Oz express services resume after Qantas ordered back to work
Australian airline Qantas was ordered to resume flights today, after an agreement with transport unions not to strike was decided by government industrial relations agency Fair Work Australia. Qantas grounded 108 planes on Saturday night and had been threatening to lock out all workers from tonight in order to force an end to strike action.
The airline, which has been facing various strikes since May 2011 costing it about $70m so far, threatened the lock-out to prevent further industrial action.
It has been negotiating with three unions since August 2010 – the Australian Licensed Engineers Union, the Transport Workers Union and the Australian and International Pilots Union – regarding contracts with pilots, baggage handling staff and catering employees as well as aircraft engineers.
However, a tribunal at the weekend saw Justice Geoffrey Giudice deciding potential lock-out would damage the country’s tourism and aviation industries.
He has banned Qantas from any lock-out, but also prevented the unions’ strike activities for a 21-day period during which fresh negotiations are to take place. If no agreement is forthcoming after this period, a binding arbitration process will be overseen by Fair Work Australia.
Qantas confirmed today its services would resume mid-afternoon.
Its CEO Alan Joyce said: “Operations will resume progressively from this afternoon. Our focus is bringing our schedule back to normal as soon as possible. Safety will remain our first priority at all times.”
Express
Express operators in Australia were warning of some short delays, but stated that services were expected to get back to normal later today.
Star Track Express said in a statement: “Star Track Express freight is moving throughout our network on all other services, including Qantas Link and Jetstar. As a result of these events, we do anticipate some delays to our Next Flight services this morning, however, we expect service will return to normal this afternoon.”
Australian Air Express said Qantas services were in the process of returning to normal, stating: “AaE’s freighter network is still fully operational and is not affected by the dispute, however, AaE customers will experience some delays until Qantas operations return to normal.”
