The Fair Work Ombudsman has filed claims against Thai-based TET and Singapore-based Valuair, two companies used by Jetstar for the supply of cabin crew, as being involved in alleged breaches of the Fair Work Act and the Aircraft Cabin Crew Award.

Jetstar will contest claims alleged by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

While Jetstar does not use overseas-based crew on purely domestic flights, it does use a mix of Australian-based and overseas-based cabin crew on its international flights. These crew are paid based on the terms and conditions in the country in which they are employed, whether they are flying in Singapore, Thailand, or Australia.

At issue is tag flying - an industry term used to describe an international flight that includes a stopover in more than one domestic city, such as Singapore-Darwin-Cairns. Jetstar operates about 40 tag flights a week out of a total schedule of up to 3,000 flights.

Tag flights are common industry practice worldwide.

Early this year when Jetstar became aware of the issue that FWO is now prosecuting Valuair and TET for, concentrated international tag roster patterns, we asked Valuair and TET to make goodwill payments to all the impacted staff. Jetstar no longer rosters foreign crew on concentrated international tag roster patterns.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• During 2012 Jetstar has reduced the number of tag flights it operates from around 60 per week to about 40 per week out of a total number of flights of 3,000.
• In the past six months concentrated tag flying (defined as more than four consecutive tag flights before exiting Australia) accounted for less than 1 per cent of all crew flying in Australia.