By Kerry Larsen

• Qantas strike on hold relieving tourism threat
• 1,000 Tiger seats to Cairns lost
• Other airlines take up slack

The tourism industry may have dodged a bullet with announcements of disruptions to two domestic airlines in the lead up to the busy school holiday period.

Holiday-goers to the Douglas region have had a testing start to the Victoria and New South Wales school holiday periods, with flights on Qantas and Tiger airways into Cairns threatened by strike action and groundings due to safety fears.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) suspended all Tiger domestic flights with immediate effect from Saturday due to safety concerns, effecting passengers on Tiger’s Melbourne-Cairns route.

Last week, Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) announced rolling stoppages that would see Qantas line maintenance engineers down tools at Melbourne on Monday, Perth on Tuesday, Brisbane on Wednesday, and Adelaide and Darwin on Thursday.

But a Qantas spokesman told The Newsport following Saturday’s grounding of the Tiger Airways fleet by the CASA, Qantas had asked the Licensed Engineers union to suspend the industrial action planned for this week, providing a breath of relief for the local tourism industry.

“This union action has now been cancelled and all Qantas flights will operate as scheduled. We are continuing our discussion with the ALAEA, and are willing to negotiate on reasonable pay and conditions,” the Qantas spokesperson said.

The cancellation of Tiger flights could have spelt an unwelcome lull in tourist numbers, on the back of a post-natural disaster recovery effort by the Queensland tourism industry.

Tropical Tourism North Queensland chief executive Rob Giason said up to 1000 seats into Cairns were being lost this week as a result of the Tiger cancellation.

“It’s disappointing to see the service is not in place over the busy period,” Mr Giason told The Newsport yesterday.

“But Jetstar, Virgin and Qantas have all offered passengers special fares to pick up the downfall, which is reassuring for the Cairns and Port Douglas regions, as visitors have the option of taking up good deals to come to Far North Queensland.”

“That action, and the ability of the airlines to upgrade their plane sizes to keep up with demand, is very encouraging.

“But let’s hope the Tiger grounding doesn’t continue for much more than a week.”

The grounding of the Singapore Airlines-owned aviation company is expected to cost Tiger $1.5 million a day until the CASA gives the all-clear for their Australian domestic operations to continue. Tiger’s international chief executive, Tony Davis, was expected to fly into Australia from Singapore early this week for crisis talks with the authority.

“Singapore Airlines has deployed one of its key people to Tiger to make sure all the processes are completed correctly,” Mr Giason said.

“That provides encouraging signs. After all, air safety can’t be compromised.”