Qantas Airways Hit with Record $59M Fine over 2020 Layoffs

Australia’s largest airline, Qantas Airways, has received a record-setting fine of almost $59 million.

In 2020, amid the COVID-19 crisis, Qantas dismissed 1,820 ground staff across the country’s major airports. Their jobs were outsourced to external contractors.

The Federal Court of Australia deemed Qantas’ actions illegal under the Fair Work Act.

Of the total fine, around $32.6 million is allocated for the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU), which led the legal case. The remaining portion of the fine will be addressed in a future hearing.

Payouts will include both economic and non-economic compensation, with individual payments varying according to each employee’s position.

This penalty is the largest ever recorded in Australian labor law.

Earlier this summer, the airline faced another challenge: Qantas encountered a data breach that could potentially compromise approximately 6 million customer records, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, and frequent flyer numbers.

Photo by Richard Lu on Unsplash