Fair Work Australia has reached a pay decision on behalf of Qantas and its engineer’s union after the two parties were forced into arbitration hearings to cease ongoing strikes.

Following Qantas’ decision to ground its entire fleet for an entire week as a means of dealing with continuous union orchestrated industrial action in November last year, the Australian flag carrier and the Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) were ordered to enter hearings with Fair Work Australia.

After months of discussions, Fair Work Australia finally handed down its decision late yesterday, concluding the airline verse employee saga at least until December 2014.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce described the decision as a relief and a “positive outcome” that will allow Qantas to move into the future.

“The union cannot take any industrial action before 2015,” he explained.

“The determination from Fair World Australia does not contain any of the restrictive demands that would have handed controls of parts of the airline to the union however it provides reasonable pay increases to our workers.”

The determination included a three per cent pay increase per annum, new licensing arrangements, changes that ease restrictions on extended hours rosters and an arrangement for the transition to retirement for its licenced engineers.

Although the carrier can put its fiasco with the engineers to bed, Mr Joyce said the airline was still in the arbitration process with its pilots union and Transport Workers’ Union.

“Our message to customers is that you can continue to book with Qantas with absolute confidence,” he added.

“Irrespective of the timeframe for the Fair Work Australia process, the unions are unable to take industrial action for the period of arbitration and for the period of the EBA determination – which could be up to four years.”