The engineers walked off the job for an hour from the start of their evening shift today at the Brisbane Airport.Thousands of travellers have had their flights disrupted or cancelled after 40 Qantas engineers in Brisbane went on strike over an enterprise bargaining dispute.Qantas told AAP the industrial action delayed up to 15 flights after 5pm (AEST) while another two were cancelled to and from Sydney, affecting over 2000 passengers.

Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers federal secretary Steve Purvinas said engineers had been negotiating with Qantas for 12 months to retain maintenance work in Australia, instead of outsourcing it to the Philippines, Singapore and Hong Kong.We’re pretty determined to seek job security for Qantas employees,he told 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.Qantas spokesman Luke Enright said that the union demands for a 5.3 per cent annual pay increase for the next three years is excessive and their total claims for the enterprise bargaining agreement would cost the airline $150 million over the life of the contracts.Mr Enright said 90 per cent of engineering work is done in Australia.The claim of offshoring jobs is not correct, he told AAP.We’re encouraging them to remain at the negotiating table rather than taking (industrial) action which affects passengers.One hour strike action is planned weekday for Australian cities until December 16.They will occur in Brisbane every Monday, the union says.