Qantas fleet upgrade takes off

Published Friday, 14 August, 2015 at 10:31 AM

JOINT STATEMENT

Premier and Minister for the Arts
The Honourable Annastacia Palaszczuk

Deputy Premier, Minister for Transport, Minister for Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning and Minister for Trade
The Honourable Jackie Trad

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has welcomed news that Queensland will play a major role in the upgrade of Qantas’ fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft, with work starting this week.

Premier Palaszczuk and Deputy Premier Jackie Trad joined Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce this morning to meet workers and inspect work at the Brisbane heavy maintenance facility. 

"Qantas is the only major airline that conducts heavy maintenance in Australia so today’s announcement is a vote of confidence in Brisbane and Queensland’s future,” Ms Palaszczuk said. 

“The Brisbane facility employs more than 700 people across two hangars including more than 400 engineers, so it’s great to see Qantas keeping jobs here in Queensland where it all began for the airline almost a century ago.” 

"In partnership with the Queensland Government, the airline has a long history of investing in jobs and the Qantas Group currently employs more than 4000 Queenslanders. 

“And of course Qantas also helps drive tourism and visitors to our state and recently launched daily non-stop services between Brisbane and Tokyo as well as well as additional flights to Wellington and Christchurch during peak holiday season.” 

Deputy Premier and Minister for Transport Jackie Trad welcomed the news that half of Qantas’ 67 Boeing 737 aircraft will undergo refurbishments at the Brisbane maintenance facility. 

“Brisbane is an important aviation gateway and this announcement is a strong vote of confidence for aircraft engineering in Queensland and will be a boost for our economy and support jobs,” Ms Trad said. 

Alan Joyce said the Boeing 737 upgrade work followed up on the current program to refurbish 28 larger Airbus A330 aircraft. 

“Brisbane is a crucial hub providing connections between our major domestic routes and services into regional areas as well as international flights to Los Angeles, Singapore, Hong Kong and, as a of a few weeks ago, daily flights to Tokyo,” Mr Joyce said. 

“We are also delighted to announce a multimillion dollar redevelopment of our lounges in both the domestic and international terminals transforming the customer experience through Brisbane Airport. 

“Queensland is where it all began for Qantas and we are very proud to maintain such a strong presence and commitment after almost 95 years of operations,” Mr Joyce said.

ENDS

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