Financial problems are getting worse over at Qantas. In fact, Qantas Airways just recently made note that 150 of its 2,000 plus pilots have been put on unpaid leave. This is all due to the financial constraints of the company. In fact, the airline was able to reduce some of its overseas routes in August to save money. It had to do this when it was losing close to AU$200 million per year on its international services. At this rate, the airline would have a surplus of about 500 grounded pilots by the year 2015.

A lot of these pilots, who have been put on unpaid leave, have actually been asking for time off. Others are going to work openings at other airlines. A spokeswoman for the airline did say that this is not an uncommon thing. They have previously done this when capacity has been reduced during recession periods.

Barry Jackson, who is the president of the Australian and International Pilots Association, reported that Qantas is playing games with the careers of very young pilots. Many of these pilots’ prospects of a command post with the carrier are disappearing quickly due to partly-owned subsidiaries. The vice president of this group, Richard Wood, said that their young pilots are voting with their actions. Due to downsizing and retrenchment, they are going straight to competitors, which will make these problems worse.

The Australian and International Pilots Association slammed the carrier last year for making changes to discretionary fuel. It said that the policy regarding discretionary fuel didn’t take the unique characteristics of individual destinations into account. The requirements when flying into a single runway, non-controlled destination with heavy training traffic is totally different from operating into a multi-runway, controlled destination, it explained.