Qantas Airways grounded its global fleet indefinitely Saturday imposing an employee lockout after weeks of disruptive strikes, and the Australian government sought emergency arbitration. At least 60 flights were in the air and continued to their destinations, but a taxiing flight stopped on the runway, according to one flier. Booked passengers were being rescheduled at Qantas' expense, chief executive Alan Joyce said. When the grounding was announced, 36 international and 28 domestic Australian flights were in the air, said a Qantas spokeswoman, who declined to be named citing company policy. She could not confirm an Australian Broadcasting Corp. television report that 13,305 passengers were booked to fly Qantas international flights within 24 hours of the grounding. Bookings already had collapsed after unions warned travelers to book with other airlines through the busy Christmas-New Year period. Joyce told a news conference in Sydney the unions' actions have caused a crisis for Qantas. “They are trashing our strategy and our brand,” Joyce said. “They are deliberately destabilizing the company and there is no end in sight.” Union leaders criticized the action as extreme. Qantas is the world's 10th largest airline and among the most profitable, but its unions worry a recent restructuring announcement would be a means to move some of Qantas' 35,000 jobs overseas. The grounding of the largest of Australia's four national domestic airlines will take a major economic toll and could disrupt the national Parliament, due to resume in Canberra on Tuesday after a two-week recess. Qantas' budget subsidiary Jetstar continues to fly. Qantas was to fly home 17 government leaders on Sunday after the Commonwealth summit in the west coast city of Perth ended. British tourist Chris Crulley, 25, said the pilot on his Qantas flight informed passengers while taxiing down a Sydney runway that he had to return to the terminal “to take an important phone call.” The flight was then grounded. Qantas announced in August that it had more than doubled annual profit to AU$250 million, but warned the business environment was too challenging to forecast earnings for the current fiscal year.
