Qantas' long-haul pilots have provided the management of Qantas Airways with notice for tokenistic action in order to “activate” the full range of industrial action voted for by 94 per cent of members in a ballot earlier this month. A single Qantas B747 captain will activate Protected Industrial Action forms 2, 3 and 4a on a flight later in the week by working to rule, placing a ban on extending his tour of duty and not wearing his cap.

Although none of these actions can be expected to cause any disruption whatsoever to Qantas or passengers, they will be undertaken to ensure compliance with the “use it or lose it” provisions in the Fair Work Act. Under the provisions, a union whose members have voted in favour of Protected Industrial Action must enact that action within a 30-day period or risk losing the right to use it after this period.

The Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) Vice President Richard Woodward confirmed that in-flight announcements were the only widespread form of PIA being undertaken by Qantas pilots at the current time. However AIPA intended to have all eight classes of PIA "activated” by the end of the 30-day period.

“AIPA is working hard to make the public aware of what the current management is doing to Qantas, while at the same time being extremely mindful of our number one priority: Qantas passengers,” Captain Woodward said.

AIPA said it provided Qantas with notice regarding a single pilot activating three of our eight possible actions, to make sure that these options are available going forward.

“However, the ideal result - and one I’m increasingly hopeful of given the public reaction – would be for Qantas management to reconsider their current extreme agenda and negotiate something with pilots which will be of benefit to Qantas passengers and Qantas profits in the long term,” Captain Woodward said.

Last week, AIPA provided a similar tokenistic notice to management in order to activate PIA forms 5 and 6 from the FWA Order. This involved a single pilot engaging in a two minute stop work meeting and a two minute work stoppage.