sydney. The Transport Workers Union is seeking pay in line with industry rates, more full-time jobs and guaranteed hours, and for the workforce to be brought back under one Qantas employment structure. The union argues that splitting workers across subsidiaries has weakened safety and experience at airports, and pointed to the death of a Qantas freight worker on Father's Day in 2025, with a SafeWork investigation still under way.
Qantas said its contingency plans held on the day. The airline said there had been no impact on passenger flights on Wednesday morning, with all QantasLink services departing Sydney on time, and that the striking workers do not service Qantas domestic or international flights, or QantasLink services outside Sydney. It said it had offered pay rises of up to 26 per cent over the life of a new agreement, with back pay to September 2025.
The two accounts agree on the shape of the dispute but not on its cost. Qantas's own statement confirms the contingency claim and the pay offer, while the union's claims about wage suppression, safety and the effect of the subsidiary structure are the union's case, reported by the outlets covering the strike rather than findings by a regulator. The effect on freight operations was not immediately clear in the airline's Wednesday update, so the strike's full operational impact remains partly unresolved.
The stoppage follows earlier action in September and lands as Virgin Australia cabin crew prepare to vote on industrial action of their own, keeping pressure on both of Australia's major airline groups before the holiday season. The next test of the Qantas dispute will be whether bargaining produces an agreement, or whether the union calls further stoppages after this round.