As foreshadowed, yesterday we attended a Fair Work Commission (FWC) conference in Sydney before Deputy President Roberts. This conference was in relation to our application to terminate the Express Freighters Australia (Operations) Pty Ltd Enterprise Agreement 2021 (“current Agreement” or “existing Agreement”).
The EFA pilot representatives and union employees attending the FWC conference were Simon Lutton (AFAP), Jared Marks (AFAP), Susha Semenikow, Dean McMahon, Maddy Vaz (AIPA), Emma Woodford (AIPA), James Ahern, Ed Nell (TWU) and Aaron Kirsh.
Attending the FWC conference for EFA were Richard Hardonin (Head of Flying Operations and Chief Pilot, Qantas Freight), Patrick Lawler (Qantas IR) and Karl Romberg-Yee (Qantas IR). Despite our written invitation, Qantas CEO of Qantas International and Freight, Cam Wallace and Qantas Executive Manager Freight, Igor Kwiatkowski did not attend yesterday’s FWC conference.
While the FWC conference was technically in relation to our application to terminate the current Agreement, the discussions quickly moved to the “elephant in the room” – achieving a satisfactory replacement agreement – one that would have some chance of being voted up by a majority of EFA pilots.
DP Roberts understood this and quickly moved to trying to assist the parties to close the gap on a new agreement. He spoke to us and the company representatives together and separately to try and tease out compromises on the major items between us. He can however not require or compel EFA (or us for that matter) to change position. He can however seek to assist the parties bridge the gap and for his active assistance in doing this we expressed our appreciation. In the end we just want a better replacement agreement – everything else is just a method to get there. We will however not stop until we achieve a satisfactory replacement agreement, and we have made this very clear to EFA.
The outcome of the conference was that some small progress was made in relation to a couple of the major items between us. These items were in relation to days off and remuneration. There was still absolutely no progress made in relation to business class duty travel and the company remains unwavering in its position on this matter.
Unfortunately, we cannot provide you with the exact details of the positions put or progress made because FWC conciliation conferences are “without prejudice” and confidential. Suffice to say the movement was not significant and we are still apart on the major issues.
Because there was some movement (albeit insufficient at this stage) we have however agreed to attend another conference to be conducted by Deputy President Roberts in Sydney on 5 November 2025. Next week the parties have also agreed to exchange draft or template agreements and further discuss a possible alternative salary structure.
We are acutely aware that many of you are growing increasingly frustrated by the slow pace of progress. We are too. We have however decided it would be best to not escalate matters until after the next FWC conference on 5 November 2025 (the day after the Melbourne Cup). Please rest assured that if sufficient progress is not made at the 5 November FWC conference we will be proceeding with our application to terminate the agreement and immediately notifying of an escalation of the PIA.
In the meantime, we request that everyone continue with the four PIA actions currently in place and provide your views on our termination of agreement application directly to the FWC via email to
chambers.cross.dp@fwc.gov.au before 4:00pm Tuesday 28 October 2025. Remember to keep the tone professional and fact-based where possible.
Thank you again for your support as we work to achieve a fair and reasonable agreement at EFA.
If you have any questions on the above, please contact us directly or Simon Lutton at the AFAP on mobile: 0419 482 582 or email
simon@afap.org.au.
In Unity
Susha Semenikow and Dean McMahon
AFAP EFA Pilot Representatives