i think if you attacked the employees of any Company they would come out and defend themselves. A company like Qantas (as incompetent as is has been for many years) doesnt survive after privatisation unless they are doing a few things right.
At the moment they are one of only three airlines in the world that will show any sort of profit. They are feeling the crunch of an economic crisis never seen before in aviation and we have seen a few recently, and yet all but Peter Harbison and 88 are indicating that qantas will survive albeit after a number of changes.
The Qantas board have started the culling of a number of executives and management where QF had become top heavy. Maintenance is being bought back onshore and a range of other necessary changes to ensure the survival of Qantas will be undertaken
88, nobody disputes that there are a lot of businesses that will go to the wall before the WFC is over, the staff of every company want their organisations to survive and will naturally talk it up. Its not arroganice its hope and confidence.
Qantas receives far less protection and propping up than the american airlines who file of chapter 11 and restructure more often than i have birthdays. Qantas is not state owned and gets little support other than what most countries do to protect their own national carriers with traffic rights.
Qantas has flourished against a level of competition from state owned airlines who are subsidized and given tax breaks and made huge profits. It is also probably the most heavily unionised company in Australia and still managed to achieve all of this.
To suggest that unions have been bad for Qantas is to ignore the facts above. If Unions have been so bad Qantas would have gone the way of the dodo years ago.
I would suggest that incompetent and greedy management have been far more dangerous to the survival of Qantas than the Unions. There hasnt been a Qantas union that had an official jailed or fined for fraud.
Qantas has one former exec in jail in the states and a 69 million dollar fine paid to top it off. That wasnt a Union or arrogant worker it was a management out of control.
Most of us are hopeful that the Gordon Gecko of Qantas Geoff Dixon hasnt damaged us beyond repair. You might think Qantas Staff arrogant but dont underestimate their committment to the airline and they will do whatever it takes to keep it flying.
They may hate their managements excesses but they dont hate the brand nor will they see it go the way of the dodo without much sacrifice if necessary. Just remember the doomsayers have been predicting the demise of Qantas since 1993 and they came through Gulf Wars, SARS, Asian Economic meltdowns, recessions and more and more Competition and are still plugging away