BBC News with Sue Montgomery

An independent tribunal in Australia has ordered workers to end a strike which led the management of the Qantas airline to ground all its flights. The ruling by a panel of three judges is binding. The Australian Council of Trade Unions said it would work with the airline to ensure Qantas planes were back in the air as soon as possible. Its secretary Jeff Lawrence said the decision meant that further negotiations could be held on the airline's restructuring plan, which involves hundreds of job losses.

"It's unfortunate that it's taken the intervention of the federal government to force Qantas to negotiate about those issues around job security and to end the lockout. But that has been necessary and the fact that the federal government has taken their action, I think, has led to this generally positive result."

The chief executive of Qantas said the company might be able to resume a limited flight schedule by Monday afternoon.