World of travel: More work for less money. Photo: Glenn Hunt

JETSET Travelworld, the travel company partly owned by Qantas, will axe about 110 jobs partly due to increased federal government bookings of travel online rather than over the phone.

The travel retailer, whose brands include Harvey World Travel and Qantas Business Travel, warned yesterday that its pretax profit this financial year will be less than the $30.7 million it reported in 2010-11 due to one-off restructuring and impairment charges.

Although Australians are still travelling overseas in record numbers, Jetset’s chief executive, Peter Lacaze, said leisure travellers remained cautious, forcing companies to discount tickets.

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”We are doing more work for less money. Plenty of people are travelling, but they are paying less for each airfare,” he said. ”But the price discounting in international air fares has probably gone as far as it can. We have seen some firming in prices in May and June.”

Jetset warned several months ago that March and April trading conditions were weaker than expected. Mr Lacaze said yesterday that conditions in May and early June were better, but ”our circumstances are like a lot of businesses with exposure to retail”.

Most of the pain from the latest restructure will be felt by those working at its travel management division, which will lose about 66 of the 110 jobs to be cut. Jetset has had to automate its travel management division to satisfy a contract with the federal government, meaning it does not need as many staff to handle bookings over the phone.

About half of the government’s bookings are now done online following attempts to reduce its large travel budget.

Other jobs to be axed are mainly in the wholesale travel businesses, which are the final parts to be integrated following Jetset’s merger with Stella Travel Services in 2010.

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