Qantas Strikes Hit Four Airports as the Aussie Dollar Hits a Year High — Is Sydney Still Worth It?

On Thursday 24 September, Qantas ground and freight workers walked off the job for 24 hours at Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth airports, joined in Sydney by roughly 400 Certis Security screeners running their own two-hour stoppages — with a further three-hour screening stoppage confirmed for 28 September. It's the loudest Australian aviation dispute in months, and it lands just as the currency has quietly made the trip itself pricier: the Australian dollar has climbed roughly 12% against the Hong Kong dollar over the past year. For Hong Kong travellers weighing a Cathay or Qantas booking to Australia this spring, the question isn't whether the strike grounds your flight — it probably won't — but whether the currency move has already erased the value that used to make Sydney and Melbourne worth the 9-hour haul.

What's actually disrupted

The stoppage is narrower than the headlines suggest. Workers from Qantas Ground Services, Australian air Express and regional carrier QantasLink walked out over pay parity, secure hours and a single unified structure across Qantas's subsidiaries — but the action hit freight and regional legs hardest: AusPost, FedEx and UPS parcels sat on the tarmac, and QantasLink's regional network absorbed most of the cancellations. Qantas's mainline domestic and international schedule, including the HKG-SYD and HKG-MEL routes Hong Kong travellers actually fly, largely held. The real friction for passengers was the security queues during Sydney's two-hour screener walkouts — worth building 30-45 minutes of buffer around on 24 and 28 September specifically, not the whole trip.

The currency math, in HKD

This is the part that doesn't reverse on a single negotiating session:

• 2025 average: AUD/HKD sat near 5.03 for the year.
• September 2026: the pair is averaging about 5.64, roughly a 12% rise over twelve months.
• On a real fare: Cathay's current Hong Kong-Melbourne economy round trip runs about AU$1,050. At last year's rate that fare would have cost HK$5,282; at this month's rate it's HK$5,922 — HK$640 more, from currency alone, before any change in the airfare itself.

A three-star Sydney hotel room quoted at AU$220 a night followed the same path: HK$1,107 a year ago, HK$1,241 now — an extra HK$134 a night that has nothing to do with the strike and everything to do with the exchange rate you're locking in today.

Is it still worth it

Operationally, yes — the strike is a scheduling headache on two specific dates, not a reason to cancel. Financially, the honest answer is that Australia got noticeably more expensive this year, and the strike is a distraction from the number that actually matters. If your dates are flexible, that 12% FX gap is the bigger line item to negotiate around, not the picket line.

Booking around it

• Avoid Sydney connections timed around 6-8am and 6-8pm on 24 and 28 September — that's when the screener stoppages land.
• Lock in AUD-denominated hotel and tour costs now if you're committed to the trip; a currency that moved 12% in a year can move further before you fly.
• Price the whole trip in HKD before booking, not just the airfare — accommodation and car hire carry the same FX drag.

See Australia's currency and fare history on the destination page; for how we turn FX moves into one real-feel number, the methodology has the detail.