NSW: Qantas passengers face delays and cancellations

00-00-0000
NSW: Qantas passengers face delays and cancellations

By Kylie Williams

SYDNEY, Aug 19 AAP - Passengers travelling with Qantas today faced unscheduled pre-dawnstarts, delays and cancellations at Sydney Airport this morning due to a 24-hour staffstrike.

About 6,000 Qantas workers walked off the job today in a dispute over wages and conditions,with the Australian Services Union (ASU) claiming as many as 169 flights had to be cancelled.

The strike affects check-in and telephone sales, freight, information technology, loadcontrol, catering, operations, administration and finance, engineering and maintenancestaff.

Qantas spokesman Michael Sharp said he did not know how many flights had been cancelled,despite the airline rescheduling departures days ago.

"We re-set the schedule for domestic flights," he told reporters at the airline's Sydneyterminal today.

"The vast majority of people knew what their new travel times were."

But he said no international and regional flights had been cancelled.

Most passengers at the airport this morning were warned of the schedule changes butmany were still unhappy they had to change plans.

Dr Sue Shannon and Lynton Rivers arrived in Sydney on Thursday to attend a wedding last night.

Mr Rivers said they had to leave the celebrations early in order to reach the airportby about 6am (AEST) for their flight back to Adelaide.

"It did curtail our shenanigans at the wedding," he said.

"We left at 10pm, and we were having fun too."

Another passenger, Peter Grase was also annoyed the strike had interrupted his travelplans to Melbourne, forcing him to be at the airport at 5am to ensure he was on a flight.

"I'm not happy," he said.

"I tried to get a flight out with Virgin yesterday but it was not happening."

Hugh Vallance said his flight was not cancelled but he did have to arrive at the terminalan hour earlier.

"I just think it's all a bit unnecessary," he said.

Mr Sharp said some check-in staff had turned up to work and they were being assistedby corporate, IT, sales and catering staff.

AAP klw/nf/jmd

KEYWORD: QANTAS NSW