'My decision absolutely': Joyce takes responsibility for Qantas grounding as he hits out at proposed bill

"If you want to survive and succeed we must be free to pursue global opportunities."

Qantas plans to expand further into Asia and some of those operations would not fly to or from Australia.

"[But] I can assure you that Qantas proudly calls Australia home and we will always do so," Mr Joyce said.

"The vast majority of our operations are here and always will stay here."

The bill also requires most of Qantas's heavy maintenance of aircraft, flight operations and training to be conducted in Australia.

Mr Joyce was questioned about the decision to ground the entire Qantas fleet last Saturday.

Senator Xenophon asked him whether he envisaged, last Friday at the company's annual general meeting, that he would ground the fleet a day later.

"I didn't have any view on the prospect of it," Mr Joyce replied.

He also said it had been his decision alone to ground the fleet before a planned lockout of the workforce on Monday night.

"That was my decision absolutely," he said, adding it had later been endorsed by the board.

"I have complete operational discretion.

"I decided to have a board meeting because of the brand implications and the significant implications around this."

Mr Joyce said the board was fully behind his decision to ground the fleet.

He said the easiest option would have been to capitulate to the unions.

But forward flight bookings had "collapsed" as the market lost confidence in the airline's reliability, especially as unions had threatened to drag out the industrial dispute.

"We knew we were losing our customers rapidly," Mr Joyce told the hearing, adding the dispute had already cost the airline 70,000 passengers and $15 million a week.

"The only alternative to me was to bring it to a head."

Mr Joyce said the airline had done "some planning" for a lockout of staff before the decision to ground the fleet.

However, he denied Qantas had booked 2000 hotel rooms in Los Angeles before the decision was made.

Mr Joyce admitted it was "a mistake" to continue taking flight bookings from customers after the fleet was grounded.

Online bookings were stopped at 8.30pm (AEDT) on Saturday - more than three hours after the grounding - when management realised its website had not been taken down.

Mr Joyce said Qantas would compensate its customers "above and beyond" that recommended by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

"It was always our intention, and you'll see on Monday what we're doing," he said.

Mr Joyce said there were many conspiracy theories going around that Qantas was preparing for the grounding before the decision was made on Saturday morning.

But they were not true, he said.

"There were no more hotel rooms booked before this than would have normally been booked on a standard operation," Mr Joyce told the hearing.

The Qantas chief also explained he had initially struggled to get hold of Jetstar boss Bruce Buchanan for the board meeting on Saturday. Jetstar is a Qantas subsidiary.

Three of his public relations department were at the races in Melbourne on Saturday.

"You'd think I would have wanted them to be in Sydney when all this took place," he said.

"They got trapped in Melbourne and had to buy Virgin tickets to get back."

Mr Joyce said if there was a conspiracy that was woeful planning.

Labor backbencher Doug Cameron then interjected: "That could be called an alibi."

The Qantas boss did say, however, that the company had planned for every scenario and that was to be expected.

"There was a lot of planning in advance but there was nothing of it actioned until we made a decision."

Labor senator Alex Gallacher then grilled Mr Joyce over who he had briefed about the possible action - and when.

The Qantas chief said he had spoken to ministers, shadow ministers and state politicians.

The airline explained there was a chance the entire fleet could be grounded "at short notice".

"[But] at no stage did I talk to anybody about lockouts.

"We didn't talk to anybody on either side of politics about a lockout."

Mr Joyce said Qantas spent more time briefing the Gillard government than the opposition in the past few weeks.

Mr Joyce was also asked by Senator Gallacher if he had discussed with anyone the potential break-up of the company and "the sell-off of the profitable bits to take it out of the market in a private equity way".

"No I have not," he said, adding it was his belief that the Qantas group would be strongest if kept together.

But Mr Joyce said the Qantas Sale Act amendment being proposed "would force us to break up the group" and threaten the airline's viability.

"It would force us to actually sell those component parts of this airline.

"It would take us down that path that would leave Qantas more exposed."

Mr Joyce said if the bill were passed the budget airline Jetstar would have to go as would the airline's planned ventures in Asia.

"It would stop us turning the business around," he said.

On the question of the grounding, Mr Joyce provided figures which he said showed bookings had collapsed and action was essential.

"Corporate travel ... in the week of October 17 on the east coast was down 40 per cent on the previous years," he said.

East-west transcontinental bookings were down 14 per cent and the Canberra route was down 20 per cent.

"So we had a massive collapse of our bookings during that period."

Under questioning from Liberal senator Eric Abetz, Mr Joyce said that Qantas would not have been able to announce a lockout and ground its fleet if Fair Work Australia had terminated all industrial action following ministerial intervention.

"That is correct," the Qantas chief said.

"Section 431 [of the Fair Work Act] would have stopped me taking the industrial action I was taking if it was declared, and that would have stopped the lockout."

Mr Joyce said federal and state governments, as well as the opposition, responded in a "professional and courteous" manner when told of the grounding on Saturday afternoon.

"Everybody was tidy," he said.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard did not ask for more time to consider her position - but nor was any offered.

"There was no discussion about changing that time frame," he said when asked if Ms Gillard had asked Qantas to put things on hold.

"But to be fair I did say that we'd made a decision and the airline had to be grounded."

AAP