QF back in the air

The above image shows the first two Qantas aircraft to depart from Brisbane since the grounding.  Airbus A330-300 VH-QPJ operating QF51 to Singapore and Boeing 737-838 VH-VZS operating QF974 to Townsville.

Image thanks to balus.info

At time of grounding the locations of the QANTAS fleet was as follows:

Adelaide - 9 x Boeing 737-800, 1 x Boeing 737-400.Avalon - 2 x Boeing 747-400, 2 x Boeing 737-400.Brisbane - 1 x Boeing 747-400, 1 x A330-300, 1 x A330-200, 8 x Boeing 767-300, 6 x Boeing 737-800, 4 x Boeing 737-400.Buenos Aires - 1 x Boeing 747-400.Canberra - 3 x Boeing 737-400.Dallas-Fort Worth - 1 x Boeing 747-400.Frankfurt - 1 x A380, 1 x 747-400.Hong Kong - 2 x Boeing 747-400, 1 x A330-300.Johannesburg - 1 x Boeing 747-400.London Heathrow - 2 x A380, 2 x Boeing 747-400.Los Angeles - 1 x A380, 6 x Boeing 747-400, 2 x A330-200.Melbourne - 1 x Boeing 747-400, 2 x Airbus A330-200, 4 x Boeing 767-300, 11 x Boeing 737-800, 3 x Boeing 737-400.Manila - 1 x A330-300.Noumea - 1 x Boeing 737-800Perth - 1 x A330-300, 1 x A330-200, 3 x Boeing 767-300, 5 x Boeing 737-800, 1 x Boeing 737-400.Shanghai - 1 x A330-300.Singapore - 3 x A380, 2 x 747-400, 2 x A330-300, 1 x 767-300.Sydney - 3 x A380, 3 x 747-400, 2 x A330-300, 2 x A330-200,  7 x 767-300, 12 x 737-800, 1 x 737-400.Tokyo Narita - 1 x Boeing 747-400.

You can read more including the location of each individual aircraft at the amazing website The Qantas Source HERE

the Qantas drama

After being grounded since 5pm Saturday evening AEDT it looks like Qantas will be back in the air and flying as scheduled within 24hours after FWA determined that all industrial action by the airline and unions must be terminated.

You can read the FWA decision yourself HERE or the order HERE from the Fair Work Australia website www.fwa.gov.au  one thing you can read from the decision is point 10

[10] It is unlikely that the protected industrial action taken by the three unions, even taken together, is threatening to cause significant damage to the tourism and air transport industries. The response industrial action of which Qantas has given notice, if taken, threatens to cause significant damage to the tourism and air transport industries and indirectly to industry generally because of the effect on consumers of air passenger and cargo services. The Qantas evidence was that the cost to it alone is $20 million per day.

Which to me is a slap in the face for Qantas as they are tarred with being detrimental and damaging to the countries economy.

There have been plenty of stories written and reported on through out the media but  I recommend you read those published by Australian Business Traveller HERE and The Australian HERE

BREAKING NEWS - Qantas grounded

Alan Joyce has just announced that effective immediately all Qantas Mainline domestic and International flights will be grounded until further notice.

Also from 8pm AEDT Monday all Union workers will be locked out.

Qantas will only restart flights once Unions drop their industrial action.

*** Update ***
The grounding will not effect subsidiary airlines - Jetstar, Jetconnect, QantasLink etc will all still fly as scheduled

Virgin expand

While Virgin Australia look to take advantage of a larger market share due to displaced Qantas passengers moving to them, during the current and upcoming period of uncertainty and disruption, they are slowly going about expanding not only domestic services but also international connections.

Virgin has been granted draft approval by the ACCC to codeshare on selected Singapore Airlines services, bringing the number of international connections available to Virigin passengers up by almost 50.

London, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Sao Paulo, China, India, Japan and Vietnam are some of the countries on Virgin Australia's to-do list when its alliance with Singapore Airlines kicks into gear later this year.
Those are among almost 50 codeshare destinations listed in a joint Virgin-Singapore submission to the ACCC, which today received the rubber stamp of draft approval.

 Read more HERE

Meanwhile on home soil Virgin are adding additional services in the west to cater to the growing mining boom, with additional flights from Perth to Port Hedland and Karratha.

That's a boon for business travellers in the WA mining sector, who will now see a total of three daily return flights between Perth and Port Hedland during the week.
Karratha passengers also get an extra return flight on Wednesdays and Thursdays, for a total of three returns daily.

Read more HERE

Qantas intensify strike effects

In a bold move Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has announced that from Monday 17-October-2011 the airline will ground 5 aircraft and cancel 100 flights on 5 different routes as a counter measure to the ongoing strikes by members of the TWU, ALAEA and AIPA.

Yesterday Qantas was forced to cancel 14 flights and delayed 38 while members of the TWU took industrial action, and today will cancel 18 flights and delay a further 27 while members of the ALAEA take industrial action.

Mr Joyce said that by taking preemptive action and grounding aircraft, Qantas would reduce the impact on service reliability.
The 72 hours' notice unions are required to give means Qantas has been able to reschedule rather than cancel passengers.
Mr Joyce said that operations during yesterday's strike had achieved a 93 per cent on-time performance domestically and 100 per cent internationally.

Ground staff at Qantas group airline Jetstar, have also joined the campaign refusing to charge passengers excess baggage fees until 0330 tomorrow. (see HERE)

The "war" between the carrier and unions looks set to last for a while longer yet, with passengers set to suffer delays and cancellations unless they decide to book with rival Virgin Australia.

Read the many articles on the wires
CourierMail.com.au HERE
TheAustralian.com.au HERE HERE HERE HERE HERE & HERE
AustralianBusinessTraveller HERE HERE & HERE