About 2,500 passengers will be affected when 1,600 aircraft engineers walk off the job for an hour tomorrow over pay and conditions.The national carrier says a further 46 flights will also be delayed.Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineers federal secretary Steve Purvinas says stoppages will be at local times, causing the delays to extend over several hours nationally.

No agreement was reached between the parties during talks in Fair Work Australia yesterday, and Qantas warns it may not return to the table if the disruptions, also planned for Monday and Tuesday, go ahead.Mr Purvinas has emphasised the strike is not designed to hurt Qantas customers but says the engineers have reached a point where they have to take action.Tomorrow, there’s no reason why we wouldn’t be taking our protected industrial action,he said.We’ve been in discussion with Qantas for nine months without any success and there comes a time when you’ve just got to take a stand and that starts tomorrow.But Qantas has accused maintenance engineers of not negotiating in good faith over job security and conditions and says it is disappointed at the disruptions.Spokeswoman Olivia Wirth says the company has made every effort to negotiate.

It’s pretty clear that the engineers union, the union officials, are not prepared to negotiate in good faith. They walked away from conciliatory talks to a media conference,she said.They had discussions with the engineers yesterday but they’re continuing to take industrial action.Qantas says it expects to contact all affected customers about the cancellations and delays.
Meanwhile, long-haul pilots have given Qantas a week to reach an agreement on job security or face industrial action.The Pilots Association and Qantas management have been in negotiations over pay agreements for nine months.Pilots say almost all trans-Tasman Qantas flights are now crewed by New Zealanders who work for lower wages.They say it is evidence the airline wants to employ inexpensive foreigners from Asia as well.