I remember travelling on an Ansett B727 BNE-CNS 1n the 1990s. That was when airline travel was an experience, not the bus trip it is today. Of course the fare was alot higher, luckily someone else was paying.
Would have been a great job flying for a real airline, good pay and conditions, reasonable flying hours decent benefits. I'm going to work later today and have just packed my own lunch because the company won't even give us a cup of coffee, I'm getting very close to my monthly flying hour limit as well. Shouldn't complain though with over half my pay dependent on how much flying I do.
I had my application in with Ansett and remember ATC sympathising with the crew as they cleared them to land during the days when the aircraft were being returned to base. Brief period of hope during the Tesna days then all over.
Got to fly with a few ex Ansett pilots since then and yes the phrase "That's not how we did things at Ansett." did get on a few peoples nerves.
So many things brought about the downfall, external factors beyond it's control, poor management, inability to change with the times. Had they kept going major changes would have been needed to compete with Tiger/Jetstar.
Low cost airlines just concentrate on offering the cheapest fares that's it, suits alot of people. Full service need to, have enough people prepared to pay more for something better, keep the fares attractive vs low cost and still make a profit doing it. Not so easy.
Could Ansett with its bloated overheads, poor fleet mix (A320 and B737), poor management, high costs and strong unions compete against lean operators with a brand new single type fleet, non or little union representation and much reduced pay and conditions ? I doubt it
Ansett goes down in history with other legacy airlines from the good days of air travel. This job isn't what it used to be.