Thousands, if not millions of passengers of Qantas Airways Ltd. are likely to be affected by threats of one-hour weekly strike action until December from about 40 of its engineers in Brisbane, reports online agency www.news.com.au.

The strike, which lasted only one hour on Monday, already affected thousands of travellers of Australia's flag carrier. The engineers walked out during the start of the evening shift at the Brisbane Airport. The engineers plan to stage the labor action every Monday until December 16.

About 15 flights were delayed while two were cancelled going to and from Syney.

Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers federal secretary Steve Purvinas told Australia Associated Press (AAP) that the engineers had been hoping to strike an agreement with Qantas, to convince the airline to retain its maintenance work in Australia.

Qantas, however, was allegedly deaf to their concerns and instead outsourced the maintenance work to other countries such as the Philippines, Singapore and Hong Kong.

"We're pretty determined to seek job security for Qantas employees," www.news.com.au quoted Purvinas as telling AAP.

"We think it is a grave mistake for Qantas to put price before quality. There's no point in having a fabulous pay rise if there is no job to go to," Purvinas added.

According to www.news.com.au, Qantas spokesman Luke Enright told AAP that "the claim of offshoring jobs is not correct."

Enright said bulk or up to 90 percent of the engineering jobs are still being done in Australia, contrary to the claim of the engineers.

"We're encouraging them to remain at the negotiating table rather than taking (industrial) action which affects passengers," the Qantas official was quoted as saying.

Enright called the union demand of a 5.3 % increase in annual pay for the next three years as "excessive" and would cost the airline around $150 million.

Qantas announced in August that it would acquire up to 110 Airbus A320 aircraft, plus 194 purchase rights and options, to support fleet renewal and growth for the next 10 to 15 years.

The company admitted that the move will have an impact on employment from the retirement of older aircraft and network changes, affecting around 1,000 jobs.

"Employees will be provided with full information as plans develop and are implemented and those affected will have access to all the support required. The Group will be looking to minimise the number of compulsory redundancies wherever possible," Qantas said.