TAA/Australian merger with Qantas

[Jackbr]

I'm interested to know the reason behind the merger between TN and QF? How did this impact Ansett?

And from a public point of view, at what point did TN "truly" become a part of QF in terms of uniforms, aircraft liveries, use of "Qantas" name in announcements, deployment of 767s on domestic routes etc?

[nitpicker330]

Trans Australia Airlines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Australia_Airlines)

[nitpicker330]

Also visit this place, it's very good------

TAA Museum :: About the Museum (http://www.taamuseum.org.au/AbouttheMuseum/)

[Pastor of Muppets]

TN never truly became part of QF.
QF "took over" in '93 and quickly set forth a team of clip board carrying, clicky pen toting stiff necks to highlight the "inadequacies" of TN and the superiority of the "Sydney way"
The slide was dramatic, sections were closed, sent to an already crowded Mascot. The slow wheel revolved, crushing TN.

[Fris B. Fairing]

Pastor of Muppets

TN never truly became part of QF.
QF "took over" in '93 and quickly set forth a team of clip board carrying, clicky pen toting stiff necks to highlight the "inadequacies" of TN and the superiority of the "Sydney way"
The slide was dramatic, sections were closed, sent to an already crowded Mascot. The slow wheel revolved, crushing TN.

Be assured that many QF staff thought the reverse was true.

Rgds

[chimbu]

Fact:
The socialists decided to sell 49% of Qantas. Even allowing 25% foreign participation, nobody wanted in.
Keating therefore woke up one morning in '92 and hit upon the bright idea of bundling TAA/ Australian to sweeten the deal.
Suddenly there were buyers.

Opinion:
No buyers initially because Q was, and is, an ageing klunker, living on public money.
Australian provided the cash flow and had a dynamic and financially successful ethos.
Australian joining Qantas killed that.
After a time Australian became like Qantas- fat, arrogant, big- headed and 'we are the world's best'.
Ha
The ultimate insult- Australian staff having to wear Qantas uniforms.

[What The]

Some people can't handle the truth.

Australian was financially strapped and couldn't get access to any more funds due to the level of debt carried after the Strong years. Sound familiar?

QANTAS, on the other hand, was "a very well run business" according to James as he was heard to say in later years. Nothing like today.

The problem became that those that got Australian in the mess they were in took over the top jobs at QANTAS and proceeded down the same path. Sound familiar?

[chimbu]

The truth you say.
Sure you're not a product of institutional conditioning?
Only an outsider could (and can) see the many problems of Q.

[What The]

We are talking about the merger 20 years ago. I don't think one succumbs to "institutional conditioning" as you call it when working for QANTAS. In fact, the dynamics of the place tend to make you quite able to call "bull****" when you see it.

If you would like to debate facts rather than psychoanalysis go for it.

[Boe787]

One measure of the efficiency of any Airline, is the utilisation of its Aircraft.

I recall at the time of the merger, looking over the Aircraft Utilisation patterns of the Qantas and Australian fleets.

You could drive a truck through the gaps in the Qantas fleet Utilisation!

To suggest that Qantas was a better run business at the time than Australian is pure folly!

[What The]

Boe787

One was a domestic carrier doing the flights that that entails. The other was an international carrier.

Surely you don't think that aircraft utilisation could possibly be the same, do you? That is not possible with an international schedule.

[Rodney Rotorslap]

What The has hit the nail on the head. Many did not appreciate the fundamental differences between domestic and international ops. When people from a domestic background found themselves running international ops they would not admit that they were out of their depth so they ignored it and hoped it would go away. Ultimately they got their wish.

[Old Fella]

You may have been able to drive a truck through QF utilisation but you would have to fly QF or take a sea voyage to get to their destinations.

[Paragraph377]

I'm interested to know the reason behind the merger between TN and QF? How did this impact Ansett? The term 'merger' is a metaphor in this case, and for many of those who worked for that grand old airline TAA (then Australian) will likely also agree that it was no merger. A slightly subdued not so hostile takeover is more accurate. There is no doubt that Jimmy Bow tie did have some business acumen about him, and he was a CEO that could run a fairly stable ship, however all is lost now and just the memory of a once great airline exists. And yes, for the record, there is still a TAA vs Qantas divide in some areas, but that is now almost non-existent, the focus is now Qantas vs Jetstar.

[4Greens]

The merger of TAA and Qantas put Ansett out of business.

[Stanwell]

With respect, 4Greens, there was a bit more to Ansett's demise than that!

[Yarra]

The sale of TN was also assisted with some $700 mil of equipment and other debt written off by the govt. Ansett continued to operate burdened by a similar amount at that stage. That in a small way contributed to the demise of AN. The TN/QF merger though was not the single cause.

[4Greens]

Ansett tried to set up an international service and it proved impossible.

[Wunwing]

Lots of informed,semi informed and just plain wrong opinions here.
To really understand the merger, it has to be placed into historical perspective.

Firstly all domestic airlines had gone through the event that can't be mentioned on PPRUNe and were all a bit short of cash.However Qantas had not been through that experience and was financially viable at that time.

The other big influence on the merger was the demise of the once all powerful Pan Am in 1991.One of the major reasons for Pan Ams failure was Pam Ams lack of a domestic capacity (it didn't have much). This was very much in the mind of the Australian Govt when it decided to float Qantas.So once the Fed Govt had decided to divest itself of both TN and QF it made sales sense to combine the 2 and hopefully get more for a combined airline that they would for 2 separate airlines.The Govt did the same with airport sales ie Bankstown,Hoxton Park and Camden.It should be noted at this point that the Govt had so little confidence in the Australian airline industry when it was to be cut loose that they insisted on a substantial share being sold to an overseas airline which ended being BA

The real differences between TN and QF were that despite TN beginning as a spinoff from QF after WW2, they were in many senses very different beasts.QF had begun life as a private company and was nationalised but remained a private company, with the Commonwealth holding the majority of shares and control. TN was from the beginning a Fed Govt Commission and its management style reflected that status. Qantas was also very much influenced by what the Govt of the day was doing regarding overseas and defence policy.Over my time there we worked for the RAAF with numerous military charters, under aid programs we help set up new airlines who then went on to compete with us(Air New Guinea, MAS, Air Pacific, Biman etc) and we flew uneconomic routes working with BA/BOAC to join up the pink bits on the globe.There was also a very heavy defence engineering setup.That was the Qantas task and we did it well. For most of the period from WW2 to the merger making a profit was a secondary task to carrying out the owners overiding issues.

TNs role was to run a domestic airline under the dual airline policy and therefore compete with Ansett. Again this inefficient model was very much politically driven and the primary aim was to serve Australia, not make a profit. In this case TN and Ansett served a number of small ports which were loss makers as part of their Govt remit.

By the time of the merger, the Govt had decided to bail out of airline ownership just as it had floated the dollar, reduced tarriffs, began privatising airports, etc.It was very much Australia coming of age.While the merger made economic sense, there was very little thought put into how it would work.Probably the choice of a manager who had been in charge of TAA, was not the wisest move.He was seen by many staff as part of the unmentionable event and by QF staff as a Mexican. Certainly some of his early briefings to QF staff showed a lack of understanding of how the QF system worked. There was also the complete difference in fleet composition with QF at the time having B767 and B747 and TN having A300, B727 and B737. In many ways a merger of Ansett and QF and ANZ and TAA may have made better sense.

There were many "culture" clashes and inter union disputes during the early merged days and while I was party to having problems with the blue team I am certain there were some the other way. The main problems that I experienced were the lack of understanding of how a 24 hour a day worldwide operation that competed with a large number of airlines actually worked.It was unfortunately "a don't confuse me with the facts,I've made up my mind situation".

I was part of a team that represented the QF staff in the Productivity Commission enquiry into airline deregulation which preceded the merger and sale. If you really want to understand the process of deregulation, look it up.One of the subjects that came up regularly during that time was the perception that QF utilised its fleet inefficiently.No one out side of Qantas seemed to comprehend the problems of dealing with multiple time zones and curfews, given our geographic place on the globe.We also pointed out that QF used the downtime in the northern hemisphere that was caused by curfews, to have aircraft maintained, resulting in rapid turnarounds in Sydney.One example we used was the way QF utilised a B747 200 on the NRT,SYD,AKL route which meant that when not being maintained the aircraft averaged 19 hours per day utilisation.We were more than a bit puzzled when at the end of the enquiry there was still an opinion passed of ineficient utilisation.They even suggested that Qantas should go on from NRT to include Beijing.They wouldn't listen to the fact that this actually introduced inefficient utilisation and a huge marketing problem.

Overall Qantas prior to and early into the merger must be examined over the period from WW2 if you want the real story.All 3 major Australian airlines and the industry in general were very different beasts with very different aims than they are now.

Finally Ansett was doomed once it was cut adrift from the 2 Airline Policy without any real external alliances.It could be argued that the fatal error for AN was when Reg sold off the Cathay stake they had via ANA and used the cash to buy into the New Guinea operation. The AN tale would have been a whole different story if AN had been in partnership with Cathay.

Wunwing

[94873]

Always love a merger where one side, QANTAS, pays $400 million and assumes the debt of the other side. AUSTRALIAN, while generating cash flow, were deeply in debt.

[JamieMaree]

94873,
The owner of both airlines,the Australian government decided that they should be merged. One was a private company where the govt owned the shares and the other was run by a commission. The govt gave Qantas the money to sort out the Australian finances as well as its own, and the entity was called Qantas Airways Ltd and then listed on the stock exchange after parcels of shares where sold to British Airways and others.

[Wunwing]

JM.
I thought that was included in my post in July 2014.
Wunwing

[Stanwell]

Wunwing,
Yes it was - and contained in a very good summation, too. :ok:

[JamieMaree]

Wunwing,it was but 94873 obviously understand it.

[Sunfish]

..And the young bloke who set the ball rolling was Robin Hocking whose untimely death at age 32 from cancer deprived Australia of a great economist.

"Some economic aspects of Australia's two airline policy" ​ by Robin Hocking.

Some economic aspects of Australia's two airline policy / by Robin Hocking. - Version details - Trove (http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/21653589?selectedversion=NBD392179)

He was a great friend and I was glad to have helped him as one of his deep background sources.

In those days of the Two airline policy, TAA was a sheltered workshop and Ansett not much better. Who can forget the daily ritual of the boozy lunches at Macs where the middle managers and their cronies of both airlines conspired together to set prices and service standards. Does anyone remember our alcoholic superannnuation fund manager and the raft of drinkers "let go" when Abeles took over?


Yes, it was fun. They were safe and operationally excellent, but viable, efficient, intensely competitive businesses? No.