An Australian court has ended the union strikes and abrupt grounding of the Qantas Airways fleet after it stranded tens of thousands of passengers.
The court ruled after hearing more than 14 hours of testimony from the airline, the Australian government and unions.
Workers have staged strikes and refused overtime work over concerns that some of the airline's 35,000 jobs would be moved overseas in a restructuring plan.
Qantas plans to cut 1,000 jobs and order $9 billion of new Airbus aircraft as part of a makeover to salvage its loss-making international business.
The airline argued that the strikes disrupted operations and it needed certainty to continue operating.
Dublin-born Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the airline would get its planes back in the air as soon as it can following the ruling. He said Qantas could resume a limited schedule within hours if regulators approve the move.
Qantas has cancelled 447 flights affecting more than 68,000 passengers since grounding over 100 aircraft around the world yesterday.
The abrupt escalation in the dispute angered the government and came as an embarrassment for prime minister Julia Gillard, who was hosting a summit of Commonwealth leaders in the western city of Perth, 17 of them booked to fly out today with Qantas.
"There is no case for this radical overreaction," assistant treasurer and former senior union official Bill Shorten told the Australia Broadcasting Corp. "Sixty-eight thousand Australians and the tourism industry has been grossly inconvenienced by this high-handed ambush of the passenger."
Ms Gillard, criticised for not intervening earlier in the dispute, said the tribunal hearing in Melbourne was needed to quickly resolve the impasse. "We took this action because we were concerned about the damage to the economy," she told reporters in Perth.
"The government is arguing for an end to the industrial action," she said, adding that most leaders had made alternate flight plans.
The lockout is the latest in a rising tide of industrial unrest in Australia as unions increase pressure for a greater share of profits amid tight labour markets and a boom in resource prices.
Industrial action by engineers cost Qantas around A$130 million in 2008.
Qantas faced angry shareholders and workers at a shareholders' meeting on Friday when the company said the labour dispute since September had caused a dive in forward bookings and was costing it A$15 million a week.
The shareholders backed hefty pay rises to senior Qantas executives, including a A$5 million package for Mr Joyce.
The action sparked an angry response from Australia's transport minister Anthony Albanese yesterday.
"I'm extremely disappointed. What's more, I indicated very clearly to Mr Joyce that I was disturbed by the fact that we've had a number of discussions and at no stage has Mr Joyce indicated to me that this was an action under consideration," he said.
Tony Sheldon of the Transport Workers Union said the lockout was cynical and pre-planned.
"It's a company strategy that shareholders should have been told about, that the Australian community should have been told about, not ambushed in the dead of night," he said.
The Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) was flabbergasted at the move to ground the fleet, describing it as "brinkmanship in the extreme".
This weekend is one of Australia's busiest for travel, with tens of thousands travelling to the hugely popular Melbourne Cup horse race on Tuesday, dubbed "the race that stops the nation".
Agencies