Qantas to resume flights

Australia's air safety authority has given go ahead for flights to resume and Qantas' full service was expected to return to normal within 24 hours.

Australia's labour tribunal ordered Qantas to end its shutdown and employees to return to work while negotiations with the airline continue.

Australian prime minister Julia Gillard defended the decision to intervene in the bitter dispute over pay and conditions as "a win for the travelling public". 

"By going to Fair Work Australia we have achieved what we set out to do. Planes will be back in the skies, Qantas workers will back at work," she said.

Prime Minister Gillard criticised the "extreme action taken by Qantas that stranded tens of thousands of passengers far away from home".

"We wanted to ensure that those passengers could get flights and were able to return home, we wanted to see this industrial action at an end."

The biggest of Australia's four airlines forced the government into action after it locked out its workers.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said he had no choice but to shut down the airline after a union leader threatened rolling strikes over the coming year.

"The important thing is that all industrial action is now over and we have certainty - certainty for our employees, certainty for our customers, certainty for our shareholders," he told reporters. "It is a fair, reasonable and rational process, all parties will be treated equally."

Qantas and three unions representing engineers, baggage handlers and pilots have been given 21 days to reach an agreement in the dispute over pay and Qantas's plans to refocus its international business on Asia or face a compulsory arbitration decision.

Richard Woodward of the Australian and International Pilots' Association told Sky News Qantas had "blackmailed" the government into action.

"I think it was a high-handed action by Alan Joyce to ground the entire airline to achieve his industrial aims. He sort of held the passengers around the world to ransom."

The airline now faces a deluge of claims from the estimated 70,000 stranded passengers after it said it would pay for accomodation and expenses as well as refund additional travel costs.

However, the airline's share price shot up 5.5% after the tribunal ruling, at £1.07 in mid-morning trade, up from £1.02 on Friday.