Oleo is extended, I like your style and you are spot on I'm sure!
Watch now as everyone enters "CYA' mode. My guess is that not one single Australian lower echelon manager in this mess will survive.
I have consistently said on these forums that Qantas should not be investing outside Australia, specifically in Asian airlines, for the simple reason that there is nothing that Qantas can bring to Asia that Asia cannot provide cheaper and better itself.
Now the question.
Do I have to tell any of you how this whole sorry saga ends?????
Yet more from todays "The Age" below.
Airline bosses kept in limbo
TOM ALLARD, HO CHI MINH CITY AND MATT O'SULLIVAN
January 16, 2010
DANIELA Marsilli was about to board a plane home to Australia with her family when a Vietnamese official pulled her aside and told her she was forbidden to leave the country.
''It was surreal, not believable,'' Ms Marsilli says of the travel ban slapped on her and another Jetstar Pacific airline executive just before Christmas.
Ms Marsilli and Tristan Freeman remain in limbo in Vietnam while security agencies investigate the airline's financial dealings, but they insisted yesterday they had nothing to hide.
Luong Hoai Nam, their former boss at Jetstar Pacific, which is part owned by Qantas, was imprisoned this week as part of the investigation, but the Australians are confident they will not meet the same fate.
''I have nothing to hide,'' Ms Marsilli said.
Jetstar Pacific, critical to Qantas' strategy of developing a no-frills airline network in one of the few fast-growing aviation markets in the world, has been buffeted by problems in Vietnam.
As well the investigation of the two Australians and Mr Nam's arrest, its safety record is under siege from whistleblowers, Vietnam's aviation regulator and unions in Australia.
It was also found to have illegally sacked an engineer, whistleblower Bernard McCune. Meanwhile, the powerful Transport Ministry is pushing to have the airline change its logo, saying that its orange star is a corruption of the star on the Vietnamese flag.
Jetstar chief executive Bruce Buchanan, who is on the board of Jetstar Pacific, is confident the airline can survive the crisis and defends the performance of the airline and its managers.
Others, however, are more critical, saying its Australian managers have a poor understanding of Vietnamese affairs.
''Jetstar's inherent weakness is that they haven't got a clue about doing business in Asia,'' a former Qantas executive said.
A former Jetstar Pacific employee said: ''People who think they can go into countries like Vietnam and just change the rules overnight … well, it ain't going to work.''
Mr Buchanan concedes that the company's entry into Vietnam has not been easy. ''It's been a difficult path in terms of the first privatisation of any communist-run business in Vietnam,'' he says.
Part of any commercial airline's operation is to lock in fuel costs by hedging against further price rises, and it was these activities that got Ms Marsilli, the airline's chief operating officer, and Mr Freeman, its chief financial officer, into trouble.
Jetstar Pacific locked in fuel costs when prices had soared to crippling high levels in 2008 amid fears they would go even higher. But the global financial crisis meant prices plummeted to a third of their previous levels, leaving the airline with losses of $US31 million.
Other airlines did the same thing and incurred heavy losses but, for Vietnam's Government, the loss seemed inexplicable.
Mr Buchanan insists the hedging decision was endorsed by the Jetstar Pacific board but Vietnamese media reports say the hedging went well beyond the scope of any mandate.
''The Vietnamese would see a $US31 million loss as someone stealing the money from them,'' the former Jetstar Pacific employee said.
Carlyle Thayer from the University of NSW, one of the world's top experts on Vietnam's political and economic transformation, said the investigation was akin to ''criminalising poor business decisions''.
''It's Jetstar [Pacific's] success that has pissed off other people,'' he said.
But insiders say there are divisions between local and expatriate managers, not least over the large salaries and perks given to the foreigners.
Part of the probe that has ensnared Ms Marsilli and Mr Freeman relates to allegations of over-payments to executives.
Ms Marsilli denied any lack of harmony in the workforce or significant safety problems in emailed responses to questions by The Age vetted by Qantas.
Airline bosses kept in limbo