Coronavirus: Virgin Australia pilots picking onions, stacking supermarket shelves after layoffs

Wednesday, 15 April 2020

VA153 from Brisbane to Auckland is the final service before airline grounds international flights.

Virgin Australia pilots are working in supermarkets and picking vegetables after losing their jobs just days into the Covid-19 lockdown, a sacked pilot says.

The airline sacked about 600 staff including about 200 pilots earlier this month.

Pilot Mike Kenyon lost his job on April 3, after flying for Virgin Australia for half of his 20-year career.

'You sacrifice a lot on the way up in this industry. It's a real kick in the guts,' the New Zealand Airline Pilots Association representative said.

'One pilot, who got word of the redundancies was picking onions in the Hawkes Bay the next day. There's a fair few that have taken up supermarket roles.'

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Former Virgin Australia pilot Mike Kenyon says the redundancies were a 'kick in the guts' for the pilots who had dedicated years of their lives to train.

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'There's been a few people told they're overqualified for a role, which is probably true, but right now I think giving people a shot is more important than finding people for the long term.'

New Zealand's tourism industry directly and indirectly employs almost 400,000 people or just over 14 per cent of the workforce.

Virgin Australia has shut up shop in New Zealand leaving roughly 600 New Zealand-based staff out of work.

But the International Air Transport Association (Iata), which represents nearly 300 airlines, said New Zealand would lose nearly 130,000 jobs linked to the aviation industry after just three months of coronavirus travel restrictions.

Supermarket companies Foodstuffs and Countdown had employed hundreds of workers since the lockdown began, many of whom were from the tourism industry.

Pak 'n Save Taupo has hired 12 people from the adventure tourism industry and three from its hospitality industry.

Foodstuffs New Zealand spokeswoman Antoinette Laird said since late February its Pak 'n Save and New World supermarkets had hired 1500 staff to meet customer demand due to the Covid-19 lockdown.

She said Foodstuffs was working with Air New Zealand, Flight Centre, the Restaurant Association and other tourism and hospitality businesses, to redeploy employees to its stores.

Countdown has hired more than 1700 staff across the country in the past few weeks and is looking to fill an additional 1000 roles.

Pak 'n Save Taupo had hired 12 people from Taupo's adventure tourism industry and three from its hospitality industry to help meet demand and ease the burden on staff.

A Countdown spokeswoman said over the last few weeks it had hired more than 1700 new staff across the country, and was looking to fill an additional 1000 roles.

The supermarket was working with 'customer-focused' organisations such as Hospitality New Zealand, Qantas, Flight Centre and Air New Zealand.

On Tuesday, Treasury released economic scenarios that showed unemployment could peak at 17.5 to 26 per cent without Government intervention.

Air New Zealand is planning on making up to 1460 cabin crew and 387 pilots redundant.

An unemployment rate of 26 per cent would mean roughly 690,000 people out of work.

However, that number was a scenario and not a forecast and Government intervention in the economy meant that the Treasury expects unemployment to be significantly lower, potentially below 10 per cent.

Kenyon said while the Covid-19 pandemic's economic impact had been compared to the global financial crisis of 2008, working in tourism and aviation had been far more challenging this time around.

'This is completely different. When you turn the taps off on global aviation overnight effectively, it's crippling to the industry,' Kenyon said.

'What we've seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg.'

Iata said in the Asia-Pacific region 11.2 million jobs linked to the aviation industry and tourism sectors were at risk and it was forecasting 128,300 fewer aviation-related jobs in New Zealand.

National carrier Air New Zealand said it was reducing its total network capacity by 95 per cent and setting in motion a plan to reduce its headcount by 3750 staff, including 387 pilots.

Kenyon said he was 'proud' of how pilots had carried themselves during what would be the 'lowest point in their career'.

Kenyon hoped he would fly again, but in the meantime he was looking for jobs related to health and safety.

'As pilots we're always one bad medical away from not being able to fly anyway, so this is an opportunity to look at to go out and diversify.

'For most people this is a time where they're sharpening up their CVs and figuring out what to do next. A pilot's CV's will look completely different from your regular CV.

'Employers need to realise pilots are a very specialised job and there are a lot of core skills that are transferable and extremely useful including leadership, communication, self discipline, time management – things that are intrinsic to the role.'