Qantas engineers have warned of flight disruptions as they walk off the job on Thursday in the first of a series of strikes across Australia.

The Qantas Engineers’ Alliance said the protected industrial action would begin in Melbourne on Thursday and continue in other capital cities next week.

The four-hour work stoppages involving hundreds of engineers will follow at airports across Australia next Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

The union warned its industrial action was “highly likely to affect Qantas flights in all major capitals”.

The first strike on Thursday comes ahead of one of the busiest weekends of the year, with a flood of AFL fans from Sydney and Brisbane flying to Melbourne for Saturday’s grand final between interstate rivals.

It also coincides with the school holidays in Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory and next week’s school holidays in the other states.

A Qantas spokesperson reassured travellers that customers would not be affected.

“We’re putting contingencies in place and don’t currently expect this industrial action to have an impact on customers,” a statement said.

“We’ve held a series of meetings with the unions and made progress on a number of items.

“We want to reach an agreement that includes pay rises and lifestyle benefits for our people.”

Qantas said the striking engineers were from the airline’s aircraft maintenance engineers teams.

About 1100 employees are covered by these agreements, out of 2500 engineers across Qantas.

The Qantas Engineers’ Alliance is made up of the Australian Workers Union, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and Electrical Trades Union,

AMWU national secretary Steve Murphy said the airline’s engineers were “undervalued, underpaid and underappreciated”.

Their enterprise agreements expired at the end of June and they were seeking a 5 per cent raise per year, and a 15 per cent first-year payment to make up for 3½ years of “wage freezes”.

“If you’ve had a bad Qantas experience, well that’s nothing compared to how Qantas makes their workers feel every day,” Murphy said.

“Our highly skilled members deserve fair wages for the incredible work they do to keep us all safe in the air.”

The Qantas Engineers’ Alliance said the airline had devalued members’ skills and sent their wages backwards significantly in the past decade.