(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

BY ADNAN S. KHAN

ANCHOR EMILY SPAIN

Qantas grounded all domestic and international flights because of ongoing labor disputes, leaving some 68,000 passengers stranded for around 24 hours.


Qantas claims it’s hemorrhaging money due to months of strikes and industrial actions. ABC Australia reports the company was losing $15 million a week since the dispute began. Euronews has the quote from Qantas CEO.


“We can’t survive a year with this action happening. Our customers have no certainty, our employees have no certainty. The airline will die a slow death if we let this occur, so we had to take this dramatic action as a last resort because we had no where to go. And under the Fair Work Act this is the only action that we have.”
 

By canceling all flights, Quantas stood to lose around $20 million a day. So why did the company take this step?
 

The move forced the government’s Fair Work Australia tribunal to intervene. The tribunal was expected to – and did -- rule in the airline’s favor, forcing an end to all union strikes and industrial actions. ABC Australia has the tribunals reasoning.

“In handing down the decision, Fair Work Australia accepted that the industrial action would have caused significant national economic harm.”
 

CNN reports, an official for a pilots union told the media the tactic was “a stunning overreaction” and “straight up blackmail.” The Sydney Morning Herald says this should’ve never happened in the first place..
 

“This dispute should never have come to this. The government should never have been pressured to intervene … The last-resort lockout of striking unionists, even if it clears an industrial blockage, raises the perception that the Qantas management’s relationship with its own workers has broken down irreparably.”

Foreign tourist stranded in Australia have already lost faith in Qantas but now, The Telegraph reports, the nation’s iconic airline is losing face at home as well.

“It just comes across really badly. I mean I’m proudly Australian but it just leaves a really bad taste in your mouth and I’ve heard so many people say I’m never gonna fly Qantas again and from my point of view it feels just kind of like a bullying tactic.”