Now let me get this right. Joyce claims Qantas is unable to pay a cent more in wages to the "less than 20% of employees" (his words) who are agitating for some seemingly modest pay increases.
Joyce refuses to even talk to these people (indicating a total lack of communicative ability, let alone leadership ability) - yet he grounds the airline, without a shred of care for anyone, be they employee or customer - costing the airline something in the order of $30 to $40M, in initial grounding costs? (haven't seen, and probably never will see, the
actual cost of this grounding, in relation to daily, ongoing costs).
Now, after some rumblings from the ACCC, whereby the ACCC has told Qantas that it has to... "reimburse passengers for everything from hotel and transport costs, to missed pleasure cruises and flights booked whilst Qantas was grounded".
This payout is going to be
substantially more than the miserable $350 per passenger, initially offered by Qantas - and it could become a very substantial figure, when people start claiming lost income because they missed flights to their workplaces (surgeons missing surgery appointments come to mind) - or they decide to sue.
The end result is going to be, that the total cost of this grounding exercise is easily likely to be something in the region of $100M, if the compensation is substantial, and the compensation outlays are properly accounted for - and not hidden in the mass of "running cost" figures, that the Qantas Board appear to be very good at manipulating.
So... in the washup... Joyce claims he is totally unable to pay any increased pay claims... yet he can blow (read "waste") up to a possible $100M on an exercise that achieved little more than worldwide anger from employees, the travelling public, politicians, and aviation groups... and which militant exercise, also trashed the airline brand, that he was appointed to, to supposedly "nurture" and "improve" its profitability?
Is there any doubt left in anyones mind what Joyce
really plans to do with Qantas??
