I wrote this in a message to someone who asked me the same question a while ago. I could keep going, but I think it spells out the basics. I wish to point out that the situation was a LOT better when I wrote this, but the writing was clearly on the wall. Jetstar had maybe 'only' gobbled up $500m at that stage
or
Here is a start. Firstly sack the LOT above dept head level. Either they are incompetent of they should have resigned. If they haven't resigned then they agree, if they agree they deserve to be hung on a lamppost outside QCA.
Engineers and pilots should be involved in route and aircraft selection far more than they have been - witness DFW.
Cabin crew must be involved in cabin interior and service to a very high degree.
Though I know little about it same with ground staff.
A 'good' CEO is needed urgently. If it were me I would treat the place like Churchill did in 1939 - set up a war cabinet with direct contact to all the people who would count. People with experience in their areas. None of this business KPI bull**** - people who actually know what they are doing from experience.
Getting to that point, the union heads must be closely involved - we all know if this doesn't succeed its game over. Its a big call but if it were me and I was a union head who had confidence in a CEO I would say something like 'our members will take a 5-10% pay cut for 24-48 months - PROVIDED we agree with operational decisions'. This is War Cabinet stuff really - Churchill eliminated the opposition parties - in WWII it was one cabinet equally chosen and when everyone pulls together (Borghetti again
it works. They need to realise staff are NOT the enemy.
Every route needs to be treated as a precious resource - like a struggling small business where every single point counts. I would get a group of 'travellers' randomly selected from ex or very senior cabin crew/ground staff and send them on every sector over 3-6 months - maybe even a few times and a couple of different airlines. Their reports would form the basis of immediate streamlining and reform. Nothing about 'getting' people, just about 'what aren't we doing right compared to everyone else' and 'how can we improve the customer experience' - but from people with proven operational experience, not the idiots that have managed it for the last 15 or so years.
All staff need to be given responsibility to make decisions and not be afraid of retribution (within reason) if something goes wrong. It is better to have 100 happy customers and one accidental screw up than 100 pissed of customers that could have been placated with a bottle of wine leaving the aircraft.
The ALAEA knows exactly what condition the a/c are in and how things should be done, without being crazy with this Aussie OH&S bull****, the same goes for every coal face dept. Get a 'sensible' union rep and senior engineer to 'sensibly' look at all these engineering bases and decide what was sensible and what was plain and simple bloody mindedness. I don't know enough about engineering to be in a position to comment really, but if it is anything like the rest of the company, stupid decisions would have been forced upon them and anyone sensible would have known immediately they were bad. That garbage HAS to stop. Engineers are the backbone of this company - no point having an iPad if #2 lets go on takeoff.
My opinion is Jet* is a union busting joke. In fact not union busting, but experience busting. Nothing but an exercise to put wally 23yo MBA's in positions of power so the even younger staff are not in a position to question anything. Clearly a basis for great airline operations. Absolutely insane.
Qantas is Qantas. Rebrand it as such, split the cabin service up on each a/c if you have to, but the goal of every LCC is to work out how to charge more for a product, Qantas could already do that. Space available even offer an upgrade service at check in? The mis matching of service (putting Qf pax on Jet* and vice versa) is just ******* stupid! WHY? The only reason could be so GD LC and now AJ etc can split something off when they want some pocket money....
Collective intelligence is always going to trump a decision made by a coterie of greasy pole climbing yes men. The last govt was a disaster because of way over centralised control. Hawke/Keating worked because of 'full and frank' meetings which nutted out good policy solutions and implementation BEFORE they were launched on an unsuspecting public and legal system. You MUST have counter arguments to achieve a sound result - In Qantas it has been 'this is what we decided and this is what you will do' - in some cases by paid consultants who know even less than the people throwing money at them! Ultimate Group Think MADNESS by people who don't (and will never) even know what a cockpit, engine cowling or galley even looks like!
Having someone like Olivia Wirth clearly having impact on an major company's policy is just outrageous - especially in something as technical as an airline. What I have learnt is pretty basic and pretty easy to implement but big business has 'lost' basic skills - make people happy...