SYDNEY: The chairman of Australian airline Qantas Friday backed the embattled chief executive who caused a two-day shutdown of the carrier, saying he liked the way Alan Joyce led.
Joyce was dubbed "public enemy number one" after he grounded all Qantas flights last month, stranding tens of thousands of passengers at airports around the world to force an end to industrial action by employee unions.
The move provoked howls of protest from travellers and calls for him to be sacked by unions, but chairman Leigh Clifford praised the courage of Joyce, who he appointed to run the airline in 2008 after he built up budget offshoot Jetstar.
"I like the way he leads, and I saw that at Jetstar. But I particularly liked the way he could express a vision for where things might be," Clifford told the Australian Financial Review.
"He's not a pompous person; he's got a degree of humility about him. But when he acts, he's very decisive."
But Clifford warned Joyce he needed to think about how to have good relations with the three unions he is now battling, which represent pilots, engineers and baggage handlers and other ground staff.
"I say to Alan, 'It's all very well to win the war," Clifford said. "We've got to think about how we win the war -- but also how we win the peace. And right now that's well beyond the shore break."
Joyce is battling to overhaul Qantas to give it a greater focus on Asia, a move which unions fear will see jobs moved overseas but which management argues is crucial if the airline is to survive in an increasingly competitive market.
The chief executive said the unions' rolling strike action had been bleeding the airline and forward bookings had collapsed, prompting the grounding which brought the dispute before the nation's industrial umpire.
The Fair Work Tribunal ordered the termination of all strike action and the two sides into renewed talks on wages and conditions. They were given 21 days to reach agreement before being ordered into formal arbitration.
But the pilots this week filed a court challenge to the strike ban, saying it was an excessive response to their low-level campaign. The ground staff's Transport Workers' Union is contemplating a similar challenge.
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