Qantas Brings Maintenance Back Onshore

QANTAS expects this year to halve the amount of maintenance work it sends offshore after its decision to bring A330 heavy maintenance to Brisbane and do new Q400 work in the NSW regional city of Tamworth.

Chief executive Alan Joyce said about 15 to 20 per cent of the flying kangaroo's maintenance work had typically been done overseas in past years but this year it would be about 8 per cent.

"We will always have a portion that will have to be offshore because the way we work (involves) lines of maintenance and once they're full, it doesn't make sense for us to set up another line," Mr Joyce said.

"But we've done exactly what we said we would do and this shows you the advantage.

"We didn't have to make any engineering roles redundant because what we were able to do was cancel the third-party work offshore and bring that maintenance back essentially onshore."

Mr Joyce was commenting as QantasLink yesterday celebrated the first Q400, named the City of Tamworth, to go into heavy maintenance in the country music capital.