Shark Patrol
Absolutely global aviation is in trouble. Partly due to the emergence of the LLC's spiking demand and growth during the never before seen global growth period ending with the GFC. Now that times are getting tough we have all these airlines fighting over an ever decreasing market with the lions share going to the LLC's who are making little or no profit margin. It's a double edge sword, if they increase the ticket price the market will contract and they can't lower the price because they are already making nothing. You suggest turning J* and mainline into one, that may be a good idea but I'm not sure the current industrial situation at QF with the unions the way they are would allow that, the way they carry on I think they'd rather see it go broke and leave them all out of work. I see an asset sale being more likely. The latest craze for the new age manager is to break it up, sell it off and contract back the service.
One thing is for sure that if QF falters there are plenty of other carriers out there ready to jump in and fill the gap. One other point of note is if ou look at the most successful government privatization, commonwealth bank, it was not shackled in any way. Whereas Telstra and Qantas both have had various pieces of legislation put in place to ensure they conduct business in a certain way and then let them go up against sharp competition which is free. No surprise really when you look at it.
SN