Australia's Qantas Airways said on Monday it had postponed talks with striking aircraft engineers until Wednesday to give unions more time to prepare.
Both sides had scheduled talks for Monday over a long-running dispute with engineers demanding an average 5 percent pay rise, which has grounded just over 200 domestic flights during a month of rolling work stoppages.
"The engineers asked us for more time to pull together a delegation and we agreed to that," a Qantas spokesman said.
Qantas cancelled 19 domestic flights on Friday in the latest spate of disruptions after members of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) walked off the job in four of the country's biggest cities.
The campaign has disrupted flights in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Cairns and Perth as Qantas refuses to extend its offer of a 3 percent wage rise for around 1,500 engineers.
ALAEA spokesman Steve Purvinas said the engineers would hold no more stoppages until the July 2 meeting. Qantas has refused to negotiate while the engineers continue industrial action.
"We have no stoppages in the pipeline at the moment, so it gives Qantas the week to negotiate with us," Purvinas said.
Qantas offers 2,400 domestic flights each week, excluding low-cost subsidiary Jetstar and regional carrier QantasLink, or around 342 flights each day.
The carrier, Australia's biggest airline, reported net profit of AUD$617.6 million (USD$594 million) for the six months ended December, doubling its first-half earnings on strong demand for air travel.
Qantas, the world's 10th-largest airline by market value, said in May it still expected to achieve its target of 40 percent profit growth for the current year, which ends on Monday.
The airline faces a conundrum in seeking to balance a rocketing fuel bill with worker demands for bigger pay rises in line with a booming resource economy in its 16th year of expansion.
Qantas shares rose 1 percent on Monday to close at AUD$3.04 in a flat overall market.
