Court ends Qantas strike

CANBERRA, Australia – Qantas Airways’ flight schedule will return to normal by Tuesday after an Australian court intervened in a bitter labor dispute that prompted the world’s 10th-largest airline to ground its entire fleet, the company’s chief executive said today.

Alan Joyce said the first of the grounded aircraft would return to the sky early this afternoon, around 12 hours after an emergency ruling by an arbitration court ended weeks of strikes and canceled a staff lockout.

Joyce praised the outcome, which prevents unions from taking any further strike action over their demands for pay hikes and job security clauses under new contracts being negotiated. The strikes have been blamed for a sharp decline in the airline’s future bookings.

“The important thing is that all industrial action is now over and we have certainty,” Joyce said.

“We will be returning to business as usual over the next 24 hours,” he said.

The court ruling is a major victory in the airline’s battle with unions representing pilots, aircraft mechanics, baggage handlers and caterers, whose rolling strikes have forced the cancellation of 600 flights in recent months, disrupted travel for 70,000 passengers and cost Qantas $75 million.

Qantas is the largest of Australia’s four national domestic airlines, and the grounding on Saturday affected 108 planes in 22 countries.