Just been thinking about this more, the demise of Ansett, as I said before I was with them for almost 30 years up until 1990, and regardless of who/what caused them to finally close, I think the slow end began when the Company was taken over by TNT/News, it was certainly one of the reasons I left AN to go to Compass when I got the offer.
Will NOT go in to anything controversial, but apart from anything else the whole culture changed from being a caring "Family Company" to just a very uncaring ''Corporate Culture''.
As an example some time after the takeover we had one of our Storemen go on holiday back to Ireland, he was involved in an accident an seriously ill in hospital, previously the local Management would have done whatever it took to get his Wife on an aircraft and off to Ireland and worry about sorting out the paperwork later.
However under the new Owners this was prevented, not only they couldn't do that but the new Owners insisted his Wife must submit an application for Staff Concessional Travel signed by the Employee (YES the one in hospital in Ireland) before THEY would consider letting her travel, of course what happened was what we all feared, he sadly passed away before his Wife got to Ireland to be with him.