Airlines / Qantas / SIA / Tiger Air: Qantas Airways plans to resume flights as early as today (estimated 2pm Sydney time) after Australia's labor regulator barred work stoppages that had prompted the nation’s biggest carrier to ground its fleet, stranding about 80,000 passengers. Qantas plans to add supplementary flights to clear the backlog of customers and expects to return to “business as usual” over the next 24 hours. Keeping the 108 planes out of the skies would have cost A$20 m / day, according to Qantas estimates.
CEO Alan Joyce grounded the carrier’s main unit with no notice on Oct 29 after weeks of sporadic strikes disrupted flights and caused sales to plunge. Joyce halted flights to confront engineers and baggage handlers seeking higher pay and job-security measures. Long-haul pilots have also staged protests in a bid to get the same employment conditions whether they fly for the Qantas-branded unit or budget arm Jetstar. Prior to this, the unions had stepped up action since Joyce announced plans in Aug to eliminate 1,000 jobs, reduce routes and establish new ventures in SE Asia and Japan in a bid to end losses at int’l operations.
CLSA says, the dispute may help SIA win long-haul traffic from Australia and aid the carrier’s budget arm Tiger Airways in winning back passengers after its Australia unit was ordered to halt flights earlier this year because of safety concerns.
Qantas has about 65 percent of Australia’s domestic market and less than 20 percent of international travel.
On Friday, SIA closed up 1.5% at $11.79, Tiger closed up 7.9% at $0.755.
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