Originally Posted by
Slippery_Pete
Despite assertions at the time from "management" that Jetstar wasn't going to take any Qantas routes and flying, that's exactly what they did - and continue to do.
The plan all along was to slowly transfer work onto Cheapstar to get costs down, because of those pesky (but world's best) flight crew and engineers were so expensive.
I wonder if this is the start of the same thing for their prop operations.
In five years time, will all the Aussie QLink Dash 8's will be flying around in Cheapstar paint schemes, fixing themselves, with pilots on half the money - and lining up to buy their own endorsement (read as "buy their way into a job")?
If they were prepared to destroy QF mainline with Jetstar, there's no reason they won't look to do the same with the Dash8 operations.
If I were a Dash8 QLink driver, I'd be starting to feel pretty nervous.
I'm not nervous!!?? I really do not believe this is the start of something here...yes whilst mainly Jstar management, the low cost model would not work here (my opinion only). The way I see it, the main reason they are doing this in NZ is firstly unable to competitively sell the Q300s with reasonably high airframe hrs and so the better alternative in having them sit around is to utilise them. Yes it will initially cost in setting up in NZ however the costs will likely be absorbed by competing on monopoly routes with Air NZ (Remember who is a major shareholder for Virgin). Jetstar is the best option because they are already established in the market in NZ and doesn't make sense in setting up Qantas brand there.
The reason it wouldn't work here is Qantas already established a strong regional market in Oz and despite the criticisms still considered a premium airline by its customers. So why change that brand marketing/modelling to Jetstar, never mind the additional costs in rebranding all to Jetstar.