Qantas grounding?
 

Qantas grounds entire fleet - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Looks like their really playing hardball, wonder who's going to blink.

Just in from airlineroute.net

ALAEA, TWU, AIPA members have been informed they are not to turn up to work and will not be paid. Other QANTAS staff have been told to turn up and will be paid.

The full details at QANTAS edit: The date appears to be correct however all planes were grounded on Saturday 29th at 5pm or at their next stop)


Sydney, 29 October 2011

Qantas today announced that, from 8pm AEDT on Monday 31 October 2011, it will lock out all employees who will be covered by the industrial agreements currently being negotiated with the Australian Licenced Engineers Union (ALAEA), the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the Australian and International Pilots Union (AIPA).

This step is being taken under the provisions of the Fair Work Act in response to industrial action taken by these unions. The financial impact of action taken to date has reached $68 million and the action is costing Qantas approximately $15 million per week in lost revenue. Approximately 70,000 passengers have been affected and more than 600 flights cancelled.

Pilots, licenced engineers and baggage, ground and catering staff are essential to Qantas operations and the lock-out will therefore make it necessary for all Qantas aircraft to be grounded. For precautionary reasons, this will take place immediately (as at 5pm AEDT, Saturday 29 October 2011).

Aircraft currently in the air will complete the sectors they are operating. However, there will be no further Qantas domestic departures or international departures anywhere in the world. This will have an estimated financial impact on Qantas of $20 million per day.

The lock-out will continue until the ALAEA, the TWU and AIPA drop the extreme demands that have made it impossible for agreements to be reached.

Jetstar flights, QantasLink flights and Qantas flights across the Tasman operated by Jetconnect will continue. Express Freighters Australia and Atlas Freighters will also continue to operate.

Requirements for employees are as follows:

- Until the lock-out commences, all employees are required at work as normal and will be paid.
- Once the lock-out commences:
- employees who are locked out will not be required at work and will not be paid.
- employees working overseas will not be locked out and will continue to be paid.
- all other employees are required at work and will be paid as normal.

Customers booked on Qantas flights should not go to the airport until further notice. A full refund will be available to any customer who chooses to cancel their flight because it has been directly affected by the grounding of the fleet. Full rebooking flexibility will be available to customers who wish to defer their travel.

Assistance with accommodation and alternative flights, as well as other support, will be offered to customers who are mid-journey.

Customers should monitor qantas.com for the latest updates. The latest information will also be posted on Qantas’ Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Only customers travelling within the next 24 hours should call Qantas contact centres (on 13 13 13).

Qantas regrets that this action has become necessary and apologises sincerely to all affected passengers.

See QF media release here.

Excellent. This is the only strategy that gives Qantas a chance of surviving. Joyce has big balls.

Who am I?
One of the very few that picked the Ansett collapse before it happened, and after hard work, was lucky enough to have only lost tens of thousands of dollars.

They big, but he should be weary of loosing them, guess Julia will have to get involved now. Am I overstating this, but is it a game of who blinks first, or could they actually shut up shop.

Seppuku?
 

So the leprechaun has thrown a hissy fit!

89 didn't work out so well for the investors, wonder if anyone learnt anything.

When the share price hits $0.02, I think I will buy the company, just need to check my mastercard limit first...

Good news:ok: is that there are lots of jobs out there for people interested in working anywhere but AUS. Bad news is, you will need to work for a living {ROFL}. Hear that Jet star will need lots of pilots, :rolleyes: wonder where they will get spare guys cheaply to abuse in Singapore or Malaysia:=.

Interesting development, once the airline refunds the outstanding fares, pays redundancy to all parties that are not part of the dispute, the shareholders will get a great opportunity to see whether the Jetstar brand can pay its own way without being a cancer on the butt of Qantas. Now that would be a miracle. :}

Good luck boys and girls, fights on apparently.

Virgin, you got a great opportunity from your competitors, [again...] don't fritter it away!

:ok:

peanuts
 

68M is peanuts in comparison to the removal of the complete workforce. QFA will take an enormous time to regenerate flight capability should those "locked out" choose to depart. As a group, there is work out there for B737/B744 and B767 guys, as well as A330, with the B737 and A330 being the greatest demand. The engineers are in demand in many areas, but frankly, as a group you have been abused since the early 90's and I continue to wonder why any remain in the industry.

A full shut down will cost in the order of 1.2B in refunds, and around 120-140m a week in fixed costs. QFA may well cease to exist:ugh:, (and of course, in such an event, so will Jetstar:)). The vacuum will be filled eagerly by existing external international capacity, and by virgin domestically. No 3rd party carrier is going to need to provide ACMI capacity to QFA, they do not need to, they will just bury them :D. Open skies, great concept!

To the institutional investors; you are getting what you paid for, your investment is circling the drain, and you were warned repeatedly of the lunacy of the management team and chose to close ranks. Well done. You may well have just killed another Australian icon.

fdr - good post. Reality is that there may be no more Qantas - ever.

Lucky they got that board meeting and Joyce's pay rise in first.:E

Sorry to intrude but here in NZ it has been reported that Qantas is losing $15m a week but the CEO has just been given a 71 per cent pay rise. How can they afford that?

Unless you are running an airline, you cannot fully comprehend the leverage involved.

Cosmic and beyond belief.

A small change in operations - losing a flight - is an enormous amount of money. Lose a flight - 160 seats @ $300 average = $48,000. Lose 1000 flights in a day and that is $48 million. Try that for a week, and it is $336 million. There simply isn't that much in the biccie tin to cover it.

BTW what arsehole said that Qantas should be privatised?

Mind you D!ckie has another view on it

High-cost kangaroo of Qantas cannot continue, says Dick Smith | thetelegraph.com.au

We all like the uber cheap fare's etc.

could jetstar pick up any of the slack? or qantaslink?

This is not new. Ansett and Australian management did the same thing in '89.
Qantas PR are also copying the tactics used in '89 - bad unions, holding hard working Australians to ransom, etc,. etc,.
Difference here is the unions are carrying on with legal, protected industrial action sanctioned by Fair Work Australia.
Once the Airline starts locking out workers and pleading with the Government to step in, you KNOW they are on the back foot.
I am not a betting man but I know who I would put my money on to blink first!

There has been minimal industrial action by unions involved. In fact the pilots have not gone on strike at all. The losses in revenue to date have been mostly avoidable by management. I believe there is an agenda by management to close down the Qantas brand in favour of Jetstar and/or other subsidiaries with a view to reducing overheads.

Cost control
 

"open Skies" equates to arbitrage. The Australian public get what they asked for, the standards attained by the lowest workforce, and the associated brown paper bag experience.

Irrespective of what the travelling public may be told, the standards of the visiting airlines to Australia is highly variable, some are competent, some are a disgrace, and the compliance checking that occurs is a white wash supporting the open skies policy, and as well, the "affordable safety" introduced by an australian "character".

Dick Smith is correct in his observation that QF needs to compete, that is not rocket science (fortunately). What is the issue here is that management has undertaken an organised and concerted program to offshore the whole airline, while pointedly refusing to implement the rational cost savings that were readily obtainable, and that have invariably been taken up by their competition.

The bottom line remains that Jetstar Pacific is the poster boy of why the leprechaun needs to make sure that he isn't smoking whatever he is presently smoking while entering Singapore... :=

Win or lose, short or long, the members of QFA have been shown in no uncertain term what your company thinks of you. If you remain in the employ of abusers, then you are your master of your own fate.

It seems that CEO Joyce, emboldened by his 71% pay rise (opposed by the Australian Shareholders Association but endorsed by institutional investors at the AGM last week) is determined to crash or crash through.

Another sad day in Australian commercial aviation and likely to all end in tears yet again.....

Saying you will go on strike so the flights are cancelled then pulling out at the last second is as good as going on strike. If labour was not in power right now the laws would of been changed to recognise this tactic a while ago.

The timing of the board meeting and the shutdown co-incidence? I dont think so Tim.

I find a few things a bit incomprehensible about the whole situation with the recent turn of events...

The first being Joyce's 71% pay increase. If the company is battling, how can the "leader" justify any of his claims to move jobs off shore, restructure, etc. The revamping of the Qantas structure should see Joyce cop the losses as much as any of the other staff are.

There was an article in the most recent Australian Aviation magazine which talked about re nationalising QANTAS... Maybe this would be the only option now if the government does not want the global image destroyed and the knock on effect to Australian tourism to impact the economy further.

As opposed to the crew bailing out mid flight????

On a more serious note. This seems to be a game of who will blink first

QF Grounding - Now they come out!
 

As a former employee, (CSM), I watch with interest. What a well timed intervention, to rally the cause to shift the brand, and call on the assistance of a desperate Govt. Last time I checked didn't they remove the independent umpire, oh what was it called, that's right, the industrial relations Commissioner? Should have thought ahead Labour....Last time I checked a Labour govt should be on side with the Unions, not a private enterprise. Which always had me confiused when I was employed by QF why the majority of staff continued to vote for Labour. I can't help but think this has all been orchestrated. QF want to direct their business to Jetstar, and dissolve the QF brand, no brainer! All the financial analysts predicted this when Jetstar was born. WOW! Don't know about the average Australian but I could prosper on an income of $2million, what I could do with an additonal $3million....

I am not sure was wise of Mr. Joyce, the Qantas CEO, to shut down the airline whilst the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is taking place in Perth. This has now brought Qantas into confrontation with the Federal Government as well as the unions.

QANTAS has been an ongoing disaster since it was privatised by the worlds first greatest treasurer:{. The board plunders the profits for itself and has never made a smart decision. :( Good luck to the QANTAS staff you have now joined the brave new world of free enterprise and globalisation that most australian workers faced under the hawk and keating governments. Welcome to the real world. :eek:

Ground the airline the day after the AGM, what a coincidence!

I guess red ties really clash with AJ's colour sense!

now we will see how good he is as Minister for sheds (for the grounded planes like) more LOL

excellent timing with half of the cabinet and staffers in Perth. heaps more LOL

I remember too well the Ansett strike, very nearly sent us (helicopter tourism at that time) to the wall. 57 businesses in the main street of Cairns did shut doiwn - broke. no bloody laughter here IMHO.

Friend of mine who works for QF passed on this as the reason for the "lockout".

This was apparently the text of the email sent to QF Pilots:

So let me see....... wearing red ties with the slogan "QANTAS flight, QANTAS Pilot" and making a 30 sec. announcement seems like a good reason to ground an airline- not.

Militant pilots or militant management - you decide.

I think the pilots action was irrelavent, they where just the cream on the excuse cake. Killing two (or is it three) birds with one stone, and a whole lot of collateral damage.

Certainly agree that the timing is bad but I guess that it is tactical. With CHOGM in progress, the publicity ( good or bad ) and the pressure on the Labour government will work in Joyce's favour.

1989 and what's happening now occur under Labour's watch; big business certainly win outright. The guerilla tactics of industrial action by the pilots and other unions certainly played into the hands of the management in that they demonise their actions in the eyes of the public.

Will Australia be bold enough to really kill off QF and really start anew?

Seriously , to give yourself a 71% payrise then tell staff they are being unrealistic with their wage demands is just PISS POOR LEADERSHIP , Joyce is an idiot that needs to be taken out of Qantas.

Best of luck my friends. I salute you for standing up to greed, which knows no political or geographical boundaries.

These short term managers are more than happy charging first world prices but not so hot on paying first world employees. An epidemic which will soon see them hanging upside down in the town squares all around the world.

I wish you the best of luck and stand strong and united against these :mad:.

As a business owner the management have really shot themselves in the foot with massive pay rises , what a truly stupid move.

I'm not an ex Qantas employee but I'm with the staff on this one.

Looks like a very childish decision from the CEO.

Hear hear sqwawk, aseanaero. This is obvious and deliberate union busting. There's absolutely no other reason for the shutdown.

Be strong TWU / AIPA / ALAEA members and keep fighting. If Alan's allowed to get away with this we're all screwed.

I am not usually union orientated but this Joyce guy is just a prize goose. Best wishes to all the workers.

Looks to me like Mr Joyce has been chatting to his mate Willy!

I put my money on Qantas 'winning' this one if winning is the right term when both sides will lose in spades.

Alan Joyce
 

Alan Joyce get a pay rise, employees can't pay their mortgage. What a #$!*er

Vale Qantas I think
 

It would have been cheaper to just listen ....

If other people can't see the hypocrisy that Joyce is exhibiting, the above (quoted) statement makes it fairly clear. I get the feeling that all concerned are making some fair comments here (you won't see Joyce on here will you?); but that opinions like those of Dick Smith are going to play out. DS can see the owners point of view; but in this situation who is the owner? Shareholders? A disconnected CEO who doesn't sound Australian is at the helm and is likely to put an end to the name that was once called the worlds safest airline (thats the bit that cuts). And for extra millions to him ?!? Don't look for leadership from elsewhere; Julia is about to join the ranks of those other two politician fwits in her political past. Oh well - bring on the dumbed down beef trucks that airlines are becoming .. maybe the kangaroo has become a dinosaur. Can't wait to sit in one of those vertical seats and pay for every gram of bags, and get frisked or cavity checked beforehand on my next ride - NOT.

That's the difference between a mighty airline and a doomed low cost carrier: While Qantas is able to ground themselves, Tiger needs for the same some help :\