Qantas responds to industrial action
Sydney, 29 October 2011
Qantas today announced that, from 8pm AEDT on Monday 31 October 2011, it will lock out all employees who will be covered by the industrial agreements currently being negotiated with the Australian Licenced Engineers Union (ALAEA), the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the Australian and International Pilots Union (AIPA).

Virgin Australia has quickly responded to the grounding of Qantas' mainline domestic and long-haul flights that went into affect at 5pm on 29-Oct-2011 in a bold move to make three of Qantas' unions settle ongoing wage and job security disputes.

In a nearly globally unprecedented occurrence, Virgin Australia is liaising with the Australian government to allow its alliance partners – Air New Zealand, Delta, Etihad and Singapore Airlines – to operate their foreign-registered aircraft domestically in Australia to help clear the impending backlog of Qantas customers. Qantas says it carrier 68,000 domestic and international passengers a day.