Doing it tough at Qantas (Crikey)
crikey.com.au
Doing it tough at Qantas
Pemberton Strong
Aviation correspondent
Qantas has caught Crikey's attention for a variety of reasons over the last couple of weeks - here's a package of our recent coverage from subscriber emails:
30 December 2004
Spare a thought for the fifty or so super high flyers with Qantas as they struggle to decide which of the two $500-plus bottles of wine, delivered personally by senior Qantas executives this week, to drink first over the silly season.
And isn't it good to know Qantas chair Margaret Jackson is using her cross-directorships to good effect. The $50,000 worth of fabulous plonk handed out around the executive suites were none other than Penfolds, the flagship brand of Southcorp, where Jacko became deputy chairman on fleeing the Fairfax board earlier this year.
Memo to the ATO: Make sure Qantas pays the FBT on these gifts and check if the big 50 declare them in their returns.
It would be interesting to know if Southcorp threw them in as a bonus to Qantas executives or if the Qantas board decided to dip into existing stocks that would normally be offered in first class.
$8000 for a short bed from Qantas
Meanwhile, a short subscriber writes:
Qantas Skybeds, introduced with such fanfare at such a huge cost, are for shorties only. I am 5 foot 7 inches and can just stretch out fully. I can't imagine that all those 6 foot or more people who have paid their $8000 plus for a bed must think about being short-changed.
I know Qantas is paranoid about this becoming public and have taken steps to try to control photo images of the beds, expressing great concern that anyone who is photographed in one is not too tall. Be interesting to compare the lengths of skybeds on Qantas, BA, Singapore Airlines and - now -Virgin.
James Packer's Qantas cross-promotion
December 23 subscriber email
It seems Margaret Jackson isn’t the only Qantas board member to do a little bit of cross-promoting when the opportunity arises.
The only brand of toiletries advertised in the ladies' bathroom in the Qantas Club is Jurlique. The very same Jurlique that the Packer family recently extracted out of Challenger in exchange for surrendering its management rights.
James Packer, of course, joined the Qantas board earlier this year in a bizarre move that baffled many observers.
The Packer family's close links with the AWU and people like Bill Shorten was thought to be useful for Qantas's ongoing industrial battles but apart from that, some critics put the move down to more social climbing by Qantas chair Margaret Jackson.
The Fairfax board was certainly not amused to first discover that Jacko was considering an invitation to join the News Corp board earlier this year and then later learnt that she'd been courting James Packer to join her at Qantas whilst sitting inside the tent at Fairfax.
No wonder Fairfax chairman Dean Wills put out a terse statement when she jumped to become deputy chairman of Southcorp, the wine provider of choice at Qantas.
The truth on Qantas and FBT
December 29 subscriber email
Steve the Tax Specialist writes:
Regarding your suggestion of FBT being payable on the free wine provided to super-high flyers at Qantas - sorry to spoil a good stir with the facts, but its unlikely FBT would be payable for the following reasons:
There is probably not an 'arrangement' between Qantas the employers of those individuals (the absence of an arrangement will mean FBT is not payable), and;
As non-employees of Qantas, they could treat the benefits as non-deductible meal entertainment which does not incur FBT, and3. They'll probably write it off in their accounts as 'promotional' costs anyway.
Steve (Tax specialist)
Meanwhile, a Qantas staffer moans:
Nice to know the the boys and girls at the top are giving themselves chrissy presents/rewards this year, for all their hard work. The general staff have had to pay for their own Christmas parties. Sad state of affairs really, especially when Southcorp could have supplied the drinks at least.
They just get more out of touch.
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