Qantas resumes flights grounded by labour dispute

Australia’s Qantas Airways returned to the air on Monday after grounding its entire global fleet over the weekend in a bold tactic to force the government to intervene in the nation’s worst labour dispute in a decade.

Qantas took the drastic step to ground all flights on Saturday, disrupting 70 000 passengers and spurring the government and its labour-market regulator to seek a quick end to hostilities between the airline and unions.

At the government’s instigation, Australia’s labour tribunal ordered Qantas to resume flights and banned trade unions, which have waged a damaging campaign of industrial action, from staging more strikes while negotiations continued.

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