A JUDGE fined Qantas Airways AU$90 million (around £44m) today for illegally sacking more than 1,800 ground staff as the Covid-19 pandemic began. 

The penalty is in addition to the AU$120m (£58m) in compensation that Qantas had already agreed to pay its former employees.

Federal Court Justice Michael Lee said the outsourcing of 1,820 baggage handler and cleaner jobs at Australian airports in late 2020 had been the “largest and most significant contravention” of relevant Australian employment laws in their 120-year history.

Qantas agreed in December last year to pay AU$120m in compensation to former staff after a high court rejected the airline’s appeal against the judgement that the outsourcing of their jobs was illegal.

The Transport Workers Union of Australia (TWU), which took the case, had argued the airline should receive the largest fine available — AU$121,212,000 (around £58.25m).

Mr Lee ruled that the minimum fine to create a deterrent should be AU$90m, noting that Qantas executives had expected to save AU$125m (£60m) a year through the outsourcing.

The judge said: “If any further evidence was needed of the unrelenting and aggressive litigation strategy adopted in this case by Qantas, it is provided by this effort directed to denying any compensation whatsoever to those in respect of whom Qantas was publicly professing regret for their misfortune.”

Responding to the court decision, Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson said in a statement: “We sincerely apologise to each and every one of the 1,820 ground handling employees and to their families who suffered as a result.”

TWU national secretary Michael Kaine said it was “the most significant industrial outcome in Australia’s history and it sends a really clear message to Qantas and to every employer in Australia: Treat your work force illegally and you will be held accountable.”