Australian Pilots Quit in Bitter Dispute Over Pay

Australia’s domestic airline pilots resigned en masse Thursday after airlines started firing them individually over a pay dispute that has shut down the nation’s air services.

Desperate travelers thwarted by a shutdown of domestic services were flying 1,200 miles to New Zealand and back just to hop from one Australian city to another.

The Australian Federation of Air Pilots delivered the 1,600 resignations to airlines after the companies started taking legal action against individual pilots.

Neither side would comment on the move, which aviation industry analysts said could cause the airlines serious financial problems because some pilots were entitled to large pension and long-service payments of more than $380,000 each.

Strain for Airlines

Some could receive more than $760,000, adding to the strain for the airlines, already losing millions of dollars each day that their planes are grounded.

The latest round in the two-week dispute about pilots’ demands for a 30% wage hike came hours after some international airlines, responding to a government request, began ferrying passengers on the internal sectors of their services.

Air Force transport planes were being prepared on the orders of the Labor government for emergency domestic service.

Normal domestic services were suspended late Wednesday, although some flights operated early Thursday as aircraft returned to their home airports.

Air New Zealand, which operates 120 flights to and from Australia weekly, said travelers prepared to fly any distance to get to their destinations had boosted bookings sharply.

“Australians are aware New Zealand is a close destination,” said spokeswoman Heather Jeffrey. “It is only three hours from an eastern (Australian) city and three hours back.”

In some cases people wanting to get from Sydney to Melbourne--a 500-mile flight--were flying by way of Auckland or Christchurch, a 2,500-mile round trip.

Hawke Comments Criticized

The grounded companies, state-owned Australian Airlines, Ansett Airlines of Australia and East-West Airlines, announced legal action against individual pilots, firing some and suing others for damages.

The pilots federation said Prime Minister Bob Hawke and his ministers had inflamed the situation with their comments and made it impossible for negotiations to continue.

Hawke, in various television and radio interviews, has repeatedly belittled the pilots’ skills, at one point comparing them to bus drivers.