Prof
First of all, TN was not so much propped up by the Government over the years but rather was stripped of profits by them year after year.
If a fleet upgrade was needed they then had to go back to the government and beg for a portion of it back.
Secondly, can you not see SIA's failed Grand Plan?
With 2 members on the board of NZ, talk them around taking over AN. They were well aware that the NZ incumbents couldn't run a chook raffle much less AN and that it would collapse. The theory was that SQ would then ride in like a white knight and rescue the carrier and its people and be a hero.
Why you ask would they do it that way? Simple - by putting NZ in the driver's seat SQ would not lose face when it fell over initially. Why did they want Ansett? Rights to the Pacific ex Australia which they have lusted over for years were at stake, plus the domestic feeds ex Australia they were going to eventually lose whe AN self immolated all on its own. What buggered up the master plan? A bunch of life support systems for tea towels flying aeroplanes into stationary objects. Poor timing - not of their own cause.
SQ had 2 choices to rebirth the AN Empire, which was top heavy and management weak but with a first class front end.
One was to remove the top 3 to 4 levels of management and put their own selections into their seats. This would have been extremely expensive with redundancies, long service and the like. The other and cheaper way was to cause it to fail. That worked fine, but 9/11 screwed to puppy.
Let us be certain about one thing - SQ is the villain, and always has been. SQ was the disease, NZ was the vector, AN was the casualty.
The rebirth may well have worked, but for some very foxy stretching until all other consortiums fell away as the costs rose.
I would love to know the numbers on the cheques SQ wrote for that little excercise.
Sermon endeth, but have a good look at the events.
Best all
EWL