Home Business Latest Business Qantas Grounds All Flights Indefinitely, Slaps Unions
Qantas Grounds All Flights Indefinitely, Slaps Unions
Alan Gray
qantas grounded
Quantas, the Australian National Carrier, after being damaged by the action of three unions, has fought back in an unusual way, by grounding its entire fleet, effective immediately.
Alan Joyce, the Irish-born CEO of Qantas just announced the grounding, saying that the airline will take care of its customers and all of its staff who were not involved in the industrial action.
Customers in transit will be accomodated in hotels, no matter where they are in the world and Qantas ground staff will help them to make arrangements for other flights, to continue their travel plans. It is estimated that 188 flights are involved, at 22 airports around the world.
Qantas grounds all flights
Any aircraft still in the air at the time of the grounding order was to be grounded, once they reach their next destination, no matter where it is in the world.
Staff covered by the three unions involved in the industrial action are to be locked out and will not be paid, starting Monday evening, Australian Eastern time. All other staff are to report to work as usual, and will be paid.
Joyce said, ." .. Once the lockout commences, those employees who are locked out will not be required and will not be paid." He also said any customers who wished to cancel their flights, would receive a full refund.
The three unions involved in the dispute, the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA), Transport Workers Union (TWU) and Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA), have been causing problems for Qantas for 15 months, and have recently stepped up the disruptions.
Qantas customers were already being massively disrupted, Joyce said, with 10,000 customers impacted on Friday, alone. The Unions had previously said they intended to carry on with their industrial action for another 12 to 18 months. Joyce said this was clearly unacceptable.
The industrial action was having a massive effect, not only on Qantas, but on all related tourism industries and on Australia as a destination.
As is often the case with union demands, some of the demands made no sense. Joyce said one of the demands was for Jetstar pilots to be paid the same as Qantas pilots. That would have made Jetstar uncompetitive.
Jetstar, the low cost carrier that Qantas created to compete against Virgin Australia, will continue to fly, as will Qantas freight.
The industrial action was already costing the airline around $15 million per week. It is expected that grounding the fleet will cost the company around $22 million per day.
The Qantas board agreed with Joyce's plan today, which led to the grounding announcement he made.
Joyce is using the provisions of Australia's Fair Work Act against the recalcitrant unions.
The unions were concerned about a range of issues, from pay to job security.
industrial action
Alan Gray is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of NewsBlaze Daily News and other online newspapers. He prefers to edit, rather than write, but sometimes an issue rears it's head and makes him start hammering away on the keyboard.
Content Expertise
Alan has been on the internet since it first started. He loves to use his expertise in content and digital marketing to help businesses grow, through managed content services. After living in the United States for 15 years, he is now in South Australia. To learn more about how Alan can help you with content marketing and managed content services, contact him by email.
Alan is also a techie. His father was a British soldier in the 4th Indian Division in WWII, with Sikhs and Gurkhas. He was a sergeant in signals and after that, he was a printer who typeset magazines and books on his linotype machine. Those skills were passed on to Alan and his brothers, who all worked for Telecom Australia, on more advanced signals (communications). After studying electronics, communications, and computing at college, and building and repairing all kinds of electronics, Alan switched to programming and team building and management.
He has a fascination with shooting video footage and video editing, so watch out if he points his Canon 7d in your direction.
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