Jaunted

The good news now is that not only did Qantas pay daily hotel and essentials amounts to passengers during the shutdown, but that Qantas is back in the air after an Australian court/Fair Work Australia ended the shutdown. The bad news is that now those stranded have some calls to make to get on new flights, and this is hardly the last time we'll be hearing about—or effected by—Qantas labor tensions.

If you're curious about all the drama from over the weekend, check out our buddies at Australian Business Traveller, who likely haven't seen the sun all weekend while covering every angle of the shutdown.

· The Air France strike: As if one major striking airline wasn't enough, Air France's cabin crews walked out over the weekend causing domestic flight disruptions and international flight cancellations as the airline didn't have enough flight attendants to safely run flights. Overall, 9 long-hauls were cancelled while domestics ran with a limit of 100 passengers to keep stress on remaining crew low. Such issues should continue through today—a national holiday in France—but clear tomorrow.

· The freak, thundersnow storm in the Northeast US: Heavy snow and wind, which began earlier and came down thicker than what weather forecasters predicted, crippled flight operations around the Northeast beginning mid-day Saturday and lasting through the night. Several airports shut down, a few intermittently lost power, and most others effected put ground stops in place for several hours.

Arriving flights, such as a Lufthansa A380 bound for New York, were forced to divert (it ended up in Boston). Other incidents, like the case of a diverted JetBlue plane stuck on the tarmac for 9 hours, should force further scrutiny of the 3-hour tarmac law.

Luckily the snow stopped as quickly as it had come and the skies cleared for a clean travel day on Sunday.

[Photo: Jaunted]