Don't attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity.
Joyce was promoted by Dixon precisely because Dixon knew he would take the airline in the wrong direction so as to make it a cheaper takeover target..
And Joyce has done exactly that.......
My guess would be that over those cosy lunches, Dixon would have encouraged Joyce in his follies:
- red Q
- Jetstar Asia, Vietnam, Japan, etc.
- Hatred of unions.
- investment and promotion of the bastard child - Jetstar.
-grounding the airline.
- suppression of International.
...and probably a lot more.
Dixon and more especially singleton know exactly what has been done to Qantas - deliberate cannibalization of the Qantas brand
......but not quite enough to destroy the brand name, just enough to destroy the share price.
Most importantly, I believe Singleton already has the brand rejuvenation strategy written and under lock and key.
Dixon would also have the operational plan to be executed when they seized control and took it private.
The elements of that are:
1. Immediatly roll Jetstar into Qantas.
2. Terms and conditions to drop to Jetstar levels.
3. Employ first class professional management, get rid of the obvious dead wood and extra layers of management associated with the wasteful, costly and inefficient "group" structural bull****.
4. Singo will find a new face for Qantas and a whole new positioning statement and marketing plan that will exceed the impact of the "still call Australia home" shtick.
But of course all this will be done in private and you will never find out how much money these people would have made...
But then Joyceee does the ONE stupid thing that even Dixon didn't count on - gift the whole mess to Emirates.
Lest you think this is fanciful, this type of strategy is exactly what Kerry Packer employed to get control of crown casino from his "friend" Lloyd Williams, and he got it for a song.
Last edited by Sunfish; 30th Nov 2012 at 19:40.