Fin Review
Ants Nest??!!……..think poor lowerlobe walked into a minefield!!….shame that whenever a crew member raises some interesting points that the faaa supporters gang up using school bully boy tactics. Anyway time we all took a cold shower and re-focussed on our common enemy. And you can start by going out and purchasing the Weekend Financial Review and read the cover story by Jennifer Hewitt and James Hall “How to make Qantas soar”……..”with $11 billion on the table, the proposed new owners of Qantas are keen to accelerate CEO Geoff Dixons ambitious plans for the airline ---- behind closed doors”
Some key comments are -----
Having Bob Mansfield, the former Telstra Chairman, as the new public face of the Consortium to take over Qantas. He would be the ideal person to sell the deal as an Australian one. It was vital, after all, that their new man be trusted in Canberra, known by the public and reassuring to shareholders………it could’nt be anyone from Macquarie Bank, regarded as too dominant, too arrogant and too bloody rapacious……..and it
certainly could’nt be a representative of the “foreign barbarians”.
“Backing Dixons already radical plan for the airline while giving him a stronger mandate to implement it than he has ever had before. The nub of this strategy is to drive Qantas’s operating costs lower by rapidly expanding the budget offshoot, Jetstar, which has unit costs 30 percent to 40 percent lower than those of Qantas, while making each part of Qantas accountable for turning a profit from every dollar. Indeed, for all the sentimentality over Qantas. It will be Jetstar that will be the real pilot of the airline".
"Qantas staff can also expect to earn less on aggregate as a result . Dixon has made no secret of his dislike for pilots who earn in excess of $300,000 a year when their peers at Virgin Blue, and now Jetstar, earn about half that and work longer hours. Dixon will not try to sack these people, but he will undertake any expansion plans using his low cost option. Similarly cabin crew earning $60,000 a year on Qantas will find their role in any expansion plans limited as Jetstar pays its new international crew about $35,000 on Australian Workplace Agreements”
“On Thursday Dixon said he would place his long term incentives – likely to be worth $30-$60 million dollars – in a charitable trust. It was another very clever political move in terms of switching the focus away from an estimated $500 million in fees and shares and profits that so many people expect to make out of the deal. This gesture was only one example of the masterful spin that softened the public reaction to the announcement this week”
A very intersesting article indeed. I only wish the authors had mentioned the already obscene amount of money our executives swallow up. Instead of swallowing they’ll now be gagging on their ill gotten gains.
The spin doctors have been well & truly at work with this and their timing is impeccable, just before Christmas, with peoples minds on other things and the main radio & tv business news commentators on holiday. And they’re also using the same spin on the public as they have with the introduction of Jetstar International which in my opinion is a huge con on the Australian public, with it’s flood of advertising about it’s all about choice, choice to buy drinks, meals blankets etc when, as has been pointed out by others here, that you can fly full service airlines such as Thai & Singapore for around the same cost.
Ladies & gentlemen it’s going to be a very interesting 2007.
Last edited by Shlonghaul; 17th Dec 2006 at 00:54.