Around 1,200 of the axed jobs will be in Australia, while the other 300 will come from the airline's worldwide operations.
Chief executive Geoff Dixon has blamed the job cuts on the the surging price of oil and the airline's pay dispute with its maintenance engineers.
Mr Dixon says every effort will be made to achieve the cuts through voluntary redundancies, early retirement, leave without pay and by converting some full-time positions to part time.
But he says there will have to be some compulsory redundancies.
"The jobs to be cut will be principally concentrated in non-operational areas, although operational positions will also go," he said.
"Over 20 per cent of our management and head office support jobs will be cut."
Mr Dixon says the redundancies will be made by December.
Mr Dixon also says Qantas is concerned by the Federal Government's emissions trading policy, which he says has unfairly singled out the aviation industry.
"Domestic aviation, including regional aviation, will be quite severely affected.
"We can't absorb a $100 million cost, which is the price analysts are saying would be for Qantas. We would have to put that cost back onto our domestic operations.
"I believe that will make domestic aviation much dearer and may well have an impact on domestic tourism.
"We will be making that very claim to the Government and I think that could have a bigger effect than what we're doing here now."
Up to 200 call centre jobs in the United States and Britain will also be axed, with call centre activity to be concentrated in Australia and New Zealand.
Qantas is abandoning plans to increase its capacity by 8 per cent this financial year, with no growth now expected.
The airline will also continue to look at reducing capacity on some routes, rather than the wholesale elimination of regional, domestic and international routes.
'Strong profit'
Mr Dixon says workers understand the measures are necessary because of soaring oil costs and worsening global economic conditions.
"We'll have a very strong profit, which I think most people know for last year," he said.
"But we have indicated at these prices for oil, and indeed the fact that oil is slowing economic growth a bit, that we have to make changes."
However, the Transport Workers Union says Qantas is shedding the jobs to cut costs, not because of the increasing price of fuel.
Spokesman Scott Connolly says workers should be treated better.
"This is a disappointing announcement to a workforce that year in, year out, has delivered record profits, is on track this year to again deliver profits in excess of $1 billion," he said.
"We believe that the workers who continually deliver these outcomes at Qantas deserve much more from the management team than they're getting."
The airline will retire up to 22 older aircraft from its fleet of 228, close Jetstar's cabin crew and pilot base in Adelaide by the end of August and suspend Jetstar's recruitment program until the end of the financial year.
Mr Dixon says he hopes the introduction of the new, more fuel efficient A380 and B787 aircraft will help cut costs.
'No surprise'
Comsec Equities economist Savanth Sebastian says the move was not unexpected.
"The cost of jet fuel has jumped 60 per cent since the start of the year," he said.
"The airline sector is suffering, profits are dwindling. Cost cutting has become a favourite at the moment and wages make up a large amount of costs."
Brent Mitchell from Shaw Stockbroking says Qantas has expanded to a point which is no longer viable in the current environment.
"They have expanded capacity rapidly, they've now reached a situation where yields are under pressure, load factors I believe will drop and cost base is going up," he said.
"So in some ways it's partly a problem that's external and partly a problem that's internal."
Employees
Unions representing the various Qantas employees affected by today's announcement say they are still waiting to see much of the detail of where the jobs cuts will be made.
Transport Workers Union's Scott Connolly says members were not consulted before today's announcement.
"Making these decision in isolation is nothing more than a slap in the face for the hard working Qantas families," he said.
Mr Connolly says Australian Transport Union members are extremely concerned about the uncertainty over their future.
"A company on record to deliver yet again record profits this year, certainly makes us wonder - is there another potential way forward that doesn't put workers in the frontline and their families in the frontline of bearing the brunt of this pain that may be able to be shared more proportionately across the business," he said.
"Qantas have hedged their fuel price, 60 per cent is hedged at $63 approximately below the current market price.
"That gives the business enormous cuts going in to the next financial year.
"They've increased fares already this year and we think that the workforce and the Australian community deserve more from Qantas than they're getting."
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union's Dave Oliver says it has written to the Qantas chief executive asking for an urgent meeting.
"To seek assurances that the maintenance services of the airline will be maintained," he said.
Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Jeff Lawrence says his organisation also wants a meeting.
"We'll just seek to clarify exactly what it means," he said.
The Flight Attendants Association of Australia says it expects any job losses amongst its 4,000 international cabin crew will be voluntary.
But Association secretary Michael Mijatov says he is still waiting for more details.
"I am absolutely confident that in terms of our members, they'll be no compulsory redundancy. It'll be a matter of voluntary redundancy," he said.
The Australian Federation of Air Pilots says the main impact on its members will be a slowdown in recruitment.
But the Federation's manager of industrial relations, Lawrie Cox, says pilots and other staff will have to move from Adelaide.
"We've been advised that the Adelaide base of Jetstar will be closing and the pilots will be redeployed into other bases and the aircraft will be based in Melbourne and Sydney," he said.
"Effectively there's been no direct impact on our members at this point other than that closuse obviously which we are disappointed about, but that is aviation unfortunately."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008 ... 307412.htm
