HONG KONG — Qantas, the Australian airline, announced Saturday that it had grounded its entire fleet around the world, the most drastic move yet in a protracted labor dispute between the company and its employees.
The announcement caused the immediate cancellation of 600 flights affecting 70,000 travelers, the airline said.
Alan Joyce, the airline’s chief executive, said the fleet of 108 aircraft in up to 22 countries would remain grounded until Qantas reached agreement over pay and work conditions with the unions representing pilots, mechanics and ground staff.
After Saturday’s announcement by Qantas, the Australian government called for an emergency arbitration hearing, which was adjourned early this morning after evidence was heard from the unions and airline. The hearing was to resume this afternoon, when the government was expected to argue that the airline be ordered to fly in Australia’s economic interests.
Joyce said the airline could be flying again within hours if the three arbitration judges rule today to permanently terminate the grounding and the unions’ strike action.
The unions want the judges to rule for a suspension so the strikes can be resumed if their negotiations with the airline fail.
“Within six hours, we can get the fleet flying again” after the aviation regulator provides a routine clearance, Joyce told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television today.
Planes in the air when the grounding was announced continued to their destinations, and at least one taxiing flight stopped on the runway, a passenger said. Among the stranded passengers are 17 world leaders attending a Commonwealth summit in the western Australian city of Perth.
When the grounding was announced, 36 international and 28 domestic Australian flights were in the air, the airline said.
The lockout was expected to have little effect in the United States. Only about 1,000 people fly daily between the U.S. and Australia, aviation consultant Michael Boyd said. “It’s not a big deal,” he said. Qantas is “not a huge player here.”
The real problems for travelers were more likely to be at busier Qantas hubs in Singapore and London’s Heathrow Airport, said another aviation consultant, Robert Mann.
Booked passengers were being rescheduled on a 24-hour basis, with Qantas handling any costs in transferring bookings to other airlines, said Tom Woodward, a Qantas spokesman.
Bookings already had collapsed after unions warned travelers to fly other airlines through the busy Christmas-New Year period.
Joyce said in Sydney that the unions’ actions had created a crisis for Qantas.
“They are trashing our strategy and our brand,” he said. “They are deliberately destabilizing the company, and there is no end in sight.”
Elsewhere, Air France said Saturday that it canceled about 20 percent of its flights because of a strike by flight attendants in protest against cabin-crew reductions.
The strike affected mostly short- and medium-haul flights out of French airports, but 10 long-haul flights also were canceled Saturday. One out of five flights today also are expected to be canceled, the airline said.
Information for this article was contributed by Rod McGuirk, Christopher Weber, Katie Oyan and Paul Wiseman of The Associated Press and by Keven Drew and Matt Siegel of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 11 on 10/30/2011