The announcement came days after Qantas provided a market update flagging fare increases and flight cuts amid higher fuel costs.
She said Qantas spends more than AU$1 billion a year on technology — about US$691 million, or £514 million — and that the company's back-end systems needed to be upgraded. A company executive said the airline, like every carrier, still runs on technology built up over decades for a different era. That includes more than 1,000 legacy applications that were never designed to work together, she said.
The roles sit inside a workforce of about 28,000 people in Australia and another 4,000 worldwide. Qantas said thousands of its staff already use artificial intelligence in their daily work. Accenture will take on the outsourced corporate work. Most of the 850 roles are due to move to India, the airline said, under a contract it linked to a faster push into AI.
Qantas said it would outsource 850 local corporate jobs to consulting firm Accenture, with most of the roles moving to India, as the airline fast-tracks investment in artificial intelligence.
The carrier cast the Accenture deal as the practical step in that overhaul: systems built for another era, a back end it said must be upgraded, and corporate technology work shifted outside the airline as AI spreads through daily tasks. Staff affected by the job cuts will be redeployed"where possible", the firm said, including into new roles in Australia.
The Australian carrier said the move was aimed at modernising its information technology systems and noted the impact of AI on its operations.