Cost cutting - following on from Direct Anywhere's post. There has been continuous cost cutting going for over ten years to the point that there is barely enough staff to manage things when they are running on schedule but once there are weather issues or maintenance delays etc, our passengers are poorly treated simply because there are not enough staff to handle the work load - simply not good enough for a premium airline. An example of where insufficient staff costs money is Jetstar - the company that is contracted to provide ground transport in Brisbane make more money out of Jetstar than Qantas. The reason being that when disruptions occur on the Jetstar network (a daily event) there is insufficient staff to keep track of crew movements which results in transport bookings not being cancelled (or additional bookings being made) so the company has to be paid even though no one was transported.
Management style - Joyce is playing his cards so close to his chest that middle management have no idea where the airline is headed therefore the staff have no idea (rudderless ship). Additionally, Dixon installed a management style whereby information only flows in one direction, from the top down. This style has become even more firmly entrenched under Joyce and most staff now don't bother to report events/problems because why would you waste your time when no one is listening. The result is management is making decisions while having no idea what is happening operationally and therefore have no idea of the consequences of there decisions.
Joyce has also appointed executives who aren't traditional "airline" people as he believes that people who have come through the ranks have too much affinity and compassion for the workers to make the hard decisions. The result is executives who have a degree but no experience or common sense.
Segmentation - has been introduced as one of many efforts to cut staff costs , the major problem with this is the duplication of managers (& resulting increase in costs). To use one example, a wholly owned subsidiary, QGS - (Qantas Ground Services), was formed to recruit personnel on lower wages than mainline to perform baggage handling and other ramp duties - with the ultimate aim of displacing the Qantas employees who currently do those duties. The environment that the QGS & Qantas employees are working in is no harmonious and QGS has such a high turnover of staff that they are unable to expand into the roles that the executives want them to do.
Attitude to staff - Joyce and his henchmen declared war on the Qantas staff 2 years ago (still raging) so that staff now simply go to work, perform their duties and go home - very few people now go out of their way to do anything extra for the airline that they were once proud of. As you are aware, Steve, the ongoing war that QantasLink management waged on the engineers in Brisbane has resulted in an extreme shortage so that schedules are in disarray as they struggle to keep aircraft serviceable.
Board members - everyone knows that Leigh Clifford's agenda is union bashing such that his eye is not on the running of the airline (just like his days at Rio Tinto) and therefore shouldn't be Chairman of the Qantas Board.
James Strong is in charge of remuneration and can be directly blamed for the monstrous increases in salaries/fees/bonuses being paid to directors/executives etc. When businesses throughout Australia are doing it tough, it's very difficult to justify these increases when no dividends are being paid and the share price has tanked.
Why is Peter Cosgrove on the board? He has no airline experience and Joyce's management style is totally opposite to what he claimed to use to great effect during his military career (in particular, Timor), yet he just sits silently taking his director's fees without contributing towards better management of the company.
Gary Hounsell - is his connection with the industrial law firm that advises Qantas on IR tactics considered a conflict of interest
The entire board is spectacularly lacking in true "premium airline" operational experience and this needs to be remedied in order to turn the company around.
Last edited by Going Boeing; 25th Jul 2012 at 10:43.