Assessment 3: A case study of Qantas Airline: The grounded kangaroo

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Qantas is the world’s second oldest airline and it fall into a long-run labour dispute which once stopped the running of the company. The CEO of Qantas, Alan Joyce has taken several actions before and during the dispute. This essay will discuss the reason and the cause of such industrial relations problem. Then, to analysis and judge the industrial action of both Qantas and the labour unions with some of the management concept. In the last, possible solution and recommendation will discuss to show the benefit of management skills.

Table of contents

INTRODUCTION 1-2
PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION2-3
PROBLEM ANALYSIS AND JUSTIFICATION3-5
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS5-6
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS6-7

INTRODUCTION
Qantas is the world's second oldest airline. Founded in the Queensland outback in 1920, it is Australia’s largest domestic and international airline and is recognized as one of the heads of world long distance airline companies, having services from Australia to North America and Europe. Qantas today employs approximately 33,600 people and offers services across a network spanning 182 destinations in 44 countries around the world.
On 29 October 2011, Qantas chief executive, Alan Joyce took a big gamble; He claimed to ground all the planes and cancelled all flights in order to get rid of a long-run labour dispute and the conflict with Unions. This bold or perhaps impetuous action caused several negative influences. Over 13000 passengers were stranded up, including 17 heads of state attending the Commonwealth Head of Government meeting in Perth (Cooper 2012, p269). Joyce adopted such drastic move is because the disputes with pilots, engineers and other staff had dragged on for over a year and the industrial actions taken by the Unions had cost the Qantas some $70