No Excess Baggage Fee

[Guest The Pom Queen]

JETSTAR check-in staff at Cairns airport will not charge travellers for excess baggage on Friday. The action, dubbed No Weigh Day, is the first industrial action the airline has faced in its eight-year history.

The Australian Services Union said yesterday the Qantas-owned carrier’s check-in staff would waive excess baggage fees for 24 hours in protest at stalled workplace agreement negotiations.

The No Weigh Day will affect passengers at airports in Cairns and also at Sydney, Melbourne, Avalon, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

Excess baggage fees will be waived between 3.30am on Friday and 3.30am on Saturday.

ASU Assistant National Secretary Linda White said workers at the airline had been negotiating a new workplace agreement for the past 12 months covering about 400 employees at seven Australian airports, including Cairns.

 

"The decision to take industrial action was a last resort but management has left their workers with no other option," Ms White said. "They’re not interested in listening to workers’ reasonable requests for a fair pay rise. Rather, they are looking to push wages and conditions in the industry to new depths. Our members just want Jetstar to value their work. "This Friday, ASU members will send a message that it’s time for management to start seriously negotiating with their workers and valuing their work.

"We’re happy to say that this will have no negative impact on passengers, in fact it will be a bonus." Some passengers immediately took to social networking site Twitter to welcome the decision. "Jetstar won’t charge excess baggage fees this Friday … time to take Aunty Gloria in Adelaide that Banana Tree Pot Plant I got her," one person wrote.

Jetstar said it was disappointed check-in workers were taking industrial action which is estimated to cost the airline $50,000 in lost fees.

No Weigh Day comes as Qantas faces its own industrial relations problems. The airline’s ground staff, engineers and pilots have all carried out recent industrial action.