Pilots and flight staff asked to fix our COVID-19 hotel mess

Pilots and flights attendants are being hired to clean up Victoria’s hotel quarantine mess.

Flights to Melbourne have stopped after poorly-trained security guards sparked a coronavirus outbreak in the city’s north and west, but Melbourne’s quarantine hotels are still in operation taking care of the backlog.

Job ads have been placed calling for flight staff to use their “positive influencing skills” to enforce coronavirus safety measures within the hotels.

Brian Wilson, a pilot from Airline Insider, told 3AW Breakfast it’s not exactly a perfect match.

“They’re not trained in infection control, and they’re not trained in mental health,” he said.

“Keeping someone in line for 16 hours is a bit different to keeping them in line for 14 days.

“The key thing is really ‘What’s the training?’, what’s the procedures and what’s the competency testing into making sure the right people are there.

“The danger here is putting people in where they don’t have the authority to be able to provide the sort of control that is needed in these sort of situations.”

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