As Sunfish termed 'sub optimisation' our managers reasoning was not that he wanted to save the APU's but was actually the cost of the diesel that powered the GPU's came from his business unit budget, and the cost of the fuel the APU would burn came from the operations business unit budget.....go figure!!
It would appear that Qantas is suffering from much the same flawed management techniques, with nobody actually looking at the wider view.
Gas Bags wins the 'statement of the day award'. His comment perfectly sums up the management method that today's airlines and businesses in general have adopted. A legacy of manager's willing to take a course of action in his department that saves him money, even if it adds an additional cost to another department as a result, which in turn can affect the entire organisations profitability. But hey, said manager comes in under budget and picks up his KPI bonus !
This is a current but foolish method of managing a business within an airline and it would seem as others have already pointed out - the chickens have come home to roost in this case.
Many of this airlines current and escalating issues had 'the seeds sewn' 8 years ago at the top tier by it's scissor wielding predecessor.
The hilarious thing is that when the current spiral finaly hits rock bottom, the shareholders will be screaming for blood, the little fella will get rolled and some so-called genius will be brought in to try and fix things. But it will take years to pull this mess out of it's hole, it always does.
Folks, this bumpy ride is far from over.