Qantas will outsource 850 native company jobs to consulting large Accenture with most roles transferring to India because the airline fast-tracks AI funding.
In an inner e-mail to workers on Tuesday, the Australian firm’s CEO Vanessa Hudson stated “that is arduous information for some and I am sorry for the uncertainty it brings”.
The job cuts will start mid-2027, she stated, and begin with finance, procurement, individuals and advertising roles shifting “largely” to groups in India and “some in Australia” because the agency seeks to modernise its IT methods.
Hudson stated the “scale and velocity of change in expertise and AI is one thing none of us has seen in our lifetime”, and it was in talks with unions and workers on the plans.
The transfer comes days after the airline offered a market replace, flagging fare will increase and flight cuts amid increased gasoline prices.
On its new multi-year cope with Accenture, Hudson stated it was about “modernising” the airline’s IT methods to grow to be “extra environment friendly”.
Qantas spends greater than AU$1bn (US$691m; £514m) a 12 months on expertise, she stated, and the corporate’s back-end methods wanted to be upgraded.
“Like each airline, we run on expertise constructed up over many years for a distinct period, together with greater than 1,000 legacy functions that had been by no means designed to work collectively,” she stated.
The cope with Accenture means “we are going to redesign and simplify elements of how our company capabilities work and scale back duplication”, Hudson stated, so workers can “spend extra time on work that creates worth for our prospects and the enterprise”.
The corporate stated that “in time”, the work that Accenture takes over might be “remodeled additional with automation and AI”.
Employees affected by the job cuts might be redeployed “the place potential”, the agency added, together with new roles in Australia.
Qantas – which employs about 28,000 workers in Australia and one other 4,000 globally – stated hundreds of its workers already use AI of their each day work.
The BBC has contacted the Australian Companies Union for remark.
