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Tens of thousands of stranded passengers were on Sunday desperately hoping Australia's workplace regulator would end the grounding of Qantas Airways' entire fleet over a bitter industrial row.

The national carrier announced its shock decision to lock out union staff and cancel all flights indefinitely on Saturday, a move that left the country reeling and passengers scrambling for alternatives.

Unions have been protesting against pay and restructuring plans that would see 1,000 jobs axed and the establishment of two new Qantas group airlines focused on Asia.

The travelers' fate lies in the hands of the regulator Fair Work Australia, which reconvened an emergency three-man panel on Sunday and was still sitting late into the evening.

It could potentially suspend strike action for as long as 120 days so talks can take place, or order a permanent termination to the dispute and so permit Qantas to take to the skies again.

Regardless of what decision it might reach, Qantas said there would be no flights until at least noon on Monday.

"Qantas fleet remains grounded until at least midday tomorrow. A decision on afternoon flights will be made tomorrow morning," it said on the social networking site Twitter.

After Prime Minister Julia Gillard took the rare step of ordering in the workplace mediator, a government lawyer told the tribunal the grounding was costing Australia's economy "tens of millions" of dollars each hour.

Gillard appeared to agree with Qantas that the row should be ended with "certainty".

Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce said earlier he too was seeking certainty and that planes would fly again if the panel ordered a full termination of all industrial action.

"A termination stops the lockout," he said, adding that a mere suspension of the dispute was not good enough to settle a row tearing the 90-year-old airline apart.

Qantas said more than 68,000 passengers on 447 flights were affected by the grounding of 108 aircraft in 22 cities, with frustrated customers venting their anger at hubs from Europe to Asia and the US West Coast.

Joyce defended his extraordinary decision, aimed at ending three months of sporadic strikes by baggage handlers, pilots and engineers unions.

The decision was taken a day after an explosive annual general meeting where union anger was directed at management, including at a hefty pay rise awarded to Joyce.

The chief executive denied claims the grounding was pre-planned and said he was forced to bring the standoff to a head to tackle unions' "outrageous demands", with the airline losing US $16 million per week.

Questions:

1. What have unions been protesting against?

2. Who took the rare step of ordering in the workplace mediator?

3. How much money is the airline losing per week due to the strike?

Answers:

1. Pay and restructuring plans.

2. Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

3. US$16 million.

（中國日報網英語點津 Helen 編輯）

About the broadcaster:

Emily Cheng is an editor at China Daily. She was born in Sydney, Australia and graduated from the University of Sydney with a degree in Media, English Literature and Politics. She has worked in the media industry since starting university and this is the third time she has settled abroad - she interned with a magazine in Hong Kong 2007 and studied at the University of Leeds in 2009.