Originally Posted by
Stationair8
One of Australia’s resident aviation expert has been busy hitting the airwaves, with the demise of Bonza.
Thankfully Australia has Qantasflot to keep us flying!
Remember how Qantas led by Geoff Dixon stepped up and saved the day when Ansett stopped operating. Brought a tear to my eye, not to mention the hip pocket!
RIP Bonza.
Bonza's business model was never going to work and they didn't fly anywhere that QF or VA flew so QF and/or VA's market share is irrelevant.
Ansett was a great airline but pathetically managed, raped for any asset of value by the two amigos during the late 70s and 80s so when things went bad there was nothing to sell, especially since those two removed things like the media assets, TV networks, etc. and road transport, sold the DC-9s to a shelf company in the Caymans allegedly for a 10th of their value then on-sold them and pocketed the rest, all while lumbering it with high wages by rolling over every time the unions threatened action and a mix-match of different aircraft, many of which were designed to do the same job - like A320s and 737s. On top of that, apart from the original five 767-277s, ALL the other 767s were different, down to their seating configurations and ACARS units, size of the cargo doors, etc. Don't get me started on the ludicrous FE on a 767.
Abeles poured millions into the Islands with no prospect of every achieving a payback on investment and while withering on the vine, they went on a spending spree buying every other half-collapsed airline.
An arrogant Air NZ moving in and buying the second half for a ridiculous price just set the scene to finish off what was half dead anyway.
None of that was Qantas' fault. I remember after the difficult merger with TN, AN had the clear majority of the market for a number of years. Both airlines had their chances, one of them blew it.