The Qantas Group is all set to invest multi-million dollars to open Qantas Group Engineering Academy in Australia, with capacity to train up to 300 engineers a year. The Academy will provide aviation engineers for the Qantas Group as well as the broader aviation industry, including defence contractors and general aviation.
The Academy will focus on encouraging more women to choose aviation maintenance engineering as a career path. The Academy is expected to open in 2025.
Qantas will liaise with unions and industry to finalise how the academy will operate, including how it works in with existing apprenticeship programs run by Qantas and Jetstar. Similar to the Qantas Group Pilot Academy that opened in early 2020, Qantas expects to collaborate with registered training providers for the Engineering Academy.
Over the next decade, the Qantas Group alone will need around 200 new engineering recruits every year to meet growth as well as attrition as current engineers retire.
Alan Joyce, CEO, Qantas Group said: “From a growth perspective, we opened our pilot academy three years ago and today we’re announcing plans for an engineering academy, which will produce up to 300 trained people a year that will meet Qantas’ needs as well as Australia’s broader aviation ecosystem. We order aircraft up to 10 years in advance, so we need to think similarly long-term about the people and skills we need to operate them. Over that period of time, we’ll create an estimated 8,500 new aviation jobs in Australia, and most of those jobs require years of training.”
Going ahead, the Group expects to create over 8500 new high skilled jobs in Australia over the next decade. These jobs will include pilots, engineers, cabin crew and airport staff, and are driven by investments in new aircraft and increased flying to meet long-term demand through Qantas, Jetstar, QantasLink and Qantas Freight.
The Group also plans to hire over 30,000 frontline people over the next 10 years.
Post pandemic the Group has updated its fleet plan with orders and purchase rights for up 299 narrowbody and 12 widebody aircraft for delivery over the next decade. Last week, Qantas announced up to 22 mid-life and wet leased aircraft to arrive in the next two years to help meet growth from multiple sectors.
