Virgin Australia has quickly responded to the grounding of Qantas' mainline domestic and long-haul flights that went into affect at 5pm on 29-Oct-2011 in a bold move to make three of Qantas' unions settle ongoing wage and job security disputes.

In a nearly globally unprecedented occurrence, Virgin Australia is liaising with the Australian government to allow its alliance partners – Air New Zealand, Delta, Etihad and Singapore Airlines – to operate their foreign-registered aircraft domestically in Australia to help clear the impending backlog of Qantas customers. Qantas says it carrier 68,000 domestic and international passengers a day.