@ moa999
As for the airline and employees, well its all crystal ball but here goes.
QFF, Terminals, Owned planes flogged off quickly - quick reduction of the massive debt taken on and nice dividend to the privateeer guys. Maybe even separation of Jetstar.
That was going to happen had the APA bid succeeded back in late 06/early 07
Then the music would have stopped as GFC hit and Qantas started bleeding.
QANTAs would have bled instantaneously, as their, at the time, $4.5billion in cash holding would have been swapped for APA's debt, and the company would have folded. Not to mention that the board at the time were to share in almost $200million windfall if the sale went through, and maintained their positions on the board of the "New" QANTAS.
New owners would have lost control, the banks/other hedge funds taken control and no doubt ended up with a debt for equity swap (much like just happened in Nine).
The new owners would have had control of the whole of the cash holdings, paying off their debts, sold off parts off the business, and let it go under, and the Australian taxpayer would have had to pick up the pieces
Those leased plans - probably recalled by lessors (like Mexicana, Kingfisher), future orders cancelled, so QF would have shrunken massively and huge number of employees laid off -- far far worse than under Joyce.
No different under Joyce. QF is shrinking massively as we speak, orders of the A380 deferred/cancelled, no replacements for the 747's as they leave one by one on an almost monthly basis, and huge numbers of employees being laid off as we speak.
The buy back of shares has nothing to do with improving share price and returning dividends to shareholders. This gives the board the chance to hold on to the company shares and sell them off to Gregg, Singleton and Dixon at a very favourable price less than a quarter of the price achievable back in 2006/07.
If you look at the current share price to the number of shares, that almost equals the CASH holdings of QANTAS, plus assets such as planes, lounges, FF program, engineering facilities (what's left of them), etc., etc.
QANTAS is well and truly undervalued for what it has in cash and assets, and this will be given to the matey club of Dixon, Singleton and Gregg. This is why AJ was installed as CEO of QANTAS, and Dixon was installed by James Strong. The rot goes back a long way and is well an truly set in.