Not for one moment do I believe Stokes was thinking of AN or its people when he made the bid. Like all businessmen, his priorities would have been the bottom line. Sure, we would have had continued employment, or some of us would, but would there have been sufficient capital injection to ensure fleet updates as required, or would it have been more of the same as we had from Abeles, Murdoch and AirNZ?
What was the reason for the enforced secrecy, with the attendant threat to pull out on disclosure? Loss of "street cred" with his peers in the business world? If Kerry had had the guts for the job, what stopped him going ahead? Don't, please, tell me it was the unions/IR history; and if it was the poor management he saw, then why not buy the company, resurrect it THEN SACK 'EM? I'm sure it's a concept not totally foreign to one in his putative position. What did M&M know that the rest of us didn't? There's more to this than meets the eye, I'm sure.
AN brass spooked all of us, not just Stokes, but no-one ever listened! As for "that Titanic" Buster, there was more than enough evidence of iceberg activity LONG, LONG before September last, we should not have sunk in the first place. It surely wasn't the helm that the management of that ship had their hands on for many years before!!
Whiskery: Easdown is a journalist of no mean stature, don't be too eager to rubbish him or his work. I know OF him through a mutual friend, just haven't met him.
Kind regards,
TheNightOwl.
