Gnadenburg
I still think
VB was/is good for Australian aviation now and in the context of their entry to Oz aviation.
They came into the market way before AN went tits up and worked their plan which worked dragging AN and QF screaming into the real world with a fair structure and strategy that actually stimulated or increased the market as a whole.
As a result we now have travel opportunities of which we could only dream.
That was then this is now.
Notwithstanding that, I am, actually, a QF FF and only a sometime
VB user.
SQ had the same opportunity but they chose to try and play a spoiling game in the process of which outsmarted themselves.
Anti Ansett where did you get that idea from, I used to be a huge fan of AN, with a wad of AN boarding pass stubs that would choke a horse, until the arrival of Mr Abeles and his retinue of thugs, notwithstanding their then superior service.
I did not fly them again (the clients choice) until about 9 months before their demise and was really truly shocked at how far down the ladder they had slid after his and Rods depredations.
After that flight, Easter and the end was no surprise at all.
The staff did not deserve the Tesna fiasco, or the union inspired ditching of the bona fide buyer in the first weeks.
One can only hope that one day it will all be aired in court and some people brought to justice, when the staff finally realise just how badly they got "handled".
AN got half the the very high, gauranteed and protected revenue for all those years and p!ssed it all up against the wall. Of course they could afford to be the best when they were gauranteed a profit.
So I'm not entitled to a personal view it appears, nationalist, you bet your a&se, you can call it cheap and you can even invoke the nazi spectre if you wish to diminish yourself and the argument, but personally, I'm sick and tired of Australia and Australians being defensive about our relations with our northern neighbours or anyone else for that matter in the cause of dollars.
I'll let you into a little secret but a few colleagues and I and a couple of other Oz companies actually helped put SQ on the map, way way back and fought a guerilla war with QF who were the IATA area Gorilla in the process. This allowed them to utilise their reciprocal landing rights more fully and add if I recall well over 50,000 seats per year out of Oz in their transition from B707 to B747. We did this by selling seats out of Oz to London return for getting close to half a Perth Sydney fare.
We made money, they made money and we all parted happilly.
This was Kangaroo Route revenue that QF would not believe existed until we showed em how and they came into the game. The revenue out of Australia always "belonged" to QF, but by the time they woke up SQ had a fairly good grip on a good part of it.
That was then this is now.
Australia is over represented in most areas of sport, finance, business, science you name it. We are also respected for calling a spade a spade.
Why then do we just sit and cop it, calmly discussing what would be in most self respecting countries, unthinkable, yet be mortally afraid that we should upset anyone.
I nearly puked when I read the self serving claptrap in the Singaporean article about the "cleverness" of the Singaporean investors deal in Rex.
If that is the best we can do with an important regional communication asset then we are really in trouble as a country.
I just happen to believe that SQ as an airline or culture has nothing of value to add to our national transport infrastucture, that will or cannot be provided by the natural growth of the incumbents.
I thought Blind Freddy could see that the last thing we need right now is another carrier repatriating transport profits overseas, and yes I include
VB and QF, at a time when we desperately need it to rebuild our infrastructure.
I also happen to believe that our airline infrastructure is an essential part of the fabric of our national social structure (there goes that nazi again) and would resist any further sell down of QF for that reason.
Australia like the US is a big country, Australia unlike the US has a small widely dispersed population that nonetheless relies like the US on air services as the main form of communication.
That more than 2 thirds of it is or would be controlled by foreign entities is unthinkable.
Likewise Telstra and the Commonwealth Bank.
I seem to recall having to prove that I was British, in the days before we became Australian before I could be issued with an Australian pilot and Flt Radio Telephone Operators license, how prescient were they then given the approach of 9/11.
The US with all of its industrial and economic might guards its airline, systems, control and ownership as jealously as it guards its defence assets and its freedom.
I suspect they have good nationalistic reasons to so do.
I'd like to see you call them nazis, guilty of cheap nationalism as vindication, because this is so.
I'd like to see SQ or any non US entity try and set up a domestic operation there anytime soon.
Can anyone give me a good reason why they should be allowed too here.
If that makes me a nazi then I guess I must be.