Who in this forum remembers the words uttered by AJ on August 16 about "for every 100 passengers fying out of Australia, only 18 choose to fly QANTAS"? Come on. Hands up! I can see you out there.
As this figure has never sat right with me, and constantly seeing the loads that leave Sydney on a QANTAS flight destined beyond our shores, the planes looked more than 18% full to me. Virtually standing room only (that's another airline's proposition).
Anyhow, I have been doing a little research of my own and I came across these figures at Australian Government Department of Infrastructure and Transport.
The figures I'm putting up here are as recent as August 2011. If you read them as they are, Mr Joyce is correct.
Out of 1,159,372 outbound passengers, QANTAS carried only 209,339 of those passengers. This equates to 18%. So what you say. That's what he told the Australian public on that day, and that is accepted. That's why we have to restructure the International arm, send jobs offshore and employ foreigners at a much cheaper rate.
But wait! There's more!!
These figures include EVERY airline that flys out of Australia to destinations that QANTAS does not fly to, and does not compete against. A QANTAS plane does not fly to Malaysia. It is therefore not in direct competition with Malaysian. A QANTAS plane does not fly to Canada, therefore it is not in direct competition with Air Canada, and so on. As you remove the airlines QANTAS is not in competition with, by removing the destinations they don't fly to, the percentage of passengers carried out of Australia on a QANTAS plane increases dramatically.
The ammended figures I'm giving here are for August 2011 only.
Airlines that QANTAS is in direct competition with carried 662,520 passengers. Of that 662,250, JQ carried 100,374. I'll use the 662,520 figure just to show the "creative" number crunching of AJ. This number jumps to 31.597385739%. I'll just round that DOWN to 31%
Going to the US run alone, the figures are:
QANTAS 48,653
United 18,191
Delta 7,050
Hawaiian 5,195
I can see AJ's 18% of capacity there.
Singapore outbound:
Singapore Airlines 96,249
QANTAS 37,594
JQ 12,504
Emirates 5,331
Tiger 3,379
British 1,969
Etihad 609
Out of a total of 157,635 passengers carried to Singapore, QANTAS carried 23.8% and I'll round that DOWN to 23%. Still better than the 18% AJ mentioned.
One more destination. Hong Kong:
Cathay 61,459
QANTAS 23,533
Virgin Atlantic 3,729
A total of 88,721 passenger to Hong Kong, that's the best part of 26% of passengers carried. Not 18%.
These are but just a few of the flights over one month.
If you want to check these figures for yourself, here's the link:
International Airline Activity - Monthly Publications
They are month by month.
There needs to be an uncovering of the truth as to how this man, AJ, has deceived the Australian public, the business sector and its investors, and the Australian government as to the dire need of QANTAS to outsource and offshore the company and grounding of an airline under false pretences for an illegitimate cause for the benefit of but a few at the expense of many.