Thousands of anxious and angry passengers gathered at airports worldwide yesterday as Qantas began the painstaking process of returning its jets to the skies after a crippling shutdown.

There were cheers of relief as departure gates opened across Australia following an emergency ruling in yesterday’s early hours that Qantas abandon a lockout of staff and grounding of its worldwide fleet.

But many of the 70,000 passengers stranded in 22 cities worldwide said it was an incident they’d not soon forget and those who have spent days holed up in hotels with little information vowed to never again fly Qantas.

“The man in the middle is the customer and the customer is easy to lose, but boy is he difficult to get back,” said Briton Cedric Clifford, who touched down in Sydney from New Zealand late yesterday.

Known as the Flying Kangaroo, the iconic 90-year-old flag carrier stunned Australia when it announced its decision to ground all aircraft in a bid to bring an acrimonious row with labour unions to a head. Some 84 international flights were cancelled during the shutdown, leaving passengers of Qantas – the world’s 10th-largest airline by traffic – marooned across the globe.

Though flights resumed late yesterday, almost 48 hours after the crippling flight freeze was launched, services were limited and it was expected to take two days to clear the backlog.

More than 100 travellers anxious to be first in line for a flight gathered at Singapore’s Changi Airport on Monday, where police had cordoned off a large area of the departures hall for Qantas passengers to wait.