Tag: Airline Strikes

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How Does a Red Kangaroo Say 'I'm Sorry?'

Where: Australia
November 15, 2011 at 4:09 PM | by | Comments (0)

We already talked about how the CEO of Qantas decided to counter industrial action by shutting down the complete worldwide operations. Since that weekend, Qantas is back up in the skies with a new motto, "Book with confidence and certainty," and a lot of explaining to do for the more than 70,000 passengers that were left stranded.

Leaving travelers stranded and with unanswered questions, Qantas had to do something. During the shutdown, the company offered to reimburse those who needed to re-book on different airlines, even pay the difference of airfares. For those who decided to stay in the city in which they were stranded, Qantas paid hotels, meals and phone calls up to a certain amount. If you were one of the unlucky passengers and you're still struggling to figure out what you get from all this, visit Qantas' website for more details.

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Winter Airline Strike News Getting Better and Better

November 2, 2011 at 5:57 PM | by | Comment (1)

As the airline industry settles in for a winter of labor turmoil, we here at Jaunted are becoming resigned to what will be an endless series of airline strike stories. And while we could just update you with lines like "were you thinking of going to [destination X that's totally hosed] some time soon? If so, don't"—that seems just a little bit flippant. Although if you were thinking of going to Canada, France, Australia, or India some time soon, there's a good chance you're going to want to consider travelers' insurance.

A few days ago we told you that the Qantas and Air France strikes were winding down, which was technically true. As of yesterday Qantas had resumed all flights and Air France was operating at 90%. But—because this is how things are going to go now, apparently—none of the issues have been resolved. So everything could kick up again before the month is over.

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Is the Qantas Shutdown the Beginning of a Winter of Airline Strikes?

October 31, 2011 at 1:44 PM | by | Comments (0)

Australia's flagship carrier Qantas had been having labor problems for months. Within the last few weeks the union representing the airline's mechanics, pilots, baggage handlers and caterers escalated the dispute, launching a series of rolling work stoppages that triggered dozens of cancellations and created general chaos.

Then, over the weekend, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce re-raised by straight-up shutting down the airline, essentially forcing the situation.

As management no doubt hoped would happen, a hastily-called court brought the parties together, turned to the unions, and told them to get back to work. Qantas will now spend the next few days picking itself off the floor as flights begin again. Our backgrounder on the strike itself and the slow recovery is here, including details on how the airline tried to mitigate the pain over the weekend.

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What a Weekend! Updates on Qantas, Air France and the Freak Thundersnowstorm

October 31, 2011 at 9:01 AM | by | Comments (0)

Wow. This last weekend was not commercial aviation's finest hour whatsoever. In fact, one could say it was a farce! Three events contributed to the stranding of thousands of travelers and the cancellations of flights originating from places as wide-ranging as Australia and Hartford, CT.

Today, air traffic should be running more smoothly, and here's the latest updates on each situation:

· The Qantas shutdown: Confrontations between the Australian airline and its labor unions reached such a level that Qantas CEO Alan Joyce shut down all Qantas mainline flight operations on Saturday, shutting out employees. Passengers boarding onto Qantas planes at the time were told to return to the terminal, and other airlines (mainly V Australia, Singapore Airlines, Etihad and Air New Zealand) mobilized to run extra planes, special routes and limited pricing to essentially rescue the stranded.

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Ryanair Sends Roses to British Airways' Union to Thank Them for Striking Over Holidays. Again.

April 4, 2011 at 2:05 PM | by | Comments (0)

The timing of the royal wedding, coming as close as it does to Easter, means that Brits are in for an unprecedented four bank holidays in close succession. Many have made vacation plans to go to Europe mainland or further, and the country is ramping up to shake off winter with a wave of travel. So naturally British Airways workers have decided that now is the perfect time to organize an airline strike, because that's what they do.

They timed their last strikes to coincide with Christmas and the UK's end of August bank holiday, and they're timing this one to overlap with the spring holidays.

Though we kind of hate them, we really have to admire how Ryanair is approaching the potential strike. The Irish airline sent 18 red roses to union bosses, and announced that "Ryanair is starting to really warm to the UNITE union, who continue to cause uncertainty for BA holidaymakers at peak times of the year and now, with their fourth set of strikes in less than 18 months, they will encourage even more BA passengers to switch to Ryanair’s low fare." That sounds about right.

After the jump, what you need to know about how the strike will affect you.

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How the Dumbest Airline Strike Ever Shut Down Argentina Over the Weekend

November 15, 2010 at 3:08 PM | by | Comment (1)

Airline labor unions often have debates so convoluted that we tend to find them just aggravatingly myopic and selfish, but then it goes to another level.

The newest example is what happened in Argentina over the weekend, where Buenos Aires was effectively shut down because two douchebag Aerolineas Argentinas pilots from two different unions got into a fist fight with each other. Instead of saying something like "yeah, our pilots probably shouldn't have done that," their respective unions threw temper tantrums and went on strike to protect them.

The result: the airline had to be shut down. Argentina's chief domestic airport, Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, had to be closed. The country's top international airport, Ezeiza International Airport, tried to handle the overload, and more or less failed. Tens of thousands of travelers saw their flights moved or canceled. Hundreds of thousands saw their travel weekend become a disaster.

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'Season of Strikes' About to Hit American and European Airlines

September 8, 2010 at 4:38 PM | by | Comment (1)

Following up on the weekend strikes in London and Paris, the phrase that the Associated Press is going with this mornning is "season of strikes in Europe." Put bluntly: there's not enough money to go around, and workers aren't going to go to their jobs unless they get more of it. It's not just Greece, although of course it's Greece too. Spain and the Czech Republic are hosed as well, and when you add them to the UK, France, and Italy you start to run out of countries that aren't going broke.

Now this is normally where we'd tell you that bad times overseas equal good travel opportunities from here. The problem is that you actually have to be able to get to those places, and a wave of airline strikes is about to start making that dicey. Virgin Atlantic just narrowly averted a strike, but they're pretty much the only ones. British Airways workers apparently have decided to walk out again, because that's who they are and that's what they do. Meanwhile roughly the entire country of India is facing labor-driven transportation disruptions.

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UK Airport Worker Strike to Shut Down Most British Airports

August 13, 2010 at 3:46 PM | by | Comments (0)

The last Monday of August is a Bank Holiday in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and roughly a million Brits accordingly use the extended weekend to vacation out of the country. If the BAA employees at London-Heathrow, London-Stansted, Glasgow, Southampton, Edinburgh and Aberdeen make good on their threat to walk out, the loss of firefighters and security staff would force the airports to close, functionally stranding anyone who wants to get in or out of Britain (with the exception of London-Gatwick, London-City airports).

When British Airways employees tried this stunt last year they got slapped down by a judge, because timing your strike to wreck the UK economy violates British fair play or something. Nice to see that the Unite union, which represents both the BA employees and the airport employees who are threatening to strike at the end of the month, is willing to trot out the same routine again. To their friends and family it probably demonstrates admirable spunk. To the rest of the UK, to anyone who needs to fly through the UK, and to anyone at any airport anywhere in the world that will be affected by UK cancellations, it's just obnoxious.

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British Airways Creating Entirely New Fleet to Circumvent Union Strikes

June 24, 2010 at 3:52 PM | by | Comments (0)

It's been a couple of days since we've hit you over the head with British Airways airline strike news, and this morning's developments are eyebrow raising in at least a couple of ways.

The beleaguered airline, which has been known to successfully deploy replacement crews to get through employee walkouts, is now creating an entirely new crew to operate an entirely new fleet on some of their routes. The announcement came after the Unite union declared their intention to hold another strike vote next week if they don't get what they want, which they won't. The airline has already lost hundreds of millions of euros, and so was ready to try something new.

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The Planes and Fees of Spirit Airlines Are Back in Business

June 21, 2010 at 9:08 AM | by | Comments (0)

At this point, things should be pretty much back to normal at Spirit Airlines. Last week pilots hit the picket line, and passengers were forced to hit those oh-so-comfortable terminal seats with no place to go. The airline slowly returned to normal by adding around 20 flights on Thursday, and by this week the prereclined seats should be back in business. After all, it takes a few days to get the planes back to where they need to be.

We don’t know how much cash the pilots are getting now, but hopefully they won a bit of a boost with their strike. They walked off the job because they didn’t think their salaries were in line with other low cost carriers in the country.

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Striking Pilots Ground All Spirit Airlines Flights Until End of the Week

June 14, 2010 at 9:35 AM | by | Comments (0)

Update 15. June: Spirit Airlines has announced that all flights through Thursday are now also cancelled.

We can understand if you were seduced by the "Many Islands Low Fares" sales, but those cheap tickets mean nothing at this point as the pilots of Spirit Airlines have decided to walk off the job.

The pilots are unhappy with several factors in their contract, and now it looks like the planes will be grounded until at least WednesdayTHURSDAY. We guess you'll be waiting a bit longer before flying in their "pre-clined" seats and paying for both checked and carry-on baggage.

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Spirit Airlines Pilots Could Strike As Soon As This Weekend

June 8, 2010 at 9:09 AM | by | Comments (0)

Oh Spirit Airlines, you are so silly with your carry-on baggage fees, pre-reclined seats, and wacky advertising campaigns. We might be the only ones who feel this way about you, because you clearly keep selling plenty of seats and announcing new flights to places like Colombia. However, this may all change later this month, because even with the increased revenue stream, the pilots are not too thrilled with things at the airline.

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