Qantas Airways Grounds Entire Global Fleet Due To Strikes
October 30th, 2011Via: AP:
Australia’s government ordered an emergency arbitration hearing on Sunday after Qantas Airways grounded its global fleet amid a bitter dispute with striking workers, stranding passengers around the world.
Government leaders, who expressed frustration over the airline’s actions, were expected to argue at the hearing that Qantas should be forced to fly in Australia’s economic interests.
“It’s not our place to start allocating responsibility, but what I also know is there is a better way to resolve these matters … than locking your customers out,” Australian Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten told reporters ahead of the arbitration hearing in the southern city of Melbourne. “We want more common sense than that.”
Qantas, the world’s 10th-largest airline, announced Saturday that it would ground all flights. But CEO Alan Joyce said the airline could be flying again within hours if the three arbitration judges rule to permanently terminate the grounding and the unions’ strike action.
The unions want the judges to rule for a suspension so that the strikes can be resumed if their negotiations with the airline fail.
“Within six hours, we can get the fleet flying again” after the aviation regulator provides a routine clearance, Joyce told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television Sunday.
“We have to wait and see what that process generates today,” he said, referring to the court hearing.
Planes in the air when the grounding was announced continued to their destinations, and at least one taxiing flight stopped on the runway, a passenger said. Among the stranded passengers are 17 world leaders attending a Commonwealth summit in the western Australian city of Perth.
When the grounding was announced, 36 international and 28 domestic Australian flights were in the air, the airline said.
Hmm…
I don’t think that “world leaders” means what the AP thinks it means. If Kissinger and Cheney and a few Rothschild family members were flying coach from the teaming metropolis of PERTH then this would make sense.
My guess is that the leaders of Tonga, Nauru, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands (etc.) were just coincidentally given a reminder of their dependence on Australia and NZ. That’s actually being very polite to refer to them as world leaders.