Qantas flights around Australia are getting back to normal after ground staff staged a four-hour strike on Tuesday morning.
About 4000 baggage-handlers, caterers and freight workers walked off the job at 7am eastern standard time in a protest over pay and conditions.
Twenty-eight flights were cancelled, another 27 were delayed and about 6100 passengers were affected at capital-city airports around the country.
Transport Workers Union senior airlines official Mick Pieri has made no apology for the action, saying the workers' demands pale in comparison to the recent pay rise of Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce.
"We're asking for a 5% pay rise," he says, "and 1% on super. Yet at the same time Alan Joyce [got a] $5 million, 71% pay rise."
The union's New South Wales secretary, Wayne Forno, says operations ran smoothly because the numbers of travellers moving through airports was down - probably because people had chosen not to fly on Tuesday.
