Originally Posted by
RampDog
Spot on Buster!
Most people in this game never made the connection but it was such a good business model that it reappeared in 2004 as Jetstar Domestic.
And it was no coincidence that there were a number of ex-Ansett execs involved in making it fly for Qantas (can you guess just one?)
Is there anyone out there who was involved who would care to describe how that plan arose and was sold within QF, it would be very interesting and timely
Sure! I will let some tidbits out. I know because I was ‘around’. Geoff Dixon, Alan Joyce and Bill Jauncey were the architects. Obviously Geoff was at QF and Alan and Bill were ex Ansett. In fact, once up and running Bill Jauncey could/was almost the JQ CEO but they wanted a ‘cleaner’ looking CEO image, a clean shaven suit wearing mincer like AJ was perfect. Bill was a gravelly whisky drinking ciggie smoker, but a very smart man. The
original plan was simple - QF to do international and just the highly profitable business class domestic routes - BNE/SYD/MEL. The rest was to go to JQ. Cheap cheap cheap! Get rid of those pesky $300k pilots and have the majority of flights done by Onestar Pilots on around $120k. That’s the short version.
As for Virgin (Blue), they should’ve stuck with the intended business model - all 737 fleet and aimed at low fares and filling planes. Simple. But by the time JQ was hitting the tarmac
VB had a fat workforce and was far from lean. JQ was the opposite and most times it was ridiculously lean.
VB were never going to be able to operate cheaper than JQ and should’ve started trimming fat back in 2005 but they didn’t. They became a floated company and decided to chase QF’s business model/lounges/ rewards card structure, but it was only ever a half arsed product that sat in between cattle classs and business. Big, costly mistake. Then when they morphed from an all 737 fleet to an entity with b737, A320, A330, ATR and the list goes on, it was ‘game over’ not ‘game changer’. You would’ve thought that the ghost of Ansett and it’s ridiculous fleet variation thanks to Sir Peter Abeles going to Tolouse and getting a hard-on and opening the cheque book could be repeated. You would think that Ansett would have still been fresh in the minds of anyone operating an airline in Australia, but nah. That was the day Ansett died, the end result was inevitable and occurred a number of years later. Same has happened to Virgin Australia, it started out with an identity but lost its way and never got comfortable with who it wanted to be and what it had eventually become.