Perth Is Becoming a Training Ground for Qantas Group Crews

Qantas Group expanded its Western Australia footprint on October 16 with a new Jetstar cabin crew base in Perth, starting with 40 crew and planned to reach 90 local roles. Alongside it comes a Perth Emergency Procedures Training Centre that will train more than 1,200 Qantas, QantasLink and Jetstar staff a year.

The centre includes a virtual reality area, door trainers for several aircraft types, an A321 trainer, and an escape slide and rafts, with an E190 trainer due in early 2027. It follows a Sydney centre that opened in August, part of a 100 million dollar group investment in pilot and cabin crew training.

For passengers, the more visible changes are on the schedule. Jetstar’s Perth-Christchurch service begins October 27 with more than 30,000 low-fare seats across the season, and Perth-Melbourne will run up to four daily return flights over the summer holiday period.

Perth Airport carried a record 18.39 million passengers in the 2026 financial year, up 5.2 percent, with international traffic up 8.1 percent to 5.55 million. Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson called Western Australia one of the group’s most important growth markets, and the group is targeting 8,500 new Australian jobs by 2030.

Sources: Business News Australia, eTurboNews