Tigerair Australia says it has rescheduled a number of flights on Friday January 25 ahead of a planned four-hour work stoppage by the airline’s pilots.
The Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP) has given notice Tigerair Australia pilots will stop work between 0500 and 0900 on Friday, January 25.
Further, the union said pilots would refuse to operate aircraft with non-safety related defects between Saturday, January 26 and Monday, January 28.
The industrial actions follows failure to reach agreement on a new workplace contract.
“The AFAP has lost patience with Tigerair after two years of negotiation and no pay rise for members,” the union said on its Facebook page on Thursday.
“The current agreement was well below industry standards, both in terms of pay and conditions. Of further concern was the expectation pilots regularly worked on days off.”
AFAP senior industrial officer James Lauchland said the decision to engage in a work stoppage was not made lightly.
However, Lauchland said Tigerair Australia pilots were simply looking for a fair deal, noting their employment conditions were below their counterparts at Jetstar, Virgin Australia and Qantas even though they flew similar aircraft.
Tigerair Australia said on its website it had notified all customers affected by the industrial action, which will mean there will be no flights during the four-hour period on Friday.
Further, the Virgin Australia-owned LCC said flights scheduled between January 26 and January 28 would not be impacted by the work stoppage.
“Tigerair wishes to reassure customers that earlier this week all flights originally scheduled between 0500 – 0900 on Friday 25 January were re-scheduled as part of proactive contingency planning to minimise the impact of the proposed stoppage of work by the AFAP pilots,” the Tigerair Australia statement said.
“All customers have been notified directly via SMS and email about the changes to their flight schedule and re-accomodation onto the next available Tigerair or Virgin Australia service, and will have already received their new itinerary if impacted.”
The AFAP represents about 75 per cent of Tigerair Australia pilots. The Association for Virgin Australia Group Pilots (VIPA) also represents Tigerair Australia pilots.
Tigerair Australia pilots commenced protected industrial action in early January, which involved not working on rostered days off, annual leave days or days free of duty. The action took place between January 4-7 and 11-17.
