Interesting comment from Sydney Airport forum:
It was reported back at the time when PWC was still administrating that they had found a buyer within one week who were willing to take 10,000 of the 16,000 staff. Apparently this deal was scuttled due to angst by the ACTU that the 10,000 staff were going onto workplace contracts mitigating the union power. More importantly for the ACTU, it would mean that Virgin and now this airline were on contracts which gave Qantas better leverage to move down the same path effectively mitigating the value of the ACTU in aviation.
Does this Stokes announcement then:
1. Indicate that it was in fact Stokes who was the interested party and that the "overseas consortium" was just a smokescreen?
2. Was Stokes' offer in addition to the previously declared offer in the first week?
3. Was Stokes unhappiness in Ansett management only part of the reason for him pulling out or were there union issues involved as well?
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Regards, Brendan