Mud skipper & busdriver007, correct. This renders the Qantas Sales act moot - utilizing the subsidiary franchise model and Qantas as a domestic (Sales Act irrelevant), & perhaps Australia <---> Asia. Asian Jetstar franchises will be stand-alone "tradable units", perhaps even listed on various regional exchanges.
What does this do? Allows QF HOLD Co as a virtual airline. It allows partnerships with wealthy Asians to stump up capital, and in doing so, gain access to the Jetstar IP "intellectual secret sauce" & a turnkey operation (pilots/management/network systems etc). This reduces QF capital requirements.
QF HOLD Co could own shares in these franchises, and thus benefit from essentially holding a derivative & thus leveraged play over these franchises. It could also charge management franchise fees, supply pilots & other services to its captive franchisee's.
It also allows massive arbitrage in the accounting, labour & regulatory arena's as well as opportunities for transfer pricing and tax minimisation. In short, it will eliminate virtually all limiting restrictions on the airline, thus allowing it to cherry-pick every the lowest common denominator jurisdiction for each component of its business systems - It will be the ultimate in "regulatory lite". Shares in the franchises could be listed on the most "favorable" exchanges (read accounting oversight).
Asian operators tied to their home country will not have the same advantages.
Thus, this move to Asia for the international side of the business allows it to gain a leveraged derivative play on lax oversight & regulatory arbitrage, with OPM (Other Peoples Money).
Oh, making money? Just keep growing quickly enough & you only have to forecast a profit somewhere in the future due to start-up costs. Its the perfect set-up for a manager. Remember Bruce's Buchanan statement about operating 400 aircraft in Asia by 2020?
Last edited by TheWholeEnchilada; 20th Dec 2012 at 21:01.