Qantas Axes 850 Jobs, Ships Work Offshore to Accenture

Qantas will cut about 850 roles in the coming years, the airline announced Tuesday, and some of the work those people did will be handed to Accenture in India. The jobs sit in finance, procurement, people and marketing. The decision came down from the top. The people who'll absorb it had no vote.

Who Has the Power

Qantas Group chief executive Vanessa Hudson framed the cuts as something close to a force of nature. "The scale and speed of change in this space is unprecedented and unlike anything businesses have seen in generations," she said. "Leading organisations around the world are well progressed in using technology and AI to completely transform how they work, and standing still is not an option for us."

The airline has signed a strategic partnership with technology consulting company Accenture to modernise systems, processes and data. Some services will be outsourced to Accenture in India. Qantas says it runs on technology built over decades "for a different era," with more than 1000 legacy applications never designed to work together. Accenture, it says, has thousands of data and AI specialists. Who owns that arrangement, and who profits from it, wasn't spelled out. The first wave of changes is expected in place by mid-2027, about seven months away.

Hudson told staff in an email: "I know this is hard news for some and I'm sorry for the uncertainty it brings." An apology in an email is cheap. The rent and the mortgage aren't.

Who Gets Crushed

The Australian Services Union called the decision "shocking" and "gut-wrenching." NSW and ACT secretary Angus McFarland said the union held discussions in August where it was reassured no jobs would be moved offshore. He called the move "outrageous."

"This should be chilling to not just those workers but all Australians because no Australians benefit from this," McFarland said. "This is jobs offshore and skills offshore at our national airline. And if they can get away with it, anyone can."

The reassurance in August, the cuts in November. That's how consultation works when the boss holds all the cards.

The pattern isn't new. Transport Workers' Union national secretary Michael Kaine said Qantas workers were taking industrial action "against the company's appalling tactics left over from the Alan Joyce era." Hundreds of Qantas ground crew went on strike late last month. "We thought Qantas reached rock-bottom when it illegally outsourced thousands of workers and sold customers tickets to cancelled flights," Kaine said. Two years ago the airline was fined $A100 million for misleading customers on flight bookings. Kaine said the company "continues to find new ways to degrade the Spirit of Australia beyond recognition, pushing priceless experience out the door to pocket the profits."

What They're Calling "Progress"

Qantas wants the public to see a growing company, not a shrinking one. It says it has created 4400 new operational roles since 2023 and expects thousands more in coming years. Its 2026 sustainability report shows 29,175 fulltime equivalent employees, up from 28,238. The airline is also carrying out the biggest fleet renewal in its history.

Hold those numbers next to the other ones. New roles are being created, and 850 existing ones are being eliminated. The headcount can rise while the people in finance, procurement, HR and marketing get shown the door. A balance sheet doesn't care whose life is behind the line item.

The ripple may reach across the Tasman, too. Qantas has nine A320 aircraft based in New Zealand and an office in downtown Auckland. The impact there isn't immediately clear, which tells you how much notice the people affected get.

The Alternative

The workers' own response is already visible. Hundreds of ground crew walked off the job late last month, and the unions are speaking in public about what's at stake. That's the part the executive suite can't automate. Strikes, solidarity between workers in different departments, and refusing to accept that a decision made in a boardroom is a law of nature: these are tools workers already hold. The chief executive says standing still isn't an option. For the people being cut, neither is waiting politely to be told what comes next.