Marc Joel Atrero

Resolving the Qantas crisis Were it not so serious, the Dickensian nature of the conflict between Qantas management and its staff would be a source of amusement. It is, however, no laughing matter. This content is available exclusively to Australian Aviation members. Login Become a Member To continue reading the rest of this article, please

How Qantas managed to ground itself then get back in the air again “You can’t just turn an airline on and off,” Qantas spokesperson Olivia Wirth had told reporters in early October, yet only a few weeks later the airline did just that, causing disruptions for tens of thousands of passengers around the world. Following

A country divided on the Qantas crisis Alan Joyce’s highly charged decision to lock out members of three unions and ground the airline’s mainline fleet landed him before a Senate inquiry a week later and prompted very contrasting views. Paul Sheehan from The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that the inquiry was an example of why

Understanding the issues behind the Qantas crisis The long running dispute between Qantas and three of its key unions representing long haul pilots, engineers, and baggage handlers and caterers is actually not about whether its staff are worthy of pay increases or improved conditions, it’s about the irreversible changing dynamics of the airline industry. Th

The genesis of an airline grounding The so-called slow bake of Qantas started in earnest in February with the airline dismissing a claim from the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) that Qantas flightdeck crew job security is imperiled as “completely unfounded”, while warning that the pilots’ wage requests are not viable. Qantas countered the

A special Qantas grounding NOTAM editorial Joyce likened the three unions’ industrial campaigns that eventually led to the airline’s extraordinary self imposed grounding as “death by a thousand cuts”. From the unions’ point of view, it was ‘industrial campaign 101’ stuff – ratcheting up the heat with a slowly increasing frequency of increasingly disruptive industrial