Poor article by the biggest own goal kicker in Australian industrial relations history.
Agree that no one is really worth $24m/year remuneration. Thats a solid starting point.
However the selective choice of facts damages the credibility of his subsequent arguments.
Fair comparison on fleet age would be British Airways - big legacy airline, full service, covering domestic and international flying, similar tax environment. Their average fleet age is 13.7 years. Bang - that point is lost Mr Purvinas, case dismissed.
Did Senior Management also have a pay freeze. Yes. Bang - point lost again - case dismissed.
Mr Purvinas does not seem to understand the difference between cashflow and accounting or is choosing to mislead the reader. If Qantas was to spend $1bn on new aircraft this year, it would not take $1bn off the bottom line. The new aircraft are depreciated over 20 years so in simple profit and loss figures, the impact would be around $50m increase in depreciation (keeping it simple). This would be partly offset by lower operating costs and lower maintenance costs if its replacing an old aircraft or by increased revenue/margin if its an addition to the fleet. So the exact impact is not obvious but worst case its a $50m cost per year.
The underlying issue is that current accounting/tax rules essentially force an Australian airline to keep aircraft for 20 years otherwise they take a financial hit from retiring the aircraft early.
It could be argued that by not purchasing more new aircraft now, Joyce is doing future management a very big favour by not lumbering them with ongoing depreciation costs for aircraft that may become obsolete/inefficient in less that the required 20 year life of the aircraft. He is allowing future management the flexibility to purchase the most efficient and suitable aircraft at that time.
Lets not start that the "own goal kicker" appears to be advocating that QF should be replacing the current 737 fleet faster? That would have worked out real well if they had gone for the Max.
I have to wonder who the own goal kicker is really representing?. New aircraft = less maintenance whilst older aircraft = more maintenance = more work for the people he represents.
Keep the first two paragraphs and keep the last sentence.
The last sentence is a fair point:
"Even if Qantas was well run, I do not believe any one person deserves a yearly salary package that an average person couldn't spend in a lifetime."