Airline Operations - Ground Staff Award
Covers airline-operations ground staff - operating and ancillary on-airport servicing of aircraft for commercial passenger / freight air transport and private business / instructional flying based in Australia. Four streams (aviation transport, clerical / administration / support, maintenance and engineering, storepersons / logistics) with their own classifications and base-rate scales. Standard rate is Clerical L2 = Tradesperson rate ($1,068.40/wk).
Fully built. Rates, allowances, penalties and any required apprentice / junior rates are all wired to the rate resolver and have been verified against the consolidated award text and the latest pay guide.
Official Fair Work rates. This award’s minimum pay rates are synced directly from the Fair Work Commission’s Modern Awards Pay Database and updated automatically when the Commission changes them - including the annual wage review - so payroll always uses the current legal minimums without a manual update.
What's built
- All classifications across the four streams - Aviation Transport L1-L8, Clerical / Admin / Support L1-L8, Maintenance and Engineering (Aircraft Worker 1-4, Tradesperson, AME, plus 11 Cat B Licence Holder rows for Full and Transitional B1.1-B1.4 / B2 / B1-B2), and Storepersons / Logistics L1-L5.
- Junior rates for the three streams that have them (clerical, maintenance, storepersons - aviation transport has no junior rates).
- Apprentice rates anchored to Tradesperson (AQF III) or Aircraft Maintenance Engineer (AQF IV) per cl. 18.5, with the apprentice_variant enum repurposed: 3_year = AQF III, 4_year = AQF IV.
- Casual OT loading-inclusive at 175% / 225% per cl. 24.1(b) - opposite of the MA000112 default.
- Stream-scoped allowances: aviation transport (money collection, leading-hand, laundry); maintenance and engineering (ATRE, Cat A / Cat C licence, leading hand, special rates including cold / hot / wet, tool allowance).
Known limitations
No outstanding gaps at this revision - re-verify on the next Fair Work pay-guide release.
Setup & special instructions
- Each employee must be assigned a stream - aviation_transport, clerical_administration_support, maintenance_engineering, or storepersons_logistics - to drive the right rate table, the right junior structure and the stream-scoped allowances.
- MA000048 is for airline ground staff. MA000049 (Airport Employees) covers airport-OPERATOR employees - different award.
- Apprentices are only available in the maintenance and engineering stream.
- • Airline operations
- • Aircraft ground handling
- • Aviation maintenance
- • Cargo handling
The consolidated award text is the authoritative source. Always confirm specific obligations against the award itself - Mployr's implementation status reflects what we've seeded; it does not replace legal advice.
Want to see this award running on your data?
We can demo a pay run on the airline ground staff award using sample employees in a sandbox tenant - including any of the special-instruction steps above so you can see exactly what your team's day-to-day looks like.
Book a demo