Qantas invests in safety academy and pilot scholarships

Qantas will establish an Australian-first safety academy in partnership with Griffith University and RMIT University, providing safety education credentials aimed at upskilling safety professionals and developing safety leaders across all industries.

The Qantas Group Safety Academy is set to launch in 2025, initially offering safety-related micro-credentials in areas such as safety culture, risk management, data management, cyber safety, and human factors including sleep and fatigue management. Courses can be completed online with either university or on campus at RMIT University, and students may apply for the courses to count towards other relevant postgraduate qualifications.

In 2026, the academy plans to expand its offerings to include accredited postgraduate qualifications and later deliver advanced research programmes to benefit the industry through the establishment of a Centre of Safety Excellence.

In 2025, the Qantas Group will also double the number of scholarships for female students and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to attend the pilot academy in Toowoomba, offering 20 scholarships. Each scholarship is worth up to AU$30,000 towards accommodation and food at the academy, with tuition fees being additional.

To address the growing demand for training as it significantly expands its fleet and workforce, the Qantas Group will invest over AU$40 million in state-of-the-art training assets and facilities across Australia, including a new dedicated ground training facility in Sydney.

Due to open in mid-2026, the new Sydney Ground Training Facility will be located at Qantas’ Mascot campus and will serve as a dedicated site for emergency procedures training for more than 5,000 Qantas, Jetstar, and QantasLink pilots and cabin crew each year.

The facility will feature new and existing training equipment, including door trainers, virtual reality training spaces, a new narrow-body cabin trainer, and additional classrooms. Ground training equipment will be relocated from the new Sydney Flight Training Facility, which will create space for Qantas to increase the number of Cockpit Procedure Trainers and support more flight training.

A dedicated ground training facility will also be opened in Perth from mid-2025. New emergency procedure training equipment will be housed in existing training facilities in Brisbane (to support QantasLink A220 and Qantas A321XLR growth) and in Melbourne (to support Jetstar, Qantas, Qantas Freight, and QantasLink training).

4o mini