If today's SMH article below is anything to go by, it seems to the interested bystander that Jetconnet is simply the entre?
Captain is blown off course. Dixon bangs new drum
Geoff Dixon knows which side his brioche is buttered. When the former Qantas boss spoke at an aviation conference in Sydney last week we couldn't help but notice that he quoted from, ahem, a ''credible industry model'' for forecasting developed by Seabury Aviation & Aerospace.
Apparently, it was predicting an unprecedented decline in global passenger revenue. Dixon banged on about how that could lead to a wave of merger and acquisition activity in the sector.
It's perhaps at this point we should note that Dixon signed up to a directorship less than two months ago with Seabury Aviation & Aerospace. Did we mention that it happens to have an M&A department? Nothing like drumming up a little business.
Thing being, the next day Dixon's successor at Qantas, Alan Joyce, pooh-poohed the idea of any M&A activity, saying the ''time is absolutely not right'' for mergers with competitors and a distraction from the job of running an airline. Such a drag having to hand over power on the way out.
Meanwhile, those former private equity buyout links at Qantas just keep popping up. We've spotted another name Dixon may be familiar with on the dinner ticket at Seabury. David Turnbull, a former director of Allco Finance, which was to be a significant holder of a private equity-owned Qantas that Dixon was going to run, is the chairman of Seabury Asia.
Despite AJ's protests, I see a seachange in the wind. No M&A's, just a jointly owned Global Fleet leased to the airlines that make up the Alliance.