CANBERRA, Australia ? Tens of thousands of stranded Qantas Airways passengers scrambled to reach their destinations Sunday as the airline, its unions and the Australian government argued in a lengthy arbitration hearing over the abrupt grounding of its entire fleet.
The airline demanded a permanent ruling against more union strikes, with CEO Alan Joyce saying a temporary order would not ensure Qantas would get its planes back into the air.
The government wants the panel to order Qantas to fly in Australia's economic interests, and both it and the unions are arguing for temporary suspensions.
"It's not our place to start allocating responsibility, but what I also know is there is a better way to resolve these matters ... than locking your customers out," Australian Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten told reporters ahead of the arbitration hearing in the southern city of Melbourne. "We want more common sense than that."
About 70,000 passengers fly Qantas daily, and would-be fliers this weekend were stuck at home, hotels, airports or even had to suddenly deplane when Qantas suspended operations Saturday. More than 60 flights were in the air at the time but flew to their destinations, and Qantas was paying for passengers to book other flights.
Qantas had reduced and rescheduled flights for weeks as union workers struck and refused to work overtime out of worries that a restructuring plan would move some of Qantas' 35,000 jobs overseas.
German tourist Michael Messmann was trying to find a way home from Singapore on Sunday. He and his wife spent five weeks traveling around Australia but found their connecting flight home to Frankfurt suddenly canceled.
"I don't know the details of the dispute, but it seems like a severe reaction by the airline to shut down all their flights. That seems a bit extreme," said Messmann, 68. "After five weeks of traveling, we just want to go home."
Australian business traveler Graeme Yeatman sided with the airline, even though he was also trying to find a new flight home to Sydney on Sunday after his flight was canceled.
"I think the unions have too much power over Qantas. Even though this is an inconvenience for me, I'm glad the airline is drawing a line in the sand," said Yeatman, 41.
The court listened to arguments for four hours Saturday and another nine Sunday after the government called the emergency hearing.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said the airline could be flying again within hours if the three arbitration judges rule to permanently terminate the grounding and the unions' strike action.
The unions want the judges to rule for a suspension so that the strikes can be resumed if their negotiations with the airline fail.
The government's lawyer Tom Howe submitted to the court that the lockout and strikes should be terminated or at least suspended for four months.
He said a suspension was only a temporary solution to a dispute that threatened significant economic damage to Australia's tourism and aviation industries.
"That temporariness necessarily allows the real possibility, indeed, the likelihood that at the end of the suspension period, there may be a reinstatement of the lock out which, on the evidence before the tribunal, would inevitably lead to the risk, if not likelihood, of significant damage to an important sector of the Australian economy," Howe told the judges.
Qantas' lawyer Frank Parry told the court the airline "may conclude that it cannot return to the air" if the court opts for a suspension rather than a termination.
But the pilots' union lawyer Arthur Moses accused Qantas of making an "implied threat" to the judges that only a termination would ensure that the fleet would not remain grounded. Moses said no Qantas witness had given evidence to back that submission.
But Joyce said outside court Sunday that a suspension order might not lead to the the airline flying again.
"A termination stops the lock out, but we have to make a decision about putting the airline back in the air," Joyce told Sky News television.
"A suspension may not necessarily mean the airline gets back in the air," he added.
"If it's a suspension, we cannot put the planes back in the air without having certainty," he said, without elaborating.
Moses said Qantas had made no submissions in court on "what a suspension could look like that would give Qantas certainty" and noted that Joyce had not given evidence.
Qantas executive Lyell Strambi testified that suspending the staff lockout for three months could endanger aircraft safety because the crews might be distracted, tired or angry.
"That could lead to conflicts in the cockpit ? an array of things," Strambi told the tribunal.
Another Qantas executive Vanessa Hudson testified that the airline's forward bookings had collapsed after 70,000 passengers had had their flights disrupted by unions' rolling four-hour strikes in recent weeks.
She said a permanent order would give customers enough certainty to book Qantas flights.
"As long as there's the continued threat that industrial activity could return, I think that it will be impacting consumers' decisions about which airline they choose to fly," she said.
The unions' lawyers asked for suspensions, which would leave the option open of future strikes.
Qantas said 108 airplanes were grounded but did not say how many flights were involved. Among the stranded passengers are 17 world leaders attending a Commonwealth summit in Perth, and the Australian government was helping to get them home.
Joyce said the unions' actions had created a crisis for Qantas, trashing the brand and could shut it down piece by piece.
Qantas is among the most profitable airlines in the world, but he estimated the grounding would cost the carrier $20 million a day.
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.
The aircraft will be grounded until unions representing pilots, mechanics, baggage handlers and caterers reach agreements with Qantas over pay and conditions, Joyce said. Staff will not be paid starting Monday.
Qantas infuriated unions in August when it said it would improve its loss-making overseas business by creating an Asia-based airline with its own name and brand. The five-year restructure plan will cost 1,000 jobs.
Qantas said in August it had more than doubled annual profit to AU$250 million but warned that the business environment was too challenging to forecast earnings for the current fiscal year.
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Associated Press writers Christopher Weber in Los Angeles, Katie Oyan in Phoenix and Alex Kennedy in Singapore and AP Economics Writer Paul Wiseman in Washington contributed to this report.
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