Quantas strike disrupts 65 flights
19 Sep 2011
As the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand hots up, hundreds of passengers who had booked on Quantas flights have had their travel plans disrupted because of a strike by ground staff at Australian airports.
Quantas says that it has cancelled 28 flights and delayed a further 27. The move will affect about 6 000 travellers.
Furthermore the Sydney airport suffered a security breach over the weekend leading to chaos at the terminal as 2 000 passengers had to be rescreened for security purposes, delaying 14 flights out of Sydney.
Ground staff at airports throughout the country have said that they will stage four-hour strikes involving at least 4 000 people throughout the morning peak periods. The strike includes baggage handlers, cabin cleaners and all catering staff.
Australia's capital, Canberra will seek strike action between 15h30 and 19h30 each day until the strike is settled. Quantas is hoping to resolve the cancellation and delaying of flights by using larger aircraft and getting management to work in the terminals while the ground staff are on strike.
TWU, intent on causing disruptions - Quantas
Quantas says the Transport Workers' Union is intent on causing disruptions for its passengers having called for strike action. It says that the airline has been in talks with the TWU since May.
However, TWU's lead negotiator Scott Connolly says there was a breakdown in contract talks and the strike was fuelled by a major Asia-focussed restructuring that will see at least 1 000 ground staff being sacked.
He says Quantas is "selling out its staff" by trying to outsource labour. The union and the airline have been locked in a bruising industrial dispute over pay and conditions of service.
Read more on Quantas News.
Read more on the Transport Workers' Union.
About Paddy Hartdegen
Paddy Hartdegen has been working as a journalist and writer for the past 40 years since his first article was published in the Sunday Tribune when he was just 16-years-old. He has written 13 books, edited a plethora of business-to-business publications and written for most of the major newspapers in South Africa.
