I have no doubt that there are feather - bedding unionists in Qantas.
I have no doubt that there are overpaid pilots.
I have no doubt that there are incompetent and over paid managers as well.
But ferchrissake the cure administered by the current Board is worse than the disease.
All of QF's problems start at the very top - the Board and Senior Management.
The rest of the company takes its cues from them - it's called "modelling the behaviour". Ask Mr. Fyffe at Air New Zealand what that means.
When the staff see the Board and Senior management knocking back champagne in the Chairmans lounge while stuffing their face with Caviar, throwing paying passengers out of first class to seat their friends and family, organising "upgrades" for friends and treating the place as their personal fife, is it any wonder that they don't try and grab a fragment of this largesse for themselves???????
To put it another way, deliberately cryptically, have you ever received a fax from your Boss calling for staff cuts and an austerity campaign that was sent from the effing Hotel Danieli in Venice? I have. I didn't know whether to frame it and hang it in the staff toilet or roll it up and shove it up.
To put it yet another way, "bottles of Grange as Christmas presents to senior management, thanking them for their contribution?" OMFG!
Qantas has Three problems that are interrelated.
1. It wields enormous political power through its iconic status and its ability to deliver very valuable perks to its "friends". This attracts the worst possible type of external candidate to high office in such a company - narcissists, very charming, intelligent and outwardly capable narcissists that think only of themselves and their advancement. They will always push out good people to get to the top of the heap and they are very difficult to remove once a few levels of infestation are entrenched.
2. While it may not wield it now, Qantas has dominated the market for years. The issue here is that the economic development of the Australian States is affected by their easy and frequent access to Direct International Flights because this is a critical factor in attracting and holding international business investment and internationally focussed export industries. This has made QF's international flight schedules a subject of key interest to State Governments since at least 1975.
3. The intersection of (1) and (2) has seen QF "captured" by the NSW Government, whatever its political persuasion, as an examination of the political connections of its Directors over time demonstrates. This has led to the desirable situation, from the NSW Governments point of view, of QF facilitating the portrayal of Sydney as some sort of "Gateway" to Australia and the skewing of its schedules and operations in that city's favour. This will continue.
The problem for QF then becomes simple.
At the highest level - Its Board and management thinking and behaviour is clouded by (1), which means that nobody at all is thinking of the stakeholders (Customers, Staff, Suppliers and Shareholders), only themselves.
The range of available strategic options considered for Qantas are constrained by (2) and (3), in effect shackling the company's operations and futures to Sydney - the most expensive place to base an airline in Australia.
Hence the focus on "union busting", the attempted privatisation, the rotten investment decisions, and who knows what folly next month.
...And as for marketing, forget the perks and the other crap, what people want first and foremost in an Airline is a reliable transport and a repeatable level of service - something that QF long ago ceased to provide.
To put it another way, I know of no one who will willingly fly Qantas or Jetstar if there is another available option.
I don't see much future for QF at all because it's corporate baggage is just too heavy and the important parts of its corporate memory have been destroyed leaving just fairy floss. God forbid, but a couple of hull losses would put it out of it's misery.
Last edited by Sunfish; 7th Dec 2009 at 16:31.