[SYDNEY] The head of Australian airline Qantas yesterday predicted the aviation industry would shed 100,000 jobs worldwide by the end of the year as high fuel costs force massive restructuring.

Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon (pictured above), who last week announced the carrier would axe 1,500 jobs from its global workforce, said the high cost of fuel would result in a "new aviation world order".

"Right now, airlines around the world are cutting routes and capacity, grounding and retiring aircraft and unfortunately shedding staff," Mr Dixon told a business function here.

"It's likely that 100,000 jobs will be lost before the calendar year is out."

The Qantas chief - who has guided the airline through downturns sparked by crises such as Sars, the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq war in his eight years at the helm - said fuel costs were fundamentally changing the industry.

"The global aviation industry faces not just a shock or indeed a blip or indeed a crisis really but a permanent transformation," he said.

Mr Dixon believed that the United States would eventually ease restrictions on foreigners owning more than 25 per cent of the voting stock in US airlines, sparking a new wave of consolidation in the industry.

He predicted long-established airline brands would remain but that the number of airline owners in the market place would dwindle.

"We believe strongly at Qantas that over time, consolidation will transform aviation," he said.

"It will produce a few very large and extremely efficient global airlines with a portfolio of interests and a portfolio of brands - the brands won't go." -- AFP