The Qantas Group today apologises to former ground handling employees and accepts the Federal Court’s ruling on compensation and will work to expedite the payments.

Qantas Group Chief Executive Officer Vanessa Hudson said: “We sincerely apologise to our former employees who were impacted by this decision and we know that the onus is on Qantas to learn from this.”

“We recognise the emotional and financial impact this has had on these people and their families. We hope that this provides closure to those who have been affected.”

The Court today set out the principles for compensation for almost 1700 former team members based on three “test case” employees.

The compensation for the three test cases for non-economic loss are $30,000, $40,000 and $100,000 based on their individual circumstances. Separate to this, for those eligible for economic loss, it will be based on the finding that Qantas would have definitely outsourced this function by the end of 2021.

These test cases will now be used as the basis to determine the individual compensation payments for each eligible individual.

Qantas has sought the assistance of the TWU in order to find a way to speed up the compensation and a mediation process will now commence.

The Group is also undertaking an actuarial review to develop an estimate of the likely total compensation amount payable.

Qantas has previously recognised a provision for an estimated compensation and penalties liability, which was updated at the Group’s Full Year Results in August prior to today’s judgment.

A separate hearing will be held to determine penalties at a date to be advised by the Federal Court.

The Federal Court found that while there were valid and lawful commercial reasons for the outsourcing, it could not rule out that Qantas also had an unlawful reason – namely, preventing employees from participating in protected industrial action and participating in bargaining for an enterprise agreement.