From isolation to redundancy: the harsh reality for Air NZ cabin crew

By RNZ

Air New Zealand’s cabin crew, currently self-isolated, face the possibility of losing their jobs due to deep cuts in business.

About 380 cabin crew from the 787s will be laid off, said Savage, head of aviation for E tū union.

“There are people in the quarantine facility right now, so practically the day they come out of that two-week quarantine they will be fired, so these are the last two weeks of their job at Air New Zealand inside a hotel. waiting to see if they have Covid. “

He said it was a very difficult time for the cabin crew given the conditions in which they have to work due to Covid and the fact that many of them are facing redundancy.

“As soon as they arrive at a destination, they effectively isolate themselves from the crew they are traveling with, they stay in their hotel rooms and then they just go back to the flight, put on personal protective equipment and go home and then do the try again. “

In addition, he said that with a series of vaccines on the horizon, people are beginning to look ahead to next year and wonder if international flights could return in the middle of next year.

He said many people hoped Air New Zealand could start flying again and then rehire.

Anxious wait

Air New Zealand personnel wait anxiously in controlled isolation as scientists try to determine where the most recent case of Covid-19 in New Zealand is coming from.

The results of the genomic tests will be published later this morning.

They are expected to show whether the Covid-positive Air New Zealand crew member contracted the virus in Shanghai or here at home.

Fourteen members of the crew, including the positive case, returned from Shanghai on Wednesday and went directly to a government isolation facility.

At least three close contacts in Auckland are isolating themselves at home.

Savage said a union member has spoken with the crew member who contracted Covid-19 and they are apparently doing well.

He said that several Air New Zealand employees were infected with Covid-19 at the beginning of the pandemic, but later the rules were changed and safety guidelines were improved.

“So this is the first time under the new regime, you could call it, the new surveillance test model, where someone has been detected for having Covid.”

Savage said the union is comfortable with the operation of the surveillance testing regime for the plane’s crew.

The crew was very safety conscious and took surveillance tests, their own health and that of their passengers very seriously, he said.

“They undergo quite rigorous training, they wear a lot of personal protective equipment, they isolate themselves in hotels, but on top of all that, the surveillance tests are there to detect any anomaly or slippage or error.

“That’s the situation right now where we are waiting to find out, if we can, through genomic sequencing, where this person got the Covid.”

Savage said he hoped the sequencing could be shared between Shanghai and New Zealand to allow them to understand what, if anything, went wrong.