I wouldn’t believe all you read in the smh as the info supplied to it came from a biased source
SQ made a small error when they dumped their “commercial contract”(catering cleaning check in, baggage etc) with QF.
They Assumed that water service, REPOSITIONING TOWS and PUSH BACK TUGS were part of the ENGINEERING contract which was to remain.
In SQ this is the norm for Eng supply these services and was also true in many airports around the world until about 12 years ago.
(Something to note that TUGS/TOWS, water come out of the SQ engineering budget not commercial airports)
When SQ were confronted with the issue of having to find a Maint org capable of supplying Tugs/Tows to cater for its amount of traffic SQ enquired at QANTAS.
Apparently the word came from the top top not to supply tugs.
SQ now faced with having to pay QF Engineering for engineers and another company for tractor tugs found the bill was double the price of the old contract.
SQ wanted lower prices from QF Eng but would not go below cost.
SQs previous contract was a good deal as it was a “job lot” discounted for bulk user of all QFs services.
Looks like GD is playing GOD now engineers will lose their job thru no faults or inefficiencies of there own.
Air NZ can smell the blood in the water, can see QF under the thumb screw and is pushing for a better deal on their contract. Lets hope AirNZ stays, as it will be the loss of hundreds of jobs in all departments Aust wide
