Qantas has cut 97 more jobs in its engineering department, in a push to create 5000 job losses in the next three years.

On the same day, mine engineering services firm Bluestone Global has announced it will enter in to voluntary administration (PDF).

Report say 47 aircraft maintenance engineers in Sydney and Melbourne were told on Tuesday morning that they had become redundant.

But the airline has offered some the opportunity to apply for vacant roles in Brisbane and Perth.

Qantas says there is more demand for engineers in its Brisbane and Perth maintenance hangars than in Sydney or Melbourne.

The jobs have moved as part of a broad restructure of the Qantas engineering department, as it has less work to do with the retirement of the ageing 767 and 747.

Modern aircraft require less maintenance, the company says.

“We’ve been saying for some time that our engineering workload is reducing as we continue to retire older aircraft and introduce new aircraft which require less maintenance,” a Qantas spokesperson said.

“The simple fact is we need fewer engineering employees as the workload reduces.”

Qantas announced 300 line maintenance roles would be cut from both licensed aircraft maintenance engineers and aircraft maintenance engineers in February this year.

The airline has pledged to work with employees and unions to reduce the number of compulsory redundancies after voluntary offers, job swaps and redeployments