I know that this is a pilot forum, not a management one, but these arguments do get a bit repetitive. The mantra seems to be that everything wrong with the company is the fault of senior management, who are, to a man, grossly overpaid and incompetent. The other overriding theme is that management numbers and salaries must be cut, but at the same time, crew salaries and working conditions should be essentially inviolate. Some posters seem to think that a pilot's job at QANTAS should be a highly paid sinecure until retirement. There are claims that pilots are cheap when compared to their counterparts in the US (although what this has to do with anything at all in an Australian business context is not clear - particularly given the percentage of US majors in Chapter 11 protection).
All this is, with the greatest of respect, largely irrelevant. QANTAS is a private company, whose obligations are to the people who provide the capital to run the business - that is, the debt and equity holders. It is not an employment service for pilots, managers or anyone else. As I pointed out on another thread, the world's airlines collectively lost $6bn last year. Even those that made a profit (such as QANTAS) fell well short of providing an adequate return on equity to the people who invested the money to operate the business. To increase that return, profits must also be increased - which means either more revenue or less costs. So sure, cut management positions and salaries (after all, weren't those very cuts what started this thread?) but please - get your heads out of the sand.
The widely quoted 5000 "management" positions are, as was pointed out above, around 15% of the total workforce. Although all of the top salary earners are in that 15%, are people here seriously suggesting that the other 85% should be untouchable? In an ever more commoditised market, yields are down, costs are up and shareholders aren't getting the return they expect - meaning that they will eventually stop putting money into the business. In the light of all this, to suggest that radical change is not going to be required is simply fantasy.
Oh - any new CEO that might be recruited to replace the current one knows all this too, so I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for anything to change soon. In my respectful submission, too many of you are shooting the messenger here...Your real problem is with the economics of the airline business in 2006, not with the individuals on the QANTAS executive team who will come and go like any senior management.
just my opinion - after all, everyone's got one!
SW