Wise words www. The problems greater than that. Australia's insulated location means that barring JHAS, no other MROs have attempted to service Australian airlines onshore. The cost structure is not competitive at an industry level. This is not just because of high labour, it is the whole cost structure. MAS engineering charge around $40 per hour. Now a cheap hangar for say a 777 costs say $50M in Aus. Allowing for interest, depreciation and lease, if u r doing say 750 hours per day, that's around $20 cost for the hangar alone. Of course if you are doing only overnight maintenance you will be lucky to do 250 hours per day. Then the hangar is costing you $60 per hour - thats before security, electricity, let alone staff. Now MROs like JHAS in reality compete with airline insourcing. For airlines, things like insurance and Approvals are corporate costs. They usually don't charge these on to their engineering divisions. Then there are hangars, often regarded as sunk costs, then there is tooling and training, often included free with aircraft purchases. How many of these do u think JHAS get for free? Do I need to go on?
Australian airlines must decide if they want an independent MRO. For these reasons no one independent will follow in JHAs footsteps. They have to back JHAS or lose it. Simple.