The transport minister, Catherine King, has said improved staff rostering will be in place at Sydney airport from next month after “unacceptable” delays and a near-miss collision that resulted in two workers being stood down.
King called in the Airservices Australia chief executive officer, Rob Sharp, for a meeting in Canberra on Monday, the day after a Jetstar plane narrowly avoided hitting a Qatar Airways plane that was pulled across the runway in front of it.
Two staff involved in the incident – an Airservices Australia air traffic controller and the tug driver who was towing the Qatar plane – were stood down while they completed standard post-incident drug and alcohol testing.
The temporary loss of an air traffic controller only exacerbated delays at Australia’s biggest airport, where staff shortages had already resulted in days of disruption.
Additionally, a cabin crew member aboard the Jetstar plane was injured when the planes stopped abruptly, and some equipment was damaged.
The incident occurred less than two weeks after another near-miss relating to air traffic control on the tarmac at Sydney. On 27 July, a Qantas flight was cleared to cross a runway in front of one of the airline’s other planes that had just landed.
King on Monday said the delays and disruptions were unacceptable, but she was “confident” that Airservices Australia was “doing everything they can to get on top of this”.
“Airservices have committed to implementing improved rostering practices for Sydney’s Air Traffic Controllers that will be implemented from early September,” she said.
King said the situation would be “carefully” managed for the rest of August.
A new Sydney Tower simulator had also been installed to increase training capacity and enable more air traffic controllers to be trained, she said.
“It has been a big focus of ours to encourage more people to enter the profession, and 95 people are expected to be endorsed as air traffic controllers by the end of the year,” King said.
“Six controllers are currently training in Sydney Tower, with another 15 expected to commence before the end of 2027.”
King said she wanted to “give a shout out” to the air traffic controllers, who
are dealing with a really stressful and difficult job” and “did a very good job over the weekend to try to manage the disruptions as best they could”.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is investigating both the Sunday incident and the 27 July near-miss involving Qantas aircraft.
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The head of the ATSB, Angus Mitchell, on Monday said the two incidents were unacceptable.
“Planes should not be getting that close and we should never have to rely on, as has happened in both these instances, pilots at the last minute, making an emergency decision to prevent them coming together,” he told ABC radio.
Investigators would interview flight crew, tug operators and air traffic controllers, plus other witnesses, and review any CCTV footage, the ATSB said.
A source told Guardian Australia on Sunday that initial inquiries suggested the tug vehicle pulling the Qatar aircraft may not have followed instructions.
Michael Kaine, the national secretary of the Transport Workers’ Union, which represents air traffic controllers and airport ground crews, said the aviation industry was in “crisis” due to staff shortages and poor conditions.
“Across the industry, this revolving-door workforce is understaffed and exhausted,” he said.
“We’ve seen another worker hurt from this incident after a horrific string of injuries and a worker killed at Qantas Freight last year.”
Qatar Airways was contacted for comment.
