Tropical North Queensland’s tourism industry is breathing a sigh of relief with the cancellation of Saturday’s grounding of Qantas’ fleet.

The industrial action came following weeks of disruptions where the airline’s workers had held rolling strikes and refused overtime work for weeks out of worry that some of Qantas' 35,000 jobs would be moved overseas in a restructuring plan.

It culminated in Saturday’s stunning move by Qantas Airways chief executive, Alan Joyce, to ground all of the airline’s domestic and international flights, citing the ongoing action had cost Qantas approximately $15 million per week in lost revenue, with 70,000 passengers affected and more than 600 flights cancelled.

The grounding was to cost Qantas $20 million per day and staff covered by the industrial agreements being negotiated with the Australian Licenced Engineers Union (ALAEA), the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the Australian and International Pilots Union (AIPA) were to be locked out of their workplaces on Monday evening.

The Australian government then stepped in and asked Fair Work Australia to call an emergency court hearing on Saturday night to end the work bans, with three judges hearing more than 14 hours of testimony from the airline, the government and unions.

On Monday morning, Qantas announced their flights would resume by mid-afternoon Monday, subject to approval from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), with Fair Work Australia granting the Australian Government’s application to terminate all industrial action by the Australian Licenced Engineers Union, the Transport Workers Union, the Australian and International Pilots Union and Qantas.

The first re-scheduled Cairns flight was scheduled to fly at 2.30pm on Monday.

Executive officer of Port Douglas and Daintree Tourism, Doug Ryan, said the grounding of domestic and international Qantas’ fleet would have affected the tourism industry adversely at a time when it was still trying to recover from various events.

“A huge amount of our tourists come to our region on Qantas flights, both internationally and domestically,” he said.

“It (the grounding of the airline) was a blow we didn’t need.

“Australia’s tourism industry is doing it tough at the moment and regional areas are doing it tougher.

“It’s a big sigh of relief for our region (that the grounding and strikes have been canceled).

“There have been a lot of flight delays, but they should be cleared by the end of the week.”

Mr Ryan said while the strikes were detrimental to the area’s economy, he thought it was not as severe as the 1989 pilot strikes, one of the most expensive and dramatic industrial disputes in Australia's history, which had a monumental impact on Port Douglas.

“I was around during the pilot strikes and I remember the Air Force was using C130 aircraft carriers to ferry people in and out of Cairns to see their relatives,” he said.

“Tourism operators were going for days without a booking back then.

“Thankfully, that hasn’t happened this time, but a lot of people are talking about Qantas around the world.”

Mr Ryan, who attended the Corroboree training event for the North American and Latin American Aussie Specialist travel agents in Melbourne at the weekend, said 160 American delegates at the convention had all traveled with Qantas.

“There was a fair bit of concern about how they were going to get home,” he said.

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