Lots of informed,semi informed and just plain wrong opinions here.
To really understand the merger, it has to be placed into historical perspective.
Firstly all domestic airlines had gone through the event that can't be mentioned on PPRUNe and were all a bit short of cash.However Qantas had not been through that experience and was financially viable at that time.
The other big influence on the merger was the demise of the once all powerful Pan Am in 1991.One of the major reasons for Pan Ams failure was Pam Ams lack of a domestic capacity (it didn't have much). This was very much in the mind of the Australian Govt when it decided to float Qantas.So once the Fed Govt had decided to divest itself of both TN and QF it made sales sense to combine the 2 and hopefully get more for a combined airline that they would for 2 separate airlines.The Govt did the same with airport sales ie Bankstown,Hoxton Park and Camden.It should be noted at this point that the Govt had so little confidence in the Australian airline industry when it was to be cut loose that they insisted on a substantial share being sold to an overseas airline which ended being BA
The real differences between TN and QF were that despite TN beginning as a spinoff from QF after WW2, they were in many senses very different beasts.QF had begun life as a private company and was nationalised but remained a private company, with the Commonwealth holding the majority of shares and control. TN was from the beginning a Fed Govt Commission and its management style reflected that status. Qantas was also very much influenced by what the Govt of the day was doing regarding overseas and defence policy.Over my time there we worked for the RAAF with numerous military charters, under aid programs we help set up new airlines who then went on to compete with us(Air New Guinea, MAS, Air Pacific, Biman etc) and we flew uneconomic routes working with BA/BOAC to join up the pink bits on the globe.There was also a very heavy defence engineering setup.That was the Qantas task and we did it well. For most of the period from WW2 to the merger making a profit was a secondary task to carrying out the owners overiding issues.
TNs role was to run a domestic airline under the dual airline policy and therefore compete with Ansett. Again this inefficient model was very much politically driven and the primary aim was to serve Australia, not make a profit. In this case TN and Ansett served a number of small ports which were loss makers as part of their Govt remit.
By the time of the merger, the Govt had decided to bail out of airline ownership just as it had floated the dollar, reduced tarriffs, began privatising airports, etc.It was very much Australia coming of age.While the merger made economic sense, there was very little thought put into how it would work.Probably the choice of a manager who had been in charge of TAA, was not the wisest move.He was seen by many staff as part of the unmentionable event and by QF staff as a Mexican. Certainly some of his early briefings to QF staff showed a lack of understanding of how the QF system worked. There was also the complete difference in fleet composition with QF at the time having B767 and B747 and TN having A300, B727 and B737. In many ways a merger of Ansett and QF and ANZ and TAA may have made better sense.
There were many "culture" clashes and inter union disputes during the early merged days and while I was party to having problems with the blue team I am certain there were some the other way. The main problems that I experienced were the lack of understanding of how a 24 hour a day worldwide operation that competed with a large number of airlines actually worked.It was unfortunately "a don't confuse me with the facts,I've made up my mind situation".
I was part of a team that represented the QF staff in the Productivity Commission enquiry into airline deregulation which preceded the merger and sale. If you really want to understand the process of deregulation, look it up.One of the subjects that came up regularly during that time was the perception that QF utilised its fleet inefficiently.No one out side of Qantas seemed to comprehend the problems of dealing with multiple time zones and curfews, given our geographic place on the globe.We also pointed out that QF used the downtime in the northern hemisphere that was caused by curfews, to have aircraft maintained, resulting in rapid turnarounds in Sydney.One example we used was the way QF utilised a B747 200 on the NRT,SYD,AKL route which meant that when not being maintained the aircraft averaged 19 hours per day utilisation.We were more than a bit puzzled when at the end of the enquiry there was still an opinion passed of ineficient utilisation.They even suggested that Qantas should go on from NRT to include Beijing.They wouldn't listen to the fact that this actually introduced inefficient utilisation and a huge marketing problem.
Overall Qantas prior to and early into the merger must be examined over the period from WW2 if you want the real story.All 3 major Australian airlines and the industry in general were very different beasts with very different aims than they are now.
Finally Ansett was doomed once it was cut adrift from the 2 Airline Policy without any real external alliances.It could be argued that the fatal error for AN was when Reg sold off the Cathay stake they had via ANA and used the cash to buy into the New Guinea operation. The AN tale would have been a whole different story if AN had been in partnership with Cathay.
Wunwing
Last edited by Wunwing; 17th Jul 2014 at 05:39.