Are the unions starting to play into AJ's hands? Just playing devils advocate but the total lack of wishing to consult properly with the unions astounds me, he is obviously doing this for the bigger picture.
The so-called grounding of aircraft (a farce) and reduction in flights (i bet they announce more even though "strike" action has stopped) has seen a increase in seat price and transfer of buisiness to other carriers, one of these being Virgin, but the worrying one is Jetstar. I can just hear Joyce when announcing the half yearly results how yield and load factor at Jetstar has increased to surpass that of Qantas domestic. Suddenly Qantas domestic isn't returning its cost of capital and he has the same argument as used with International and starts to reduce the domestic fleet while expanding Jetstar. Domestic loses everything except the capitals, while Jetstar expands with a new premium class to counter Virgin. Qantas dies a sad and slow death. The public are disgusted...but its too late, and the bonuses have been paid.
The unions need to be very careful where this dispute leads, I am starting to get the feeling that this is exactly what management want, I hope I am wrong.