Qantas must break unions: Ryanair co-founder

[U.K. SUBS.]

One wonders if this this the shape of things to come.

Quote:
EMMA ALBERICI: Airline Partners Australia, the group looking to privatise Qantas, will submit its bidders statement to the corporate regulator within a fortnight.

That document will outline exactly what APA has in mind for the country's national carrier and will in part answer the question of why they're willing to pay $11 billion for a company that the stockmarket valued at just $6 billion before the bid surfaced.

Among the group of intending buyers is the Texas Pacific Group which 12 years ago became an investor in Ireland's low cost airline Ryanair.

Since Texas Pacific invested in Ryanair, the airline's grown from eight to 108 jets - it now has the largest flight network across Europe and a stock market value greater than British Airways.

One of the co-founders of Ryanair, Kell Ryan, will address a business conference later this month in Queensland.

Mr Ryan believes the key to future success for Qantas is in breaking the unions. I spoke with him earlier.

KELL RYAN: Ryanair is a non-unionised company. The staff are all in profit sharing, but I mean you have to get your workforce together.

I think… I don't know what the issues are there. British Airways are going on strike - their cabin staff, 98 per cent of them have taken it on board to have cabin staff go on to sick days that they think they're entitled to.

You know, they just need to wake up. The world is changing. All they're going to do is damage their company.

EMMA ALBERICI: So unionised workforces in the airline industry are a thing of the past in your opinion?

KELL RYAN: If you look at the examples, particularly in the States and then maybe even in Europe as well. If you look at Air Italia, constant problems with their unions. They won't accept change and they're now going to be sold off.

Same thing happened with Sabina. It's happened with British Airways, it's happened with American Air in the States, it's happened with United. And one of these airlines will go out of business.

Unions have to realise that companies have to be flexible, that there is competition and they have to… they have to be able to adapt to a changing world.

EMMA ALBERICI: Is there a future with the style of airline that Qantas and British Airways have traditionally run?

KELL RYAN: I don't think so. Personally, because change is happening all around them, you know, we've had the events of 9/11 and we've had SARS and we've had fuel increases and stuff like that, so you have to be able to keep a handle, I think, on your costs. You have this threat from other low-cost carriers are eating into your market so you have to have a flexible work force, I believe, and you have to have people that can adapt to change.

We have the lowest cost base of any airline on the planet. We have the most flexible, dedicated workforce and we are profitable, and we've kept it simple.

People have been denied low cost travel, particularly in Europe, for decades. They've been ripped off by high-fare legacy carriers and now they've found a new way to fly and next year, as I said, Ryanair will carry 42 million passengers. And in five years time it'll carry 70 million, making it the largest airline in the world and that's purely on low cost.

It's not even a question of even getting rid of people. It's making people be more productive.

EMMA ALBERICI: How do you do that?

KELL RYAN: I think you've got to talk to them, you've got to explain it.

EMMA ALBERICI: Inevitably it's paying them less, is it not?

KELL RYAN: Well, you can… no, you don't have to pay them less. All you can say is that they can't be expecting like in the case of United… US Airways in the States who wanted a 68… the company was trying to give them… to accept a three per cent wage cut, which would be paid back when the company got profitable. And they were looking for a 68 per cent pay rise.

What you try to get is people to be a bit more flexible and a bit more productive, and not to have these practices that they've had in place for 20 or 30 years.

And if you look at it, it's the same here in England, the car industry went out of business because unions wouldn't adapt and it's the same with the airlines.

EMMA ALBERICI: Co-founder of Ryanair, Kell Ryan.


Fancy a pay cut anyone?

[QFinsider]

Of course it is!

That is all they have in the bag. There is no magical 20% IRR, the only way is to cut terms and conditions. "workchoices" gives tools like these the ability to do it, that is for any union silly enough to sign off on an EBA.

The funny thing with Ryan Air is that the now don't charge for endorsements. They pay quite well. They couldn't get sufficient pilots. It is called supply and demand.

If they try to break unions at Q, they may in fact haemorrage cash. Taking the unions on may make this whole thing untenable :E

As to the quip about BA cabin crew, read theforums. The "sickness" policy has them in a monitored disciplinary procedure with three illnesses in twelve months. That is one of the reasons there will be a strike, but never let truth get in the way of good spin!

[DirtyPierre]

Very simplistic view of the world. The reasons these great airlines went backwards - the unions of course.

What about these reasons:

- poor management
- poor communication by management with its employees. Kell Ryan says "just talk to them".
- outside factors like SARS, World Trade Centre (I refuse to say 9/11, which in Oz is the 9th of November), fuel costs.
- lack of government incentives or support for vulnerable national industries

Care to add any more.

Ansett didn't go bust because of unions.

[assasin8]

Yep... It could never be management's fault that a company goes bust !

Anyway, they certainly never take the blame... Somehow they even walk away with a golden handshake !!! Don't worry about the pleb employees who lose everything !

And the big picture... Lets see ; you and I, the general unwashed masses, get to have "choice" and travel on LCCs and get paid ever diminishing salaries so that the select few, corporate leaders, pollies, media types, etc, etc, get to enjoy what the rest of us work so hard for ! Yep, sounds fair to me... Where do I sign ?

Bring on the revolution !!!
:*

[speedbirdhouse]

Bring on the revolution !!!
:*

Hear, hear......

No mention anywhere about QF's projected record profit which looks like coming in around 1.1 BILLION AUD of which of Qantas's heavily unionised workforce had NO part in achieving.

Asshole.....

[Normasars]

EMMA ALBERICI: Is there a future with the style of airline that Qantas and British Airways have traditionally run?
KELL RYAN: I don't think so. Personally, because change is happening all around them, you know, we've had the events of 9/11 and we've had SARS and we've had fuel increases and stuff like that, so you have to be able to keep a handle, I think, on your costs. You have this threat from other low-cost carriers are eating into your market so you have to have a flexible work force, I believe, and you have to have people that can adapt to change.
We have the lowest cost base of any airline on the planet. We have the most flexible, dedicated workforce and we are profitable, and we've kept it simple.


That's strange!!

I thought I read somewhere(AFR) this week that QF has revised it's forecast profit by an extra 25%-30%.

But of course there is no place for Full Service airlines anymore.

Yeah right.

Spin Drs at their best:mad: :mad: :mad:

[Sunfish]

Ho ho ho! Hee hee hee! Ha ha ha! With the greatest of respect I suggest some of you might like to look at the various Pprune threads on Ryanair and the way they treat their staff!

If QF is remade in the Ryanair style, you simply won't know what hit you and they will make a 20% return on investment. Jetstar sounds like paradise compared to Ryanair.

[freddyKrueger]

It's interesting that the mother of all LCC's, Southwest is unionised.
I suggest people get themselves a copy of Nuts (http://www.amazon.com/Southwest-Airlines-Business-Personal-Success/dp/0767901843/sr=8-1/qid=1169150950/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7585097-3469464?ie=UTF8&s=books), or just read the reviews to see why the "bash your people" strategy will fail.
Southwest has been profitable every year since 1973, never furloughed an employee. $1000 dollars invested in 1973 was worth $1,500,000 by 1996. Many of its staff had become millionaires through profitshare. Its secret, choose the right people and treat them like a family, there is trust between employees and management.
Southwest has spawned many imitators. They clone the "mechanics" of the business, but rarely the people culture. Words such as fun, family, respect, dignity & job security keep coming up again and again. Do you hear these at QF? Just the opposite. Deliberately destroying careers & people to gain short term profitablity. You may gain their bodies, but you have lost their heart & soul. Those that remain are lost forever, bitter & twisted.ENGAGE EMPLOYEE HEARTS AND MINDS
Ownership isn't just about equity, its about bringing something to the table -ideas, skills, and talents that others value & appreciate. When people feel involved, they care more. The more they care, the more willing they are to assume ownership. Jack Welch, GE's chairman and Chief Executive Officer, believes that engaging peoples hearts and minds is the key to everything" " I think any company thats trying to play in the 1990s has got to find a way to engage the mind of every single employee. If you're not thinking all the time about making every person more valuable you don't have a chance. Whats the alternative? Wasted minds? Uninvolved peop;e? A labour force thats angry or bored? That doesn't make sense!"
Nuts pages 103-104
"Pilot engagement has no dollar value"
Senior QF Manager
Southwest is its people. QF is its shareholders.
Southwest is profitable because it is people are engaged & clever. QF is profitable because of government policy.
Reading this book is a shocking, Southwest only has 4 layers in the company. The enemy is bureaucracy and empire building. It gives them the flexability & agillity to make crucial decisions within minutes or hours, not months or years. Everything they do is 180 degrees from what can be seen at QF. Reading the book I am scared, its just as well the Roo has been a protected species in the past. Breaking the unions will not save the company, managements is fundementally & fatally flawed. The distrust between the owners and the employees can only increase by "breaking the union" strategy.
The "legacy" IR strategies evident at QF are doomed to fail. Now the wheel has turned with the pilot shortage (~250,000 new pilots required over the next 20 years just to cover the fleet growth based on BOEING's (http://boeing.com/commercial/cmo/index.html) own numbers, let alone retirements). However we as pilots must play our part. Employers & employees will have to work together, but in a organisation where there is trust and respect both way. I cannot see this happening anytime soon with the current "annointed" management team at QF. Of the senior executives, I get feeling that only one is a "people person".
The pilots an not totally blameless here, however the years of legacy management has ensured a culture that is so poisonous, that it may take more than a decade to repair, if things were to change right now.
There is however a yawing gap in the market for a very profitable alternative where a company gets it people culture right.

Don't take my word for it, read these books and think about yourself. Do yourself a big favour, at US$20 each (including postage), air freighted world-wide (no money in freight) within four or five days they will help you understand this insane industry.
How to do it right with:
Nuts - Southwest Airlines crazy recipe for business and personal success (http://www.amazon.com/Southwest-Airlines-Business-Personal-Success/dp/0767901843/sr=8-1/qid=1169150950/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7585097-3469464?ie=UTF8&s=books)

How not to do it:
Hard Landing - The Epic Contest for Power and Profits That Plunged the Airlines into Chaos (http://www.amazon.com/Hard-Landing-Contest-Profits-Airlines/dp/0812928350/sr=1-1/qid=1169157898/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7585097-3469464?ie=UTF8&s=books)

[lowerlobe]

What I find interesting is that we are being continually bombarded by interviews with the corporate types telling us how greedy we are and that the fault with everything is done to us.

As has been mentioned Qantas looks as though it will make a NEW record profit well over a $1 billion. This of course according to people like Kell Ryan has nothing to do with it's employees.

When asked if you have to offer employees lower money he waivers for a second and then say's ": Well, you can… no, you don't have to pay them less. "

But in the same interview tell us that Ryanair has the lowest cost base...WTF

How do you get that if you don't lower pay and conditions?

So the employee gets less,the pax invariably gets less service and the only one who makes more is ....drum roll please...yes thats right the bosses.They should change the name from LCC to High Paid Bosses Airline or HPBA or GIGA....Greed Is Good Airline

I think it is time for the unions to make public the pay and pay rises afforded to Qantas bosses especially compared to other airlines with larger fleets.I cannot understand why our unions are not doing any PR.The letter by the QF F/O to the AFR was fantastic.

We have to fight fire with fire

Sunfish ....Are you still peeved about Ansett going the way of the Dinosaurs..and I forgot your brilliant SIA wants to relocate their staff in Australia,NZ the US and Canada to India.Yep they are really interested in others

[Ron & Edna Johns]

You have these Kell Ryan knobs saying things like: it's not about pay cuts, it's about rejecting 68% payrise demands and offering only 3%, etc, etc.

Well, Kell, QF is offering NOTHING. A 3 year pay FREEZE, mate. Despite a projected billion dollar profit, they can't afford to give a CPI increase to their employees that are MORE productive than their DJ counterparts? What crap. Two sides to every story, mate.

And Sunfish, you are a sad, sad case, pal. I used to read your posts with interest because they were (once) the most intelligent, insightful posts. Now you are revealed for what you really are - a nasty piece of work that would be gleeful if 30000 Australians lost their jobs. Not defending each and every one of those 30000, but the vast majority do an honest day's work. And we have spiteful, nasty blokes like you around who would be joyous if they end up on the scrap heap? What are you on, mate? :suspect:

[Whiskey Oscar Golf]

That story is heartening! What can I look forward to in the future, old Aeroflot style service and maintenence done in Kazachstan. Don't you love being called greedy by someone who makes a truckload more than you do. Workchoices = be happy you've got a job and don't complain when we sack you for our mistakes.
If qantas decided to take on the unions in the current industrial relations climate it won't be like 89. There is a lot more support out there for people being shafted, it would be devastating. When a company is in trouble don't start at the bottom look at the top first. I am getting well fed up with people telling me the bucket is only so deep while they sip Moet in the Maldives.

[ITCZ]

I think we are all missing an important point. Sure, Ryan is full of BS. But as every pilot that can tell a good 'war story' should know, a believable story has just enough truth in it to make the BS sound reasonable.

Where is the truth in what Ryan said? The world is changing. Damn right.
And the industry cannot look back at the '60s to '80s and say - thats how to do it. Because those days are gone.

However, to have pilots that can fly aeroplanes, controllers that can sequence, engineers that can fix, you need trained, experienced people.
There are other industries that compete for talent. If aviation looks like a dinosaur industry with shrinking benefits the young kids entering will dwindle away. So there will be demand for our skills.

What WE have to wise up to, is the new way of doing business, and shape it. We need to wise up to the fact that airline companies or groups do not stay in business for decades anymore. We need career structures that are not dependent on one company that wont stay in business.

Just to throw ideas around -- what if the union was an employer, a big labour hire company like PARC etc but had pilots on permanent hire. Salary, superannuation, travel, insurance, etc. Then they hired you on short or long term assignment to airlines. Just an idea off the top of my head.

Ryan is right in many ways. The world has changed. Time we changed our structures and tactics and used our in-demand skills as leverage to 'ride the wave' rather than be Canute ordering the tide to abate.

We are supposed to be really smart people, hey we can fly aeroplanes -- why not be clever industrially and career wise as well and re-write the book to suit us? It doesn't even have to be adversarial, why not lead the companies in a new direction?

[DirtyPierre]

However, to have pilots that can fly aeroplanes, controllers that can sequence, engineers that can fix, you need trained, experienced people.
There are other industries that compete for talent. If aviation looks like a dinosaur industry with shrinking benefits the young kids entering will dwindle away. So there will be demand for our skills.
Damn right!

I have a 15 year old son about to enter year 11 and making choices about his future career now. He's a bright, amiable young man who would do well in most fields in aviation. What careers are he and his friends looking at;

- merchent banking,
- stockbroking,
- law,
- a trade.

Aviation isn't high on the list if at all.

[Contract Con]

**Rant Alert**

I am getting so sick of hearing this cr@p from airline management!

There are 3 groups of people whom without you have no airline to manage;

Pilots

Flight Attendants

Engineers

If the management don't show up for a week (Xmas every year), does the whole show grind to a halt? No!

If the pilots, flighties and gingerbeers don't show for a day......

I hope to live to see the day when an airline management team realise this and treat the above with the respect they deserve.

For if they all walk, then the management are out on their shiney arses as well.

For too long we have had to put up with the management attitude of;

"You are lucky that we run this airline so that you have job"

Faaark off!

I think that the reverse would be more appropriate! No pilots, no airline to run:mad: :mad: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk:

Con:mad:

**Rant over**

[Pete Conrad]

Dont hold back Con..well done mate..I farken agree...some could argue that when the managers do fark off, the place runs better anyway.

[Sunfish]

Neatly conflating two issues here.

First of all Ron & Edna, its you who are the sad case because it has been proven over and over again that protecting QF's 30,000 jobs is costing many more than 30,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy - so your argument is the usual special pleading of a rent seeking group, as economists would call it.

It is simply not in the national interest to protect QF from competition because it has been shown time and again that the only way you can get efficiencies and change in business cultures is via the blowtorch of competition.

Let me give you an example. Before the Button plan to remove protection from the car industry was begun, Australian cars that were produced were overpriced bits of ****e that cost twice or more as much as their overseas counterparts. They were technically backward, they were low quality, they performed badly, they were produced in antique factories in the most innefficient way possible.

Why? Because management had absolutely no incentive to improve whatsoever because they were protected by 100 percent tariff barriers, so they could be as slack as they like, as could their workers, with no penalty.

The penalty of course was paid by the Australian consumer, who paid double the money for half the car compared to overseas consumers. And when you multiply that type of protection by a lot of industries, you get a crap economy with zero competitiveness and poor jobs growth (the economy must grow on average about 3.5% a year to provide for natural increase in labor.)

However, we grew up and took the decision to dismantle industry protection - with one important exception - you guessed it - international air travel. And since both Labor and Liberal power bases are in Sydney, and Qantas is a totally Sydney-centric airline, Qantas remained protected.

The net result of that decision is that Qantas can produce an overpriced, substandard, unreliable international air service, biased in favor of Sydney against other state capitals and still produce a billion dollar profit.

The reality is that that profit is paid for by every Australian, not only the ones that have to fly in your aircraft and experience your disgusting service, but every Australian who is denied a pay rise, or a job opportunity, because the economy cannot grow as fast as it should with Qantas's hands around its throat, strangling growth in International trade and tourism.

I guess I personally should be hoping that your airline continues to be cossetted by your Sydney mates. That way, when the end to your protection finally comes, as it will one day, you will experience total collapse because you have failed to adapt like the dinosaur did. And when it finally happens every State Premier except the Premier of New South Wales will cheer!

And its BS to say that 30,000 aviation jobs would disappear if QF folded. Nature abhors a vacuum and other aviation jobs would appear for those whose skills were actually worth something.

[Sunfish]

And a final P.S. Ron and Eddy, exactly why do you think Qantas is a target for a takeover?

1. Is it because it is a lean and mean, well managed company, staffed by highly motivated people whose energy and competitive spirits will stop at nothing to achieve customer satisfaction?

2. Is it because Qantas staff and management are an indivisable team, finely honed to be the best airline staff in the world, in the furnaces of international competiton?

3. Is it because no other airline in the world can match its cost structure that provides its shareholders with above average returns while its customers receive higher than average value for money as measured by customer satisfaction surveys?

4. Is it because Australians will fight to get a seat on a Qantas aircraft in preference to any other airline in the world?

Come on, I'm all ears to hear your answer.

Mine is that it is a fat, dumb, and happy because it effectively is a monopoly, and new investors are going to rip the costs out of it while still trying to retain the monopoly. It is in that knowledge that the Government needs to decide its actions.

[U.K. SUBS.]

Sunfish

As we know quite well and answered by QFinsider, the Australian public gave the industrial ability for this slash and burn to happen by voting for them. I have no sympathy for coalition voters who will see their and their childrens ability to have a decent lifestyle as i can move quite easily back to Europe and bring my skills elswhere. At the next federal election i know what i will vote for. Right now the timing may not suit the coalition going into an election year but this is where, perhaps, we can be at an advantage.

[4PW's]

Um, sorry, but The Fish has responded very well.

Well written, very clear, particularly the PS

[U.K. SUBS.]

4PW

Our fate in being able to have a decent living is being played out right now and here we go again with the VIC vs NSW which will ultimately and very quickly close this thread. Get it?

[Jet_A_Knight]

Sunfish, i am genuinely interested to see hard facts to back up your Sydney-centric theories, and how the rest of the nation is held to ransom by the 'power base' in Sydney.


PM me if you prefer to not hijack the thread 'too' much.

[HANOI]

Sunfish

Still having trouble understanding the meaning of the word ' monopoly ' ?.
QF competes with some 38 other international airlines ex Australia.

[lowerlobe]

Sunfish,

What are you taking and what the heck is conflating in this context?

The only thing you are trying to blend together is your hatred of Qantas and jealousy of Sydney.

Who EXACTLY has proven that Qantas is costing more than 30,000 jobs?

Again you dribble on about Sydney-centric….get over it

You are still p$#@@# off about Ansett going under and blame everyone but Ansett management.

You are very simply anti Qantas because Ansett went down the gurgler

The reason for the takeover is that it is good target…..pure and simple even for you to understand

[Chimbu chuckles]

Interesting article in the Washington Post...these are the people, generically speaking, who will be taking over QF and this is their mentality.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121901569.html

Corporate greed is running out of control.

Another interesting quote;

The rain falls on the rich and the poor alike. That's symmetry. But after the rain lands, the rich receive a much larger share of the water than the poor. That's asymmetry. Indeed, some of the rich funnel as much water as possible toward their own personal reservoirs...even though they have more than enough water already. That's greed.
...And some of the rich drain the wells of their neighbors and clients to water their golf courses. That's Wall Street.

Consider the case of Morgan Stanley. The firm posted net income of $7.4 billion in 2006 - an impressive $3.7 billion more than 2003 earnings. But at the same time, total compensation at Morgan Stanley last year topped $14.3 billion - a whopping $5.8 billion more than in 2003. Does it not seem odd that employee compensation is nearly twice the firm's net income? And does it not seem odd that employee compensation has jumped 60% more than net income since 2003, even though the number of employees has barely increased at all? In fact the employee count has DROPPED since the end of 2002.

People like this should not be allowed near a lemonade stand let alone major corporations:ugh:

[Johhny Utah]

SunFish - in light of SIA's decision to replace itc call staff in Australian with Indian call center staff, just where are the 30,000+ jobs in Australian aviation/tourism going to come from?

Are you seriously suggesting that if Qantas folds, there will suddenly be 30,000+ jobs found elsewhere for either disaffected staff or new entrants? If your arguments is based around the fact that new tourists to Australia will make up the diference once the air market to/from the USA is liberalised, are you seriously suggesting that Australia will have 600,000+ new tourists (with each of them spending atg least 6K each, based on an estimated Qantas workforce of 30,000 earning an average $60K each, taxed at marginal rates, being replaced by tourists only being taxed at 10% each...?)

If so, then I would have to suggest that you are seriously delusioned, and your post should be considered with a grain of salt...

As for your hatred of Sydney - please don;t get me started. Out of interest, where were Ansett planning to fly there international flights to/from....? Interesting...:ooh:

[lowerlobe]

Sunfish ,

I would like you to furnish the documentation and the person or group who produced those facts that support your absurd theory that by operating Qantas is costing the Australian economy more than 30,00 jobs.

[Ron & Edna Johns]

Oh Sunfish, mate.... frankly I'm too busy flying 1000 hrs per year (which means 2000 hrs actually at work btw, but being paid for only 1000 hrs... oh, I don't even factor in study time at home, etc) to quibble with you for long. I actually agree with you - the shirkers in QF, and note I did acknowedge they exist, do, indeed, arguably "cost" Australian jobs if you look at the economics of it. As is the situation at many, if not most Australian companies. But Qantas certainly does not "cost" the Aust economy 30000 jobs. I dunno, let's say it's costing the economy 5000 jobs. Maybe 10000 jobs. Whatever the number.

My point is, Sunfish, you have stated repeatedly that you're happy to see the remaining 20000 or 25000 QF on the dole queue in the name of economic rationalism. 20000-25000 workers that do not, under any circumstances, deserve it. And mate, that makes you nasty.

Have the last word if you like. It's all yours. I'm off to earn SEVEN hours of pay for 48 hours away on duty. Not real efficient but I didn't write the roster! But during those duty hours I'll do my damnest to keep everyone safe and well, and comfortable and on time. Even you, Sunfish, should you be on one of my flights. And you want to see me on the dole........? :ugh:

[Scumfish]

Economics 101 my friends. Bring on the competition and let me get value with my frequent flyer points.

[lowerlobe]

Are we talking to Sunfish or Scumfish or is it the same person with an identity crisis.

If you want a basic lesson in economics 101 try this.....

If the Government gives in to the anti Qantas,ex Ansett or pro SIA,Emirates etc... and floods the market then a lot of people just like you will lose all of their frequent flapper points just as they did when Ansett went belly up.

Personally I would much prefer VB to start flying to the US.At least that way most or at least a large percentage of the money stays in Australia.

However this is not about economics it is all about anti Qantas sentiment because Ansett went south and they blame Qantas for it.

[Chimbu chuckles]

Economics 101?

SOCIALISM You have two cows. You keep one and give one to your neighbour (who has never worked hard enough to earn one).

COMMUNISM You have two cows. The government takes them both and provides you with milk. Sometimes. The ruling elite get the cream of course.

FASCISM You have two cows. The government takes them both and sells you the milk. The ruling elite get the cream of course.

BUREAUCRACY You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, and then pours it down the drain to save on transport costs.

CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

CORPORATISM You have two cows. You sell one, force the other to produce the milk of four cows, then act surprised when it drops dead.

DEMOCRACY You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point that you must sell them both in order to pay the taxes to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow whichwas a gift from your government.

[Eastwest Loco]

I must admit to some empathy with Sunfish's stand.

The Loco bloke is personally aware of the treatment of QF staff in his home state that has caused a much valued sales person to move to a rival, and another who has been there since cocky was an egg and is much loved as an icon of the airline and industry to have become very ill due to the stress and negative treatment afforded him.

It is quite simple. QF wants them out of the place and the more they can scare or stress away the better management like it. No redundancies if your staff have mental collapses (there is no criticism involved there as I had one after EW folded and it is a scary address) and resign, but it appears that is the agenda that has been set for management to increase their bonuses.

Sorry folks, but I am of the opinion that QF is and has been preparing the airline for sale for some time. Staff are an expensive inconvenience, particularly if not operational.

You may yell at me all you like, but I was originally made redundant by some of the arseholes that are ex TN and still causing havoc in QF.

Personal gain is their only target.

Bloody tragic when you consider these idiots would be better suited to the supermarket industry and leave airlines to airline people.

EWL

[Taildragger67]

EWL - :ok: :D :D

[lowerlobe]

Well said EWL,

But the sunfish economic theory that QF is costing the country 30,000 jobs is absolute rubbish. He provides no proof or documentation for this drivel but continually regurgitates it.

This plus the fact that he is still bitter over the fact that Ansett went south and wants 30,00 Qf employees to lose their jobs.

These employees had nothing to do with Ansett’s fate and are being treated pathetically by their own management .

Yet Sunfish wants them out of the way simply because of his puerile attitude to Qantas and it’s Australian employees .His fetish for Asian and middle Eastern carriers exist probably because they are the only ones to provide competition to his reviled enemy.

This is not about economics but simply his irrational jealousy.
If he and others are upset about the lack of flights and opportunity for people living in Vict try complaining to your Gov.

Vict cannot even supply enough power for itself as it has to buy around 25% from NSW.If you want to stand on your own two feet you have to do something for yourselves.:{ :{ :{


Owen....The word is spelt dude...not dood and if you want to fly to Vietnam then I suppose you will have to fly with someone else much the same as if you wanted to fly to Morocco I suppose.Is there an airline that fly's to every airport in the world?

Owen if you had to move to VICTORIA then you can hardly blame Qantas for your bad luck

[Bleve]

When we say Qantas lets please make a distinction between Qantas Upper Management ie Dixon etal, and the long suffering Qantas employees. Because there is a difference.

[Sunfish]

I'm about to go to the yacht club, but here is a quick reply. Lowerlobe, I left Ansett well before the 90's, and I remember it fondly, before it was gutted and then raped while the Government sat on its hands and tried to look the other way.

If you want to know the statistics, simply look in any textbook on economics. If there are 30,000 QF jobs that would dissappear (which wouldn't happen) the cost savings that are passed on to the rest of the Australian community will produce a net increase of more than 30,000 jobs.

The reality is that if market forces were allowed to apply more forcefully in the aviation market the Australian economy as a whole will benefit. For example, how do you think the Tourism boom could have happened if TAA and Ansett still did cosey little pricing deals in Macks at lunchtime? Do you think there would be a Cable Beach Resort or a Hamilton Island for example? The answer is very obviously no.

If you want to look at an experiment on free trade that worked, look no further than the AUstralian economy.

Qantas is not a Monopoly in name, but it effectively restricts access to increased capacity for foreign carriers to protect its market share, load factors and yield. Melbourne airport is down in capacity by 500,000 seats per year according to the airport and SIA.

CYA

[lowerlobe]

Sunfish,

I’d like to know what books you are talking about that say when a company goes under and 30,000 jobs are lost a mysterious employment figure larger than that appears elsewhere.

What cost savings are you on about?

If 30,000 people lost their jobs then that not only means 30,000 people have not got any money to spend but this as any economist and person with average intelligence will tell you flows on to the rest of the economy.No money to spend on a car,shopping,a fridge,a house etc…the list is endless

Not only that but then those 30,000 people are on the dole which puts a larger burden on the tax payer.

You go on about market forces but how about the reality of those people on the dole? How many people took their own lives when Ansett went under and you are happy to have that happen to Qantas?

Then the figure you quote for Tullamarine ‘s supposed short fall is by ….Guess who…Mel Airport and SINGAPORE AIRLINES..

Pal go to the Yacht club you are a sorry twisted excuse of a human being and a joke.

[DirectAnywhere]

a Hamilton Island for example
Actually Sunfish, considering Hamilton Island used to be owned by Ansett, probably yes in answer to your question.

Didn't you say a few weeks ago that you were leaving PPruNe as you'd had enough? Shame you didn't follow through on that "threat" and take your sanctimonious, self-serving and sycophantic rantings elsewhere. I noted how quickly you deleted that thread once it became apparent people weren't begging you to stay around. "Good riddance" was the general tone of the posts that followed I seem to recall.

You have fun at the yacht club. Little people like us used to dream of belonging to places like that, now we just get to watch others go instead....

[roamingwolf]

Mate not as big as the hole in sunfish's argument.I could drive a kenworth through his story and I reckon the captain should have gone down with the yacht.I am going to call sunfish gilligan from now on.

[Tarkeeth]

" For example, how do you think the Tourism boom could have happened if TAA and Ansett still did cosey little pricing deals in Macks at lunchtime? "
Sunfish,
I resent those remarks all my deals were done over an extended lunch in the Wenthworth Garden Court restaurant or the Ayes Rock Grill, with both TN and
AN.

[ratpoison]

and I refuse to fly with organisations who treat their staff like ****.

Well, then you wont be flying with Emirates, Singapore, Malaysian, Air new Zealand, British and Virgin. Have I left any out??? Might have to go by ship next time, then again I thinks the folk at Canard are not all that happy either. Looks like it's the train. :p

[Wonderworld]

**Rant Alert**
I am getting so sick of hearing this cr@p from airline management!
There are 3 groups of people whom without you have no airline to manage;
Pilots
Flight Attendants
Engineers
If the management don't show up for a week (Xmas every year), does the whole show grind to a halt? No!
If the pilots, flighties and gingerbeers don't show for a day......
I hope to live to see the day when an airline management team realise this and treat the above with the respect they deserve.
For if they all walk, then the management are out on their shiney arses as well.
For too long we have had to put up with the management attitude of;
"You are lucky that we run this airline so that you have job"
Faaark off!
I think that the reverse would be more appropriate! No pilots, no airline to run:mad: :mad: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk:
Con:mad:
**Rant over**

There are plenty of staff who are not management that if they did not do their jobs for a week then the pilots, flight attendants and engineers would have nothing to do anyway as there would be no flights in any systems for sale to the public!!!
The non management staff of Qantas consist of many people other than pilots, fa's and engineers who are also getting screwed over. It would be nice if that was remembered every now and again.

[Scumfish]

The majority of those 30,000 people would gain employment with airlines that would replace Qantas. Of course some of those people would choose to retire. But any airline that was to replace Qantas would have much lower operating costs and therefore be able to offer cheaper fares thus enabling more people to fly and increasing demand in various sectors of the economy, more so than what is happening with Qantas right now. Pure and simple economics!

[noip]

But any airline that was to replace Qantas would have much lower operating costs and therefore be able to offer cheaper fares

Excuse my insane laughter. This is nothing but a "cargo cult" mentality. Every argument I have seen about lower costs is either "spin" or an accountant gambling that the "smoking hole in the ground" will happen after he has left the company.

N

[Contract Con]

With respect Wonderworld, I am aware of that and am aware of what a fine job you do. I have family and friends in the departments you speak of.
However, it is always the group of 3 that I mention that are under the greatest scrutiny regarding performance, efficiency and salary. You know, the "fillum star wages" we earn etc.
I reiterate, without the pilots, flighties and engineers, you have nothing!
In no way do I say this to deminish your importance in the network, only to try to highlight ours.
None of those in the bullsh!t castle can get an aeroplane from A to B and maybe onto C.
Cheers,
Con:ok:

[Scumfish]

Noip, I'm sorry to say this but you exhibit naivity in the extreme. Do you really think that any new airline would pay the same rates as Qantas does? Or support the massive structure that Qantas does? You would find that everything would be outsourced and this is where the efficiencies would come into play. Thus the cost savings.

[noip]

Scumfish,

We will have to agree to disagree. There are no bargains in Aviation. To think otherwise is, as I said a "cargo cult" mentality.

N

[numbskull]

Scumfish,

I have recently left a position in QF after 20 yrs (15 as a LAME). It took me approx two weeks to find a position outside of aviation earning the same money.( I probably could have get more if I was willing/able to travel to WA/QLD)

If QF or Jetstar think that they are going to employ new people on lower wages then the only way they will be able to do this is by reducing the average skill level/experience of the people they employ. The skilled experienced people will have no problem securing other employment elsewhere for the same money or more.

The cost savings for outsourcing are miniscule and illusory at best in the long term(sure it looks great in the short term).

I will consider moving back to aviation, only when I can get more than I am currently earning and there is some career progression available(supply and demand). I'm not holding my breath though!!!

[HANOI]

Sunfish

Therefore , according to your warped and uninformed view , it must have been a wonderful thing for the Australian economy for Ansett to collapse and 15,000 jobs go as this would have produced more than 15,000 jobs somewhere else.
You poor fool.

[Enema Bandit's Dad]

I seemed to remember at the time that there was talk of the Ansett demise raising interest rates.

[LME-400]

Scumfish,

I have recently left a position in QF after 20 yrs (15 as a LAME). It took me approx two weeks to find a position outside of aviation earning the same money.( I probably could have get more if I was willing/able to travel to WA/QLD)



Out of curiosity, what line of work did you go into.

I've left last April after 21 yrs (Avionics). Trying to move into IT.

[lowerlobe]

Sunfish..aka Scumfish,Gilligan,CEO of SIA..et al...

As Enema bandits dad and Hanoi mentioned if your economic theory was correct the Australian economy would have gone ahead in leaps and bounds when Ansett went under and their staff found themselves out on the street.

There are small countries/Ilsands .....sort of like Singapore that would be pushed into recession if one of their employers went under and 30,000 jobs were lost.

Just because Ansett went down the tube you are besotted with Qantas .Your economic theory is nothing more than a sick joke just like you.

Go back to the yacht club gilligan and have another Singapore sling ,it is probably the only time when your theory makes sense

[Sunfish]

Exactly the reverse Hanoi. Ansetts demise meant that there was one less competitor, so not only did the Ansett jobs go, but more jobs would have gone when Qantas jacked up prices in response to Ansetts demise.

Free Markets and Free trade = more competiton = more efficiencies = better prices, more jobs.

My recollection is that someone got the Nobel Prize for proving this, and the Australian economy today is a shining example of what free trade does.

Of course we have at least two remaining problems - Telstra and Qantas, both of whom are warts on the bum of economic progress.

[The Professor]

"Free Markets and Free trade = more competiton = more efficiencies = better prices, more jobs."

There is not an economy on earth that operates without some sort of protection or barrier from absolute competition, a mystical phenomenon that technically would produce zero profit.

QF (and most flag carriers) exists today because of Government policy that may have been appropriate at some point of time in history but without which we would not see the rat as it is today.

QF would struggle to survive even in todays market were it not for various protections offered by the Australian Government both in policy and (often subtle) practice.

QF (like most incumbents) is struggling to adapt to a changing market where the dominant carriers are no longer European and American but Asian and Middle Eastern with much more flexible work place practices than carriers in highly unionised countires such as Australia.

Comp and Benefits are only a minor issue when compared to the "job building" that has been the norm in carriers such as QF (and Ansett). Take a look at flight ops in agile carriers such as Southwest where staff (such as pilots) can in some cases earn more than thier counterparts at major carriers and yet offer efficincies far beyond those acheivable at Delta/United etc.

Can anyone explain why S/O's make sense?

[Chimbu chuckles]

The main problem with free market theories is that they rarely work in the real world...the people running things HATE competition and do all in their power to destroy competition in the short term so they can reap the benefits long term...the current mania of M&A is an example of this.

Outsourcing is a sick joke...generally speaking the only way to justify outsourcing is to artificially jack up the percieved costs of keeping it in house to make it look like huge savings can be made...I have seen it happen first hand and the justifications were easily countered with reality...the reality was ignored by 'management' and they went ahead anyway with predictable results.

Short term results from unfettered access across the pacific might benefit consumers to some degree but in the end it would likely return to the status quo as competitors dropped out and returned assetts to routes where better margins existed.

Look at what happened when VB came into the Australian market to 'keep the air fair'...we still have an effective 'two airline' situation, if not policy.

[Sunfish]

I actually have an MBA and was lectured at endless lengths about economics and by business "leaders", some of which remain out of jail to this day.

The trouble is guys, there is a name for what you want when you say: "Qantas is a special case", "Qantas is different", "Aviation markets are different".

The technical economic name is "rent seeking behaviour" or as a Ministers staff would put it "special pleading".

Now all of you are correct when you say that no market is perfect, but you neatly miss the point of the argument; that is that the more perfect the free market, the better the price and the more efficient it is, and the more beneficial to the economy it is. I'm afraid that you cannot escape this.

Furthermore, and with great respect, the more shrill you become about how Qantas is different, how your competitors are subsidised by Government etc., etc, the sillier you sound.

Take cars for an example again. There is a world wide glut of car manufacturing capacity. Cars like Ssang Yong, Hyundai, Proton and god knows what else are selling for next to no profit at all. Now do you see people passing up these cheap cars to buy a Holden or a Falcon? Of course not! That would be stupid! Buy the cheap car and spend the money elsewhere in the economy! I think it was John Nash (They made a film about him - A Beautiful Mind) who won the Nobel Prize for Economics by proving that everyone was better off by free trade.

It is axiomatic that everybody benefits from cheaper and more efficient production. Arguing anything less is just plain stupid and will get you absolutely nowhere.Furthermore the entire Australian economy, with the exception of Telstra and Qantas, has had to go through the process of coping with international competition and its about time it was your turn- its only fair. Do I see you guys turn down the $99.00 Chinese generator at Bunnings in favour of buying the $600.00 Australian equivalent? Nah!

To put it yet another way, would I pay $30.00 for a pizza when I can go to a shop a few blocks away and pay $6.00 for the same pizza, and, since your leaders and the likes of Ryanair think air travel is a commodity just like wheat or oil or iron ore, what do you expect? If Singapore or Calathumpia will sell us air travel for less than the cost of production then we are fools not to take it. We can always rebuild an airline if the price of travel rises above the investment necessary to own another Australian airline and the free market will ensure that there will be many companies eager to sell us the tools for "Qantas II"

The only possible justification for protecting Qantas in some form is National defence capability ---but of course Qantas is shooting down that argument by outsourcing its maintenance and overhaul facilities isn't it?

And I'm waiting for someone to say there is something "special" about Qantas. There was something "special" about Ansett and you gladly watched that go to the wall. Why shouldn't you get exactly the same fate or worse?

[noip]

Can anyone explain why S/O's make sense?

I'm not sure, but I suspect that you mis-understand the role of the S/O - at least in QF.

They are included on QF long haul crews because the crew for that particular sector requires 3 or 4 pilots (Flight time duty limitations dictated by CASA). As an alternative to paying an additional F/O or two, QF employs Second Officers at a lower rate of pay - they have lower licencing requirements. Effectively, they are "cruise F/Os".

So for the airline, S/O pilots make sense - the airline gets the required pilot numbers at a lower pay rate. When they need additional F/Os, then they train / licence the required number of S/Os and only then need to pay the higher pay rate.

Hope this helps ..

N

[chockchucker]

The only possible justification for protecting Qantas in some form is National defence capability ---but of course Qantas is shooting down that argument by outsourcing its maintenance and overhaul facilities isn't it?

Nope, vast majority of Qantas maintenance and overhaul work is remaining in house (for the time being). The AVV experiment is turning out to be a dismal failure with an 8% attrition rate among staff. Not that the senior management ,who's reputations hang on the success of AVV, will stop throwing enormous amounts of money at it to try and make it work. Takes more than just money though.

As for national defence capability, always handy to be able to pick up the phone and call someone when you need to move lots of troops in a hurry. Too bad if the country you're at war with owns your national carrier! Don't worry though, Johnny has his BBJ's overhauled by Qantas at Tulla. Apparently it's O.K. for the great unwashed to have their aircraft maintained at some cheap Chinese or Philipino MRO but, the PM likes a bit of peace of mind in knowing that at least his aircraft is maintained to the highest standards.


As for globalisation. If the economy isn't for the good of the people that are in it, what is it there for? The greed of overseas investors? This country can afford as much globalisation as it's prepared to pay for in social security payments.

[numbskull]

LME-400,
I am now working for the a subcontractor to the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO or Department of Defence ). They have so much money they can't spend it fast enough and they have such a chronic shortage of skilled staff that its not funny.

Try Kinetic Defence for a source of jobs in the Defence industry(you have to find a cushy office job though- the defence industry doesn't pay much for people on the tools- it sucks!!The money has to flow through too many pairs of hands befrore it gets to the worker due to outsourcing to various subcontractors and their sub-subcontractors)

The Navy spent the better part of 1980-90's outsourcing all their maintenance work to outside industry. As a result they now have very few people who know how to plan or carry out maintenance on their ships and it truly is a national disgrace(sound familiar!!) To the point that they now have to employ people who have spent 20 years fixing aeroplanes to fix their ships. It's f#$king ridiculous but who am I to argue!! I will just go to where the money / opportunities are!! THAT'S PROGRESS!!

The point of all this is that QF will produce a profit in the vicinity of $1Billion dollars profit for this year with a unionised workforce. Outsourcing will replace that highly experienced workforce with a subcontractor with a new management level and a workforce with little experience. As a result they will suffer from quality issues as people in QF maint already know. They will not(and already cannot) attract quality people to their organsations and their product will suffer as it already is.

What would the Ryanair co-founder know about Australian industrial relations anway?????? Especially when the company concerned is one of the most profitable airlines in the world????

It is interesting that Emma Alberici (the journelist)used to work for a current Qantas director and her line of questioning was fairly loaded. Maybe I'm being overly cynical in thinking that our dear Emma might be looking to keep in good with a former and future employer and media magnate.

[Chris Higgins]

The only airline in America that is totally unionised is Southwest. It's also the only one that's been profitable every year since 1971.

[Enema Bandit's Dad]

I know there's one thing special about Qantas, Sunfish. YOU won't fly with them! :}

[HANOI]

.Furthermore the entire Australian economy, with the exception of Telstra and Qantas, has had to go through the process of coping with international competition and its about time it was your turn- its only fair.
Why won't you acknowledge that Qantas competes with some 38 other international airlines out of Australia.
Hope you found someone to sign you into the yacht club

[lowerlobe]

There is nothing academic or theoretical about Sunfish's delusional theory .

It is just about wanting revenge for Ansett....Pure and Simple

Gilligan did not need to have someone sign him in ,he is cleaning the boats and re fueling them.I hope you got some tips on the weekend Gilligan especially about economy and employment.

The other part I'm curious about is how many marinas are there in Melbourne.I mean comparing Sydney harbour or our other water ways to Port Phillip Bay is like comparing a pool to a water treatment plant.Why would you want to go out on Port phillip bay unless you had to....and I'm trying hard to think of a good reason.

[Whiskey Oscar Golf]

Mr. Sunfish, am I stupid for buying the $600 generator that was built in Australia and has quality and after sales service? I can also be safe in the knowledge that it kept an AUSTRALIAN in a job. Your idea that people will always go for the cheapest is the type of thinking that doesn't give credit to your customers, price is not always the guiding factor.
Competition works great in theory but it is never that simple. Industries will simply use other more subtle means to protect themselves, as has already been pointed out in this thread. I too studied economics at Uni and one of the first things I noticed was it's relevance to real world was a very distant blip.
As to the thread, unions can play a crucial role in the productivity and profitability of a company. Managers should realise that by working with unions they can achieve some very good outcomes. It doesn't help anyone to move into an adversorial situation. The aged stereotype of the red ragged union is gone and the sooner the bias and small mindedness dissappears the better off we'll all be. Unions don't want companies to go under, they employ their members. They just want a fair go.

[DirtyPierre]

would I pay $30.00 for a pizza when I can go to a shop a few blocks away and pay $6.00 for the same pizza,
I do buy the more expensive pizza quite often from the real Pizzeria around the corner because they taste better.

Do I see you guys turn down the $99.00 Chinese generator at Bunnings in favour of buying the $600.00 Australian equivalent?
Actually, I do buy the more expensive brand and not the chinese copy at about 1/6th the price because I know it will last longer than 24 months (usually it is when the bloody waranty expires that the f$#king thing stops working).

[Elroy Jettson]

Have to agree Guys, the world does have another alternative to full service airlines, but that does not mean that there is no longer a place for full service airlines in the market. Otherwise, we would be arguing that a release of the 2007 Hyundai wil surely put Mercedes out of business. Of course it wont, completely separate markets. Qantas would be better advised to separate itself in the consumers minds as a superior product, like the mercedes, and not seek convergence with a company that is not even in the same market.

The management of course know this, they have watched full service airlines fail by trying to compete in a low cost market with full service overheads. It doesnt work. Qantas has a reasonable product. But its delivery of that product, ie its service is its downfall. The planes are old, the staff are pissed off, and their service is rubbish. This is where Qantas fails, charging for a product that they continually fail to deliver. They are not failing purely because there is a cheaper option. They will fail because they are in the full service market, and there are better options.

The analogy is Jaguar goes broke because you can buy a merc or a BMW for the same or cheaper. The Jag owners didnt all go out and start buying a Hyundai Getz.

[Chronic Snoozer]

Two things that struck me – firstly is that $600 generator you bought at Bunnings actually ‘made in Australia’ or ‘designed in Australia’? If it’s the latter, then you’ll probably find its manufactured in SE Asia and you’re getting ripped off buddy. Chasing a ‘brand’ is not always a solution because when you dig deeper they’ve moved their manufacturing base outside their home country eg Bosch. (beginning to sound like our QANTAS)

Secondly, the car industry – why do we still put a tariff on luxury cars? When that’s removed we can move onto airlines. Can someone explain why I must pay a premium to buy the best engineered cars in the world i.e. Mercedes, BMW et al?

Having said that I do like the idea of an Australian flag carrier providing full service – and if I can have that a marginally higher cost than a ‘no brand, no frills’ carrier I will pick it every time. I’ve had my taste of Jetstar and will never again travel with them. Unfortunately it seems QANTAS is too focussed on shareholders and not on stakeholders.

……and can I just say the apparent disparity between management remuneration and the workforce appears obscene and un-Australian…..;)

[Sunfish]

Why won't you acknowledge that Qantas competes with some 38 other international airlines out of Australia.
Hope you found someone to sign you into the yacht club

Well you twist the facts to suit your theory hanoi. The reality is that capacity is "managed", and that Qantas has the lions share, and that no one else is allowed to increase capacity.

As for your second comment, I would assume you have never seen the inside of any club, yachting or otherwise. Nor are you likely to in future.

So sorry, I forget that you are a card carrying member of the "Sydney" club, that advances the fortunes of that fair city while claiming at the same time to be "Australias' airline.

May you choke on your traffic, you deserve it.

[Eastwest Loco]

One of the most erudite, informative and intelligent posts I have ever read in here numskull.

Thank you for that.:ok: :ok: :D

Best regards

EWL

[Sunfish]

And furthermore, every other international airline is struggling to make a profit and Qantas gets flowers and chocolates for making $1.0 billion profit? What does that tell you absent the fact that QF management are not nobel prize winners?

It tells you that Qantas have an unfare (deliberate error) advantage.

I hope that your new owners rip your guts out and then provide an equal service to EACH AND EVERY State capital.

[Chimbu chuckles]

And furthermore, every other international airline is struggling to make a profit

Every other international airline except for BA,KLM, SQ, EK, KA, CX, NZ, Korean, Oceana, Eva...I could go on:ugh:

[noip]

Sunfish,

Your anger diminishes your argument. Like others you have accused of being selective in their facts, so have you. Restricting the argument to Australia makes it of no useful value.

In this distorted world aviation market, with bilateral agreements etc, Qantas enjoys no more advantage on its home turf than does any other international carrier on theirs. In fact, I would suggest that the home advantage of airlines such as Sing Air, Thai or Malaysian far exceeds that of QF... And let's not get started on protectionism in the land of the free.

You are correct in that things aren't perfect, but I would suggest other strategies to correct the inequities.

Rgds

N

[roamingwolf]

Boys and Girls I think we finally have a pic of Sunfish.I think he is the tosser who tried to board a QF aircraft in Mel which was flying to LHR wearing that t-shirt.

Notice the ****** is in melbourne and Both are tossers …I have an MBA…I’m going to the yacht club.

Sunfish.mate I reckon the only yacht club you spend time in is your bath tub where the only member is you playing with yourself.

[woftam]

I hope that your new owners rip your guts out and then provide an equal service to EACH AND EVERY State capital.
What a sad vindictive little person you are Sunfish.
We have had the displeasure of you slowly but surely revealing your true self on these forums.
Build a bridge and get over it mate.
:mad:

[HANOI]

As for your second comment, I would assume you have never seen the inside of any club, yachting or otherwise. Nor are you likely to in future.

As a member for some 20 years of the Royal Papua Yacht Club , amongst others , next week I shall ask my fellow members to join me in a toast to this hilarious failed social climber but less fortunate individual.
Give it up Sunfish , you are losing on all counts.

[cart_elevator]

Now Sunfish, have I got this right? You are upset that QF has the majority of it's international flights operating out of or via SYD?

I am from Melbourne myself, and cant wait to get back on a tram, however dont you realise that every major international carrier has a 'Base' city where the majority of their operations depart from or through?

Do you think BA has as many direct flights from Manchester as it has from London? That Thai Airways has as many direct international flights from Phuket as it does from Bangkok? [insert every other major airline into analogy]

Although I am no fan of Sydney as a city myself (sorry guys!), it seems entirely logical that Qantas would have more direct flights out of there than Melbourne. Asides from that being where the airline is based, Sydney has a larger population, and is much more of a '1st step' for tourists than Melbourne (and lets face it they generally go North after Sydney rather, than South!).

More services direct to Melbounre isnt going to change that fact.

Qantas is not a government-owned public transport system, it is a company that has to make a profit or it will close. If Qantas put as many direct flights out of Melbourne as Sydney, it would go bankrupt! We all know how ruthless QF management are, if they could make more $ flying to more destinations from other cities in Australia, don’t you think they would? Or do you honestly believe there is a conspiracy amongst QF management to knowlingly limit their bonus-earning-potential by ignoring a 'secret market' of 'melbourne to everywhere' services?

Now I may be a lowly air-hostess (gingerly treading in pilot territory by posting here) but even I can see why Melbourne doesn’t have the same number of direct flights and destinations as Sydney has.
I hope I aren’t pointing out something that others have already pointed out to Sunfish ( it is kinda obvious!)

I am all for the Melbourne-Sydney rivalry, but to suggest you hope that our new employer ‘rips our guts out’ just because the company we work for bases itself in Sydney is… well … taking that friendly rivalry between the two cities to a new and kinda scary level. :eek:

I suggest a bex and a good lie down ! (oh and whilst lying down, think of all the great sporting events Melbourne has that Sydney doesnt, it will help!):ok:

[max autobrakes]

You are more than welcome to post to your hearts content Cart_elevator.
Never bite the hand that feeds you I always say!

[amos2]

So, you're a lowly air hostess, Cart?

Would you like to tell us what that is?

[frangatang]

Isnt this mr ryan the same prick that started ryanair with BAC111 swith romanian pilots that didnt eer..have a proper licence,and couldnt speak english to boot.The current oleary,chief of ryanair seems to have ample time to follow his geegees whilst flogging the staff.the earlier comment about BA cabincrew sickness.It was destined for them as their social sickness was appalling..to be seen at wimbledon etc on TV.funny how they dont like the interviews to put put the skids under them.About ferking time.

[Centaurus]

The aged stereotype of the red ragged union is gone

You obviously haven't tried to pick up a labouring or brickies job at a CFMEU building site in Melbourne. Regardless of new legislation it is still no ticket - no start and that won't change, believe me..

[podbreak]

Far from labelling Mr Ryan foolish;

It would be naive of me to suggest that a new backpacker hostel would put the local Hilton out of business

[ITCZ]

We shouldn't be too hard on Sunfish, he is simply telling us what he was trained to believe.

Anyone that spends a significant amount of personal time and resources to pursue an objective will put a lot of importance in that learning. It will become the way they view the world. The danger is though that sometimes they forget it is just ONE way of viewing the world.

Anybody here ever worked for a company run by an engineer? They can often be good places to work, all the tech stuff is emphasized in importance due to the technical orientation of the guy in charge.. an engineer. But they can be pr!cks of places to work for when you start arguing lifestyle issues such, work/life balance, right to representation by a union, etc. You can't get time off to sort out your marriage, etc.

What is more important is -- beware the MBA. A world run by MBAs (or ATPLs) would not be worth living in. The MBA is a servant of the currently ascendant extreme capitalist system, which in its ideal state, sets itself apart from the natural world that unfortunately, we carbon-based lifeforms occupy.

(as an aside, it always makes me smile when I hear an economist talking about the 'real' world. The last thing a market is, is 'real.' A market is an idea, a logical construct. It is not 'real'!)

Example. BSE. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, aka Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, aka "mad cow disease."

The meat industry, like the aviation industry, has always been under pressure to be 'efficient.' When you send a sheep or a cow to the slaughterhouse, you kill a whole animal, but not all of that protein is considered fit for human consumption.

So what to do with all the bits of the cow and sheep that cant be sold for human consumption? As part of the cannibalistic merry-go-round that is an economically essential part of the meat industry, all the bits of animals from slaughterhouses unsuitable for human consumption are boiled up to produce fat and protein. The protein makes animal feed.

Which is fed to other sheep and cattle, which one day will be fed to us.

Now, you and I might pause and think... sheep and cattle are herbivores. They browse paddocks of grasses, etc. That is what they have eaten for centuries. Maybe feeding recycled animal protein to herbivores might have risks, perhaps even unwanted side effects.

But the meat producers wanted to sell it. So they asked scientists "is there anything that says we should not sell it as stock feed?"

Something that you as an MBA or an ATPL might not understand is the extremely high level of intellectual integrity demanded of the scientist. A scientist will not release a statement unless he/she can prove it.

They said, in effect, there is nothing to say it is dangerous. They also said that there was nothing to suggest that it was safe.

The inevitable happened when industry messed with nature on a big scale. Funny things started happening at the milking shed. Some cows started standing apart from the herd. Others got frightened by the milking machines. They lost large amounts of weight. They died.

When/if they were slaughtered, their brains were riddled with holes like sponges. Not unlike the brains of some PNG folk, dying of a strange disease called "Kuru" that killed up to 80 percent of some women in villages that practiced cannibalism (to increase fertility!).

So where are we now?

In the world created by the MBAs, there is officially no problem. Despite the fact that over 150,000 cattle, or half the national herd, in the UK have the disease. Despite the fact that regular eaters of beef products are 13 more times likely to contract Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). Despite the fact that soon, more people in Europe will die per annum of CJD than AIDS.

Any layperson exercising commonsense would make the connection that forced cannibalism in herbivores used as a human food source might have problems. They would certainly demand that the practice cease immediately once the huge risk to human consumers became known.

But not the MBAs. The common market would collapse.

It is ok for humans to die of an incurable dementia due to their basic food source. But it is inconceivable to the MBA to allow a market to collapse!

http://www.mad-cow.org/

Beware any system being run unfettered by an MBA.

[Chimbu chuckles]

A scientist will not release a statement unless he/she can prove it.

The only thing in your post I find dissagreement with is the above. The Scientific community is made up of the same % of sundry human personality variations as the rest of society.

Do some research on DDT, Global Warming, Global cooling, Ozone, Second hand smoke, Asbestos, Y2K etc and you'll soon see what I mean.

Since the advent of SETI the bar has been lowered on scientific integrity...lowered a very long way.

[Sunfish]

It's simply normal how many of you are in denial about free markets. You are perfectly happy to consume the fruits of such markets - cheap Korean and Chinese appliances, Malaysian cars and so on, but of course when it comes to YOUR Industry, you decide that free trade is good for everybody else, but not for you.

You then try and run the argument that you are somehow a special case. That too is predictable and the argument deserves exactly the same treatment that every other industry has received.

I'll look forward to watching you receive the Ryanair treatment - you deserve it.

[Hugh Jarse]

It's better to keep your mouth closed and have everyone think you're a fool, rather than open your mouth and prove it :oh:

[lowerlobe]

Gilligan, Sorry I mean Sunfish,

So you are looking forward to the Ryanair effect.

So is that what happened to Ansett?

You remind me of one of the bitter twisted divorcees who blame everyone else except themselves for their situation.

[VH-Cheer Up]

Sunfish,
So you are looking forward to the Ryanair effect.
So is that what happened to Ansett?

From my recollection what happened to Ansett was:

Rod Eddington was brought in to prepare AN for sale at a price that would create value for the exiting owners.
Rod fulfilled that requirement admirably and sold out to Garry Twomey at AirNZ at a super-premium price
Air NZ didn't check under the carpets when it rushed its due diligence
When Twomey discovered the lurking dry rot under the carpets it was too late
A new entrant (VB) came in and stole the lowest price territory. BTW, VB has imitated many of RyanAir's tactics.
September 11..., followed by September 12, 2001.
And the winner is... Qantas!
The situation with QF now is quite different. And very unlike most people's post-marital retrospective self-analysis. Whatever that might have to do with anything...
VHCU

[jack red]

.........the Ryanair treatment...........and why do the sceptics think this will be a bad thing for QF?

Ryanair is a progessive,profitable Company and continues to expand and employ people. It has an innovative and dynamic management. Despite assurances otherwise, you can bet there will be change at QF but why will that be bad for the airline?

Why, in the aviation business, are we so averse to change? Sabina, Swiss Air, PanAm - all finished because they couldn't or wouldn't accept change. Alitalia, Air France - watch it, you could be next.

[Sunfish]

Thankyou for your usual ad hominem attacks Lowerlobe and Hanoi. As usual you have no constructive comments to make.

This argument is not about Melbourne being a better place than Sydney, its about my contention (and others) that Sydney is getting a larger share of tourism, international trade and international investment because of capacity constraints on air travel into Melbourne that are within the control of Qantas.
The evidence for this is the loss of 500,000 seats per annum, according to SIA and Melbourne Airport.

Please note that this is about capacity not "38 airlines fly into Melbourne" etc. etc.

Of course it is in Qantas's interest to keep aircraft as full as possible since it improves the yield, but it is not in Victoria's interests if Business folk can't get here via direct flights.

At least in the early 80's this was a deliberate conspiracy and I am quite happy to swear a statutory declaration as to what I was told. Participants at the meeting were JB, RB, KB,and perhaps KH and RJ as well as me. We were well advanced in tooling up for the 767.

Since we were now into widebody, glass cockpit stuff etc. I raised the issue of spending a little more and setting up to do 747 line maintenance/TFC work for which there was a ready market because the Eureopean airlines were being screwed for $$$$ by QF in Sydney - and each flight had to go there inbound or outbound whether they liked it or not. I had letters from two airlines asking us to do this.

After two meetings at which a silence descended when I raised this matter, I was bluntly told by RB in front of the others; "Abeles will have our guts for garters if we break that monopoly so shut up and drop it."

The issue has been simmering for a long time, but at least the State Government is finally taking note.

PS. Hanoi, I have reciprocal rights at your yacht club.:D

[VH-Cheer Up]

...Sydney is getting a larger share of tourism, international trade and international investment because of capacity constraints on air travel into Melbourne that are within the control of Qantas.
The evidence for this is the loss of 500,000 seats per annum, according to SIA and Melbourne Airport.
Please note that this is about capacity not "38 airlines fly into Melbourne" etc. etc.
Of course it is in Qantas's interest to keep aircraft as full as possible since it improves the yield, but it is not in Victoria's interests if Business folk can't get here via direct flights.
Sunfish is right. The market force that Qantas is exerting is call "tight supply". Keep the availability of seats tight, and the price goes up, as does the efficiency. Why run two services a day - make the punters wait untill the bus (or Boeing) is full, and we'll depart then...

Of course in a free market, such tightness of supply creates opportunities for rivals to enter the market with suitable competitive services, i.e. extra planeloads of seats LAX-MEL.

In a free market, that is...

[Scooter Rassmussin]

Easy to bust the union , close Qantas and re-start it the next day call it Satnaq (remember Tesna) offer some people positions on the new terms if you dont like it leave. Plenty of jobs in the sandpit....
Maybe they could call it Starjet...............

[ITCZ]

It's simply normal how many of you are in denial about free markets. You are perfectly happy to consume the fruits of such markets - cheap Korean and Chinese appliances, Malaysian cars and so on, but of course when it comes to YOUR Industry, you decide that free trade is good for everybody else, but not for you.
Its simply normal for someone that has devoted their life to become a 'high priest' in any invented human system, to damn or condemn those that question their preachings.

A contemporary philosopher (and former Canadian oil-man and CEO) puts it thus...

"Take what are presented as natural economic forces. They can only exist to the extent that humans exist and therefore are not natural. The market in software would be surprisingly quiet if put in the hooves of sheep. Cattle have minimal interest in e-mail. Economic forces must take their appropriate place as the dependents of humans; more precisely, as dependent upon human characteristics in order to be shaped appropriately to our circumstances. And those human characteristics are themselves inferior to and shaped by human qualities.

"What history tells us is that economics - commercial activity, production, trade - usually falls in importance about halfway down the list of human activities, far off the radar screen of our desire for society. So the complexity of shared knowledge reminds us that, if one globalisation model claims to be the voice of inevitable forces, a dozen other models will appear which don't."

(John Ralston-Saul, Chapter 2, pp 21-22, On Equilibrium, 2001, Penguin, ISBN 0 14 023914 0)

Former Canadian oil company CEO! "E tu, Brute?"

How is this connected with Pprune and this discussion?

Sunfish, most of the people you are addressing here have a basic technical qualification. You recognise that, we are trained as pilots.

The bit you don't seem to understand is that even though most pilots could not spell it, there is a metaphysical aspect to being an effective GA or airline pilot.

That is, the ability to imagine. The ability to put together unconnected facts in an imaginative and non-linear way, based on shared knowledge and intuition, to look into the future... "don't take your airplane somewhere your brain didn't go five minutes before."

There is also in most pilots a strong sense of serving society. Sure, many say "the pax are safe because my @arse is strapped in this tube too!" but there is in most, if not all, the pilots I fly with, a sense of responsibility, a sense of imagining the other, a sense of their role in society, that places their belief in the need for their skills above 'economic necessity'. We resist limiting our store of airmanship and professional knowledge on the basis of 'risk management.'

There is a strong sense that in a crisis, they are obliged to do all that is humanly possible to deliver our pax safely back to earth. Possibly at the cost of our own lives; a concept that cannot be adequately explained under the heading of self-interest.

That is why we admire Capt Al Haines (Souix City) rather than Geoff Dixon and Mr Ryan.

You scold us for pursuing the good life via cheap Korean imports et al.

All you did for me when you made that statement was confirm my appraisal that you lacked imagination, and really don't understand what a lot of the pilots on here are talking about.

Human experience is not summarised by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The only institutions that have taught that model since the 1950's are Schools of Management.:yuk:

[The_Cutest_of_Borg]

Well said ITCZ.

Until you have looked out of a flight-deck window when your passengers ... in their hundreds...are beginning to file on to your aeroplane... and seen the families, mothers with babies and young children, old people going back to the mother country, suits, teenagers and young couples who have put their trust in your ability to handle anything that may crop up in the next X hours; then you have no real conception about what the job really entails.

Maybe Sunfish, when you reach for your next rant, you should remember that...

[Sunfish]

ITCZ, Maslow was already way out when I did my MBA many years ago.

I agree about the metaphysics of the job, however, the "special pleading" I see here is no different than the stuff I've heard from other industries when I was part of the public service, and it is no different to the special pleading I myself made when the company I was running felt the blowtorch of international competition, in about 1990, either.

Believe me, you are far better off accepting the reality of cutthroat competition now, rather than remaining in denial, because the longer you hang on, the more abrupt and difficult the change will be. In my case I bit the bullet, downsized the company and went through the extraordinary expense and difficulty of getting a quality acreditation, and even then we only just scraped through.

[lowerlobe]

Defintion of Tosser….Toss:er.. noun…person who feels the need to tell others that they belong to a Yacht club and have an MBA (along with about a billion others).

Has an indifference to others…

Is naïve enough to tell others that they were once a public servant as if that improves their credibility in some way.

Has an unwarranted and over inflated opinion of themselves and their ability to understand and solve problems.
:E

[HANOI]

Sunfish
Some of your more " constructive " comments ???

As for your second comment, I would assume you have never seen the inside of any club, yachting or otherwise. Nor are you likely to in future.
May you choke on your traffic, you deserve it.
and...........
" I hope your new owners rip your guts out "

Are you telling us that Qantas has reduced its capacity into MEL by 500,000 seats per annum ?.

As you make so much noise about pax being forced to travel via SYD can you please tell us what destinations , on the Qantas network , can only be reached by involuntary routing via SYD. To help you we know that this does not include ....London or Frankfurt or Singapore or Hong Kong or Tokyo or Auckland or Wellington or Christchurch or Los Angeles or New York to name some. Naturally one would assume that , when looking at some places like Nadi / Noumea / Papeete / Port Moresby / Port Vila / Manila / Mumbai / Santiago / Sapporo / Nagoya / Osaka etc , you would recognise that it would not be viable to operate separate services to each of MEL and SYD.
BTW...the correct spelling is accreditation.

[Metro man]

At the moment QANTAS conditions are maintained by the unions, interesting to see what would happen if they were to "float". How low could management go before people start leaving, turnover costs become prohibitive and they no longer attract the type of applicant they want.

They don't have to match conditions on offer abroad, just keep thing at the point where the bother of moving isn't worth the extra money.

Virgin seem to be losing a few people to EK at the moment, and didn't take kindly to managements last EBA. Looks like the bottom was discovered and things need to improve.

Prehaps QF conditions will be found to be about right as they are in the current market for experienced jet pilots.

[busdriver007]

Beware the MBA.....Theories change and the current one in the states is hold on to your good employees, for they will be your salvation. It seems the head of aviation management in this country is firmly buried in the sand. It seems a real estate salesman job at the moment to convince the money men that QF is a good buy and the "Grab the Cash" mentality of the corporate elite as stated by Professor Roy Green of the MGSM, is well and truly alive. Another quote from that great philosopher, Geoff Dixon, "There is no better motivation than self-interest". They have their growth vehicle(Jet*), let them use it, the problem is the return is not there. APA will have a lot of work to do when they inherit this mess. For me, I'm off to see the world, There is a world out there you know. ;)

[Sunfish]

Quite correct Mr. Busdriver, and the large professional services firms are already counselling their employees about burnout and not working their backsides off.

However with respect, the argument still holds. Free markets are God at the moment and there is no evidence that they produce any harm and a lot of evidence that they produce much good, the shining example being the Australian economy at present.

Arguing against free markets is like micturating into the wind.

[DirtyPierre]

Free markets are God at the moment and there is no evidence that they produce any harm and a lot of evidence that they produce much good,

Bullsh!t

Free Market economies haven't lead to any wars, environmental disasters, or the widening gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged in nearly, well a few months now.

[lowerlobe]

Sunfish’s delusional theory of economics from the university of Bonnydoon states that a free market has never caused any negative effects.

Yeah right Gilligan and neither has religion.

Gilligan , who was your lecturer.....Rodney Adler

[Whiskey Oscar Golf]

Mr. Sunfish, now I'm not being a smartarse here but I'm very interested to see an example of a FREE market. I'm not talking the Theoretical sense but a genuine, working FREE market. Could it be in a real industry please with no internal or external factors affecting it's FREE status. I don't mean one that's legislated or created because we know thats not FREE. We are talking about a FREE market that evolved and behaves the way econ 151 told us it would.

Anyway, again I'm not being a smartarse but I'm just interested to see an example.

Thanks

[qcc2]

those of you watching ABC's 7.30 report last night gave another insight how corrupt the current government is. the constant misinformtion/ twisting of facts is amazing.
get this. some years ago the government changed the formula how to classify a full time employee.if you work 2 hours a forthnight you are classified as full time employee (it was something like 20 hours previously).
it does not matter if you are casual or something else. as the researcher pointed out i has and will have even more negative effects on the whole country in the future.:ugh:

[Sunfish]

With respect Mr. Whisky, you are running a line here that suggests that because there is no perfect free market, then the entire concept of the free market is of no use.

Perhaps I could state it better by saying that the freer the market, the more efficient it becomes as a direct result of competition, and that produces a net benefit to the economy. Sure, change is painful. Jobs are lost, but they are replaced with other jobs, and there is always a net positive gain. Please do not try and argue against this because it is rather like arguing against gravity.

In business what one tries to do is approach a monopoly position - build barriers to entry, destroy or buy competitors and in effect destroy competition and operate as a monopoly (or Oligopoly).

We have an organisation the ACCC whose job it is to stop businesses doing this, for example there is currently the question of the Alinta takeover and the necessity for the company to divest itself of certain assets to maintain healthy competition if ACCC approval is to be received.

Its also no secret that markets become corrupt and innefficient when there is not healthy and open competition. Look no further than the AWB and the current mess in the Murray Darling Basin caused by dumb water pricing arrangements. Look at what happened to the Soviet Union. Competition is good, and the more competition the better the economy performs.

By the way, the closest thing you will find to a pure free market is fruit and vegetables, followed by commodities like Iron ore, coal and suchlike. There are a multiplicity of buyers and sellers.

I'm really getting tired of argunig this, to put it in pilotspeak, its like me arguing that I really could fly on instruments without an IFR rating because I'm somehow "different" from every other VFR pilot.

Anyway I'm out of here and going to fly the mighty Cessna 172 around in circles for a while.

[lowerlobe]

Here we go again with Gilligans delusional theory of economics all over again..Quote from Gilligan “Jobs are lost, but they are replaced with other jobs, and there is always a net positive gain.”

Extending this infantile theory.If QF goes under and 30,000 people lose their jobs then at least 30,000 more jobs would be created.

Gilligan is the only person on this planet who can understand and support such a ridiculous and baseless assumption.

The social impact alone of that many job losses would be horrendous and this clown thinks it would be fine and WHY?

This all comes back to Ansett going broke because Gilligan blames QF for it’s demise.This is all about jealousy and hatred.

Oh and by the way Gilligan there is no such word as “micturating”….”Micturate” is a verb and is defined as “to urinate” and is only a technical one at that and is about as common in everyday speech as is your illusory and puerile economics theory.

What you should have said that something was akin to someone trying to micturate into the wind .So your “mythical word micturating” is incorrect and reinforces the concept that you are a complete TOSSER.

Instead of using a thesaurus I suggest you stick to Dr Seuss .

Sunfish ,I have a question for you..."what did Santa bring you last Christmas ? and I imagine you can't wait for the Easter Bunny too !

Now don't tell me that you are actually in control of an aircraft? I'm going outside to dig a bunker as deep as possible.

[Whiskey Oscar Golf]

I agree Mr. Sunfish that markets need to be competitive but my problem lies with the cost. It's all well and good having cheap imports but what about the cost to local industry. While some industries may not be competitive on a global scale they may very well perform a greater function in domestic economies, the multiplier. If they employ people then the money stays here and while it may not be the cheapest it may be of a higher quality and at least gives someone a job.

There are no free markets and while some may be more free than others there will always be people trying to capitalise on that freedom. Don't get me started on Fruit and Vegies or Mining, being of an ethnic persuasion I am well versed in the machinations of both idustries efforts to monopolise and control.

This is the problem with globalisation, we no longer care about national interest. Multinationals don't care about Australia, they care about short term gains. Now we can suggest that the industries we are not competitive in will be replaced by ones we are, it is the natural evolution of globalisation. But what if that industry has an important security role? Or if the industry is important to quality of life. Things like telecommunications or utilities or maybe aviation. Soemtimes, much to the disgust of ecomonists we should protect our domestic industries, so they are there for our grandchildren.

One of my main concerns with modern economics and modern managers for that matter is the complete lack of care for human factors. While MBA's are off spruiking the benefits of free markets, Tran in China has a job with no OH&S and serious pollution to his waterways while Geoff is trying to figure out why after 20 years of good hard work he is made redundant. I might even get a cheap airfare to bali but with an Indian pilot and Russian cabin crew ( no disrespect to either ethnic group I would just rather Aussies).Yeh we might have lots more fancy toys these days but at what cost.

Sorry for the long post and I hope you enjoy your day in the air.

[jaded boiler]

Qcc2 you must have enjoyed the recent boast from the workplace relations minister stating that industrial disputation was at its lowest level since 1913 due to workchoices.

Bit like banning cars and then gloating about how you've managed to reduce the road toll.

[jack red]

..........those of you watching ABC's 7.30 report

Ah,yes..... good old,unbiased (if you're a left wing, pinko) reporting from the ABC's 7.30 Report. :ugh:

[jaded boiler]

jack red's world:

Bland reportage of irrefutable facts which, standing alone, are damning of incumbent federal government = pinko bias.

Truth distorting, deceptive and duplicitous, partisan swill vomited over the airwaves and newspapers by army of foamingly rabid right-wing pro-government media sycophants and toadies = clear and incisive, fair-minded and balanced analysis.

[Chimbu chuckles]

I often wonder how anyone could ever consider aviation could ever achieve anything approaching free market status.

You have a large number of airlines competing for passengers based on price and yet all airlines operate in a monopolistic system as far as the majority of their operating expences are concerned...terminal rental, air nav charges, fuel pricing, spare parts, insurance...even aircraft purchasing is, these days, limited to 1.5 choices...the list probably goes on.

Little wonder airlines are so marginally profitable and that airline management are only able to attack T&Cs of staff to increase profitability:ugh:

[Sunfish]

Extending this infantile theory.If QF goes under and 30,000 people lose their jobs then at least 30,000 more jobs would be created.

Correct, many more than 30,000 jobs would be created, assuming Qantas "went under" as a result of competitors providing a better service at a lower price. Many of them would be aviation jobs too.

Furthermore, all special pleaders, claim that they will "go under" if their requests for protection are not met. When their request are quite correctly refused, they generally snap out of it, lift their game and then beat their new competitors. I assume Lowerlobe, that you are far too young to remember what Australian cars were like two decades ago when the car companies hid behind a wall of 100% protection. they made the same claim about "going under' back then - we export cars now.

In the case of Qantas, I expect it would shed several layers of management, get rid of cosy work arrangements and decide to beat competitors on quality and price ie:VALUE FOR MONEY.

Gilligan is the only person on this planet who can understand and support such a ridiculous and baseless assumption.

What planet do you live on? I don't know of any serious business person or policy maker who does NOT support this position. Aren't you aware that Gough Whitlam started removing protection in about 1973? The first industries being textiles and footwear? Aren't you aware of the Button plan for the car industry that started in about 1986? Aren't you aware of the Doha free trade conference going on even now? Aren't you aware of the free trade agreement we signed with America? Aren't you aware of NAFTA and a host of other free trade agreements? Aren't you aware that we are in process of negotiating a free trade agreement with China right now? You are showing your lack of education and curiosity about the world.

The social impact alone of that many job losses would be horrendous and this clown thinks it would be fine and WHY?

For a start there would not be that many losses and the social effects are realtively simple too ameliorate - unless Qantas staff are hothouse flowers. The rest of the Australian workforce has had to undergo this - deal with it.

As an alternative, please explain to the Australian community why they should pay at least a billion dollars a year in corporate profits to Qantas and treat you as a special case, unlike everybody else in this country who has to put up with and beat international competitors to stay in business. Or are your bleatings to be taken as an admission that you are inferior to your competitors, and that Qantas is an "International" airline in name only?

And as a final question and example, exactly what state would the Australian tourism industry be in today if we had maintained the two airline policy? Tourism hotspots like Cable Beach, Noosa, Cairns, Port Douglas, Hamilton Island (to name but a few) exist only because of relatively cheap affordable air travel.

As for the rest of the Ad Hominem attacks, I suggest you are bringing your profession into disrepute.

P.S. You could actually see the thermals off the garbage dumps at YMMB from the dust devils. Nice little work out for a simple low time pilot like me.

[HANOI]

Sunfish

Still waiting for an answer to my questions ( post # 96 )

[Taildragger67]

Righto, quick poll... who, amongst those of us who voted for Little Johnny in 1996 := , will do so again later this year? :ugh:

[Eastwest Loco]

Taildragger - I am afraid I would vote for little Johnny - again.

Let us all remember that the last Labor incumbent in cahoots with the fatman engineered the disaster that put many of your colleagues at each others throats through no fault of their own.

Labor in Tasmania did also do secret deals with Impulse to service the State.

Too many secret deals and "need to know" items.

Little Johnny may have gone too far to the right with industrial relations, but just a little. It was too far to the left in the past with the employer considered wrong until proved otherwise as I found out with a life support system for a vagina that I was stupid enough to employ.

Live and learn.

Go Johny.

Best regards

EWL

[Chimbu chuckles]

I can't think of a downside to workchoices...for those with the get up and go to work towards a common goal...nothing backs everyone into the same corner faster than unfettered employers...it's just an industrial sine curve.

Might be a bit difficult for the third generation institutionalised dole bludgers...but nothing is perfect.

I admit some of LJH's stuff has made me shake my head...but then we are NEVER made aware of all the inputs to his decision making process..we'd need an unbiassed free media system for that:ugh:

Rudd might be the man to give him a run for his money...the first Labor politician (note lower case p) to do so....but I spend a lot of time in UK each mth and their version of 'Noo' Labor has been an unfettered disaster of pc, greeny and fiscal lunacy.

[speedbirdhouse]

www.smh.com.au/news/national/tristar-manager-lashes-out/2007/01/30/1169919323857.html

No thanks, all the same.

I'll vote for a fair, inclusive and to some degree at least, egalitarian society.

Without an underclass.:yuk: :yuk: :yuk:

[Chimbu chuckles]

If that is what it takes to unite society to rebalance things then yep that is exactly what I mean.

I am a bit concerned about this though.
"We're owed about 1000 hours of sick leave each on average, but we lost that too," Mr Peek said.

So they weren't sick but they want to be paid the money anyway?. Effectively alluding to the fact that the workers equated sick leave with some sort of extra holiday entitlement:ugh:

This is the sort of thinking that must change in Australia...we need balance and some give and take not the type of entrenched union thinking we had in the 70s and 80s.

Think back across the the time span between now and the industrial revolution...it is a bit like climate change...never stable and slowly swinging from one extreme to the other.

There are lots of things wrong with the thought processes of the average Australian working man and women...being paid more to be on holidays than productively working is one and the above example of sick leave is another. Certainly the bosses have been on the ascendant for the last 25 or so years but I think Workchoices and the information age will swing it back our way...it needs to because the average man and women has not had a payrise that kept up with inflation since the early 70s...the same happened in the 50 and 60s until there was a huge breakout of wages in the late 60s early 70s.

There just has to be some middle ground.:rolleyes:

[J430]

Chuck you are on the money again

Sick Leave is a privelege and NOT a right. You have a right to accumulate some but not a right to use it other than when sick. nothing more to say really!

The sooner some folk get the idea that the common goal and being productive is the only way forward, the better for all. This includes everyone not just one group.

J:ok:

[speedbirdhouse]

Quote- "but I think Workchoices and the information age will swing it back our way..."

Are you suggesting in some way that workchoices is going to IMPROVE the lot of average worker in this country???

If so you really do need your head read.

You seem fixated by a comment about unpade/lost sickleave in the article I posted.

May I suggest you read it again and think about how attrociously these long term employees have been and are, being treated.

The company denied a redundancy payment to a dying man BECAUSE HE WAS DYING and they are paying staff to do nothing for over twelve months in order to avoid paying them their full redundancy entitlements.

You want more of this "unfettered" employer control?

[Chimbu chuckles]

I did read all of it and my powers of basic comprehension are as good as anyone's.

I think the reaction to employers cynically using workchoices is what will swing it back...helped by 'the information highway'.

A society is a huge entity with lots of momentum...change comes hard.

If you think voting in the Labor party will be better then I think you're in la la land...take a look at Britain under 'Noo labor'. It's a fecking disaster area of pc, greeny, fiscal lunacy that is being deserted in droves by ethnic 'Brits'. 1000/mth is one statistic I have seen...permanently leaving while Eastern Europeans and sundry other demographics arrive in a completely uncontrolled never ending stream

There is not a Govt policy ever write that was good for everybody...nor will one ever be written. Unfortunately modern society lost the ability to think about more than their immediate individual wants in the mths and years after the Cold War ended.

If you think Australia is in bad shape you need to travel more...they think Howard is wonderful in the UK...well the non huggy fluffy, non PC WASPs do anyway.

[speedbirdhouse]

Quote- "you want more of this unfettered employer control".

I'll take that as a yes then. :ugh:

If thats the case here is some more reading to warm the cockles of your heart......

www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/risky-business-but-not-for-the-boss/2007/01/30/1169919337040.html

[Chimbu chuckles]

BTW if you think a society without an 'underclass' is possible then you are dreaming.

It is as much a cynical, political sound bite as 100% employment being attainable...both are impossible...there needs to be a safety net of course but not set so high that generation after generation in certain socio economic groups feel no need to contribute their labours to the betterment of society...because they can 'earn' more staying at home.

Edit for speedbirdhouse.

My friend do a search on my posting history...I am as violently anti modern corporate practices as anyone on the planet... I abhore Dixon and his ilk...but I choose to take a more realistic view of how society is capable of reacting to fix these feckwits. Rudd/Guilliard won't come meandering into office and wave a magic wand and all suddenly is sweatness and light.

[Chimbu chuckles]

BTW fella if you're going to quote me then QUOTE ME!!!

I have just been back through my posts twice and NOWHERE do I say "you (I presumably) want more of this unfettered employer control".

You need to read what I am writing...not what you think I am writing.

[4PW's]

Sunfish, don't go.

You are helping me learn.

lowelobe, you just keep that vitriol coming.

It's a fun read.

[speedbirdhouse]

You didn't make the quote, I did and I assume you want more of the kind of unfettered employer control as exercised by those great guys running tristar-

www.smh.com.au/news/national/tristar-manager-lashes-out/2007/01/30/1169919323857.html

I travel quite a bit as well you know. Ever travelled on public transport in LA or walked around Union Square in SFO?

I'll take Tony Blairs UK vision of society over George Bush's any day as I have seen first hand the effects of $5.60 an hour minimum wages and NO health care for those who can't afford it.

As I said before. No thanks.

You can have howards "vision" for Australia.

I'll vote for an inclusive, fair, and to some degree at least egalitarian society without an underclass of working poor.

[lowerlobe]

I think that politics is a little like the saying "the proof is in the pudding".A number of us will not vote for LJH and whether that is enough to rid us of him only time will tell.However if the "dream team" is voted in and will do any good only time will tell.

However ,I’m still trying to work out the logic that if 30,000 people lose their jobs then at least 30,000 jobs will be magically created.This is like some sort of science fiction/horror movie when someone is killed they get straight back up again and keep going as if in a nightmare or a cartoon.

It exists only in the minds of children and those that are delusional.I think Freud would have a field day with Gilligan and it is in all probability that Gilligan still believes in the Ptolemaic system of the universe and is most probably president of the Flat Earth Society in Melbourne.

As I have said before the social impact of that many people losing their jobs as seen when Ansett went under would be immense.This number of forced retrenchments could in smaller economies such as Singapore cause a recession and Gilligan thinks it would be a good thing.Sunshine you need professional help.

Sunfish if you are going to ”Micturate” then I suggest you face downwind especially if you are sailing.The rest of the people on the yacht would appreciate it.

[plainmaker]

from Sunfish "I assume Lowerlobe, that you are far too young to remember what Australian cars were like two decades ago when the car companies hid behind a wall of 100% protection. they made the same claim about "going under' back then - we export cars now."
Funny thing about the free market economy. Australia used to have SIX vehicle manufacturers with a workforce of 100,000 in direct manufacturing, plus many more in support areas.
There is only TWO viable manufacturers at present (and let us not forget the massive capital injection that that the viable manufacturer had back in 1994 when its model range was uncompetative.
And tell the Tristar employees in Sydney (alledgedly supporting your viable exporters) that the free market is actually going to create opportunity for them - if they shift to China.
You are not the only one on here with an MBA, but you are expousing theories that have not stood the test of time. The modern research now indicates that the benefits of outsourcing are not being realised in the longer term - risk, loss of IP and non-inclusion are coming back to bite.
Trends in the home of the MBA (USA) are to bring things back in-house. The true market leaders are bringing their expertise BACK from India (by way of example) while others are stil beating a path to get in there.
One last point - you talk about creating opportunity when a business fails. That if QF somehow folded there would be new 'growth opportunities in tourism' because of increased activity from other carriers?
Ever been to Florida? A service based economy if ever there was one. The sad fact is that home ownership there is out of reach for over 85% of the inhabitants - they are on minimum wages servicing the theme parks and hotels.
You need to go back to Uni to learn about wealth distribution based on earning capacity. It does not matter if there are paddocks of cheap cars coming out of Korea instead of Australia - if we cannot afford them because our wages are that damm low, NO ONE wins.
Plainmaker

[Sunfish]

Plainmaker, lets take you analogy in reverse.

Yes, we could reverse history and we would then have an auto industry emplying 100,000 people - and the cars they produce would be half the quality and twice the price because we have removed competitive forces. (by the way, the Button plan reduced tariffs very slowly and also gave heaps of cash to the companies for retraining, relocation, redundancies etc - it was a slow gradual low impact process)

Alternatively we could go even farther with the time machine and eliminate the internal combustion engine. Then we could have millions of people farming the land (as we had), a thriving railway industry (that we had) and a thriving, if antiquated marine industry. Trouble is the remaining industries, saddled with the costs of these antiquated methods, couldn't compete internationally, and in addition our standard of living would be lower.

Don't you think that the jet age and cheap air travel cause job losses in the railway industry and the shipping industry? Of course they bloody did! But it must be obvious to blind freddy that the huge increase in travel and international trade as a result, more than offset the job losses!

Let me put it another way, lets say I invented a quantum teleporter that could instantly and safely beam passengers around the world to their destinations for only twenty cents a ride. Would you expect your job to be protected then?

Of course you wouldn't! You would have simply gone the way of the horse and buggy, alone and unmourned. Now these changes of opening the skies are incremental changes, not step changes that we just talked about, but if Qantas sits here, fat dumb and happy while the rest of the world competes amongst itself, then one day you really will be faced with a step change.

And by the way if you want an example of the anti competitive behaviour fostered by non free markets, look no further than the $200million class action Qantas copped this morning for rigging the airfreight market.

[lowerlobe]

Gilligan ...ever get the feeling that your the only one left on your team?

Look around and you'll see how much support you have.

Let me count those on your side...MMmmm I know there's one somewhere.

[HANOI]

Sunfish
Still waiting for answers to my questions ( post # 96 )

[Sunfish]

I don't expect support Lowerlobe. I'm merely trying to tell you something that you simply don't understand that has been part of Australian economic policy for about thirty years. Australia has been championing free markets around the world for that long.

P.S. Ever heard of the Cairns Group?

[Enema Bandit's Dad]

Sunfish, you aren't related to Kerry Kulkins are you? You seem to think you can predict the future. :bored:

[Enema Bandit's Dad]

Actually, I know who you must be related too. aircraft wouldn't happen to be your love child would he??? :uhoh:

[HANOI]

Sunfish
( Sigh )...Still waiting for an answer to my questions ( post # 96 )
The silence is deafening.

[The_Cutest_of_Borg]

Ahhh Yes Sunfish... you have to admire the front of the man.

He's never actually been a professional pilot but has absolutely no qualm about coming into a professional pilots forum, spouting on about how the largest employer of professional pilots in this country should go down the gurgler because he can't get a direct flight to Herpes, Missouri from Melbourne.

We all know this a charade of course. The real reason for the bluster is that he blames QF for the demise of Ansett, but that would be a childish thing to say, so he covers it up with non-sensical propaganda direct from the rabid Mein Kampf boosters who infest our society these days!

It's quite funny when you think about it.

[Fliegenmong]

EBD - Ha Ha, perfect!! :D, it's only early, so I kind of hope that is not the funniest thing I'll hear all day, but it probably will be!

Sunny, I can't see how losing 30,000 jobs would create more jobs. HOWEVER if those 30,000 picked up 2 hours work a fortnight cleaning the streets (Full time employed according to Kim Il John) a further 100,000 could fill in the other hours in the fortnight, that's over 100,000 people earning a minimum wage with no chance of bettering themselves.

I suppose that they should be thankful to have memories of when they were the lucky country and not the sold out country.

Sick leave is a privelege and not an entitlement. :ok:

A disposable minimum wage society of nobodies is an abuse not an advancement. :yuk:

[HANOI]

Fliegenmong.....hope this helps.

Last Tuesday's Post-Courier ( PNG national daily newspaper ) featured a front page news item about two local fishermen who had caught a large sunfish.
It said that the sunfish is also known locally as the headfish because it has virtually no tail . the fishermen said "a sunfish is just a big head".

[lowerlobe]

Hanoi,
The interesting thing is that as soon as you have caught a sunfish(fish with big head) then at least one other sunfish is magically created.

This is known as the "BIG HEAD THEORY" and the PNG fisherman is not only a member of the local Yacht club but also has an MBA.In fact he caught the sunfish as he was out on a regatta.The wind had dropped and he decided to micturate and afterwards realised he was a bit hungry so he dropped a line over the side.

The next thing he realised was that he caught a sunfish but thats ok as they are never endangered as they reappear as fast as you catch them.He told the rest of the crew that this only happens in a free market ocean rather than the protected oceans of Australia.Ahh he said if only the white fellas in Australia realised what they were missing out on.

[Sunfish]

I love listening to Professional pilots discussing economics and competition policy, do you hear me prattling on about SIDS and STARS and all that stuff? Nope, I know my limits.

[lowerlobe]

Quote from Gilligan.. "I know my limits"

After reading your posts apparently those limits do not include spelling and syntax,economics,basic understanding of psychology ,human nature and how to run a business.

[Keg]

Sunfish has been spot on in many of his business assessments. In many things to do with QF he's been very good at summing up the state of affairs. I think he's wrong (very, very wrong) on the issue of QF falling over and the benefits but that doesn't excuse the personal attacks based upon his handle.

Be nice to beat him on the merits of his argument rather than resorting to anything else.

[Truth Seekers Int'nl]

lowerlobeAfter reading your posts apparently those limits do not include spelling and syntax,economics,basic understanding of psychology ,human nature and how to run a business.

...........that statement indicates to me you are losing ground rapidly in your debate with the sunfish.......whether you like it or not, the posts i have read from mr sunfish are spot on re economics and success in running a business...........just stick to debating stuff you know and don't resort to name calling.

[lowerlobe]

Quote from ...sorry I'm trying to stop laughing...Truth Seekers Int'nl...

"that statement indicates to me you are losing ground rapidly in your debate with the sunfish"....

Not from my side of the fence....

[HANOI]

Sunfish

( sigh , sigh ) Still waiting for an answer to my questions ( post # 96 )

[lowerlobe]

Hanoi
I suspect that Gilligan is a member of the Toorak Young Liberal party.As such he never answers a question that puts him on the spot and just reiterates the same propaganda ad nauseum....just like any politician

[twiggs]

And you don't Lowerlobe?

[Sunfish]

Ahhhhh! I wish i'd joined the Toorak Young Liberals! I only discovered the joys of political debate, handing out "how to Vote" cards in Brunswick and poll night parties much later in life. Those of you who have done it know what i mean.:ok:

No answers to questions since I can't get any answers to mine, specifically:

1. Why can Qantas make money when airlines around the world can't? Is it because of Qantas superlative management and staff or because they have a guaranteed chunk of capacity?

2. Why is competition good for every other sector of the Australian economy except air travel? (Those that dont buy Australian cars, tools, food and clothing need not answer - you have already disqualified yourself)

In other words children, "what makes you so special;"? The rest of the economy mixes it with international competitors and succeeds, even when we are stuck with an uncompetitive flag carrier (by your own managements admission) that is a drag on our businesses.

To put it another way, why do your potential new owners value the business t twice whata it is currently worth? Is it because you are a fat and happy monopoly?

[noip]

Sunfish,

The flaw in your argument, is that you believe that QF is subsidised outrageosly and is guaranteed a golden ride. That is not true.

Yes, owing to bilateral aviation agreemnets, QF has an advantage within AU, however that is no different to the national carriers of any other nation. Yes, aviation is a distorted market, however as has been said before, it is unlikely we can correct that. Having QF go down the toilet will not result in the riches and cheap travel you anticipate.

Your conspiracy theory is as valid as the one that states the US faked the Moon landing.

Sorry.

N

[lowerlobe]

Oohh snappy comeback Mrs Sunfish...i mean Ms Twiggs...Is that the best you can do?

Remember it's the destinations that are important and not the money ...ehh Twiggs..

Now Gilligan how do you micturate in a strong wind and what type of thesaurus do you use?

[Keg]

I may not hesitate in calling someone delusional if I think they are but I usually back that up with a logical argument and points that proves their delusions. You may think Sunfish is delusional lowerlobe but I haven't seen much from you in return to really put him in his place. I may disagree with Sunny's points and I don't think they're sound but this area is WAY out of my fields of expertise and I can't be bothered doing the research to put up an argument in return. Therefore I'm not engaging in the debate per se but for pure ability to land punches and 'add' to the discussion sunfish is leaving you for dust.

Winning an argument is only worth it when you do it on the merits of the arguments rather than resorting to name calling and inane statements that contribute nothing to the discussion at hand.

[Binoculars]

I couldn't agree more with Keg. I find Sunfish's anti-Qantas bias more than a little boring, and I personally don't agree with a lot of his laissez-faire opinions, but not enough to get involved in an argument about them which would frankly be better held in a pub. Nothing is going to be achieved there either, but you can come to realise that other people aren't always 100% wrong.

If you're going to argue with Sunfish's economic points, do it with rational and educated views. I haven't visited this forum for a long time because almost every argument has historically finished up in a personal slanging match, and it appears nothing has changed.

I've just read this whole thread through and I'm afraid, lowerlobe, that though you may not like to admit it, you have contributed precisely nothing in terms of reasoned argument, and those with the ability to assess the discussion from a dispassionate point of view would have to agree.

A measure of your desperation was evident in your absurd opinion that because micturate is a verb there is no such word as micturating. You would do well to reassess your attitude to debate, firstly by staying away from subjects where you are clearly out of your depth, such as spelling and syntax,economics,basic understanding of psychology ,human nature and how to run a business. (sic) and most importantly, by including some unemotional facts instead of repetitive personal abuse.

[cartexchange]

I find Lowerlobe's posts quite amusing and I happen to like the sparring that goes on with him and Gilligan.

NO one is forcing you to read them Binoculars.

[lowerlobe]

There are some people Binoculars and keg that wouldn't know if they lost a debate until they realised that everyone else has left the auditorium.

My point is that Sunfish aka Gilligan is a tosser and has not real point except that he hates QF .

His arguments are baseless and so deeply flawed that he can only reiterate them endlessly.

Gilligans point about free markets is like the argument that communism is the only true and fair political system.It looks great on paper but the reality as with a lot of things in life is a lot different.

With Communism everyone was equal,the country's wealth was shared and there was no favouritism.It was a truly great idea for everyone but.......

As with Gilligans flawed free market concept communism was also flawed.You had the elite milking everything for what it was worth,the working class lining up like lemmings for food and other basics of life.The party would lie through their teeth and what happened in the end ...it all went south .


Gilligan tells us that Qantas should go and that 30,000 people should lose their jobs for the benefit of the country.Folks remember how many people took their lives when Ansett went broke.

Even if we removed the governments protection of QF does anyone here actually think Singapore and indeed any other government would do the same.

Little Johnny has been harping on about a level playing field for years but it does not exist.

That is except inside his little head just like it is with Sunfish...it is a fantasy and just like the tooth fairy and Santa,most of us grow up and realise it is just a fairy tale.

Remember this is all about Sunfish's hatred and jelaousy of QF and all his other ideas are about as balanced as a 3 legged chair.

If Sunfish wants some credibility then he should stop making up words that don't exist as well as using foreign language with dubious translations and sounding like a tosser and telling us he is off ot the Yacht club...Which I admit have a lot of fun with to lighten up this joke of a theory of his.

If you don't have a sense of humour then don't read my post or comment on them.

I realise that Binoculars and keg are probably the only other 2 members of Bonnydoon yacht club and probably have an MBA or 2 each but how many people use the term micturate in everyday life ?

[HANOI]

Keg
Be nice to beat him on the merits of his argument
Sunfish
No answers to questions
If you are going to make this allegation that Qantas has reduced it's capacity at MEL by 500,000 seats per annum then why won't you back it up with facts.
Similarly,when asked to prove another allegation that Qantas is forcing traffic over SYD to the great detriment of tourism , investment and business travel,you refuse to give any facts to support this conspiracy theory . See post # 96 for some of my facts.
Qantas has made money because , among the 35,000 odd staff , there are some pretty capable and far-sighted managers , analysts and decision makers plus an element of luck e.g. Ansett falling over and cheap 737-800's/A330's , and the ability to redeploy International aircraft onto Domestic routes during the SARS episode to name some. Despite some of management's more unpalatable decisions there are still plenty of dedicated staff who take some pride in their work.
Qantas competes with some 38 other international airlines out of Australia , not a theory,Sunfish, as you claim but a fact , count them !. And Qantas does not control their capacity,if you think they do then give some meaningful examples.
Don't try to sidestep the issue , you made the allegations now back them up with some substance.

[Truth Seekers Int'nl]

lowerlobeIf you don't have a sense of humour then don't read my post or comment on them.

................i get it you're a comedian,.............that's why you laugh so much..........sorry i thought you were being serious in this debate with sunfish :D ..............andEven if we removed the governments protection of QF ....so you do admit Qantas is a protected species.:ok:

[noip]

TSI

Regarding LL's statement of QF protectionism ... you are choosing to only see that part of the statement you wish. Boring.

N

[lowerlobe]

Truth seeker....I suggest if you really want the truth then you must enlighten yourself....OPEN your eyes....Do you really think that QF is the only airline in the world that has the benefit of protection from their country....

In the US for example if someone wants to buy a US airline the percentage of US ownership is much highter than OZ.

Yep that would be right no other country has any interest or protection in their airlines...

[DirectAnywhere]

so you do admit Qantas is a protected species

....bit like this thread atm I would suggest.:ugh: :ugh: :ugh:

[HANOI]

Weak as water Sunfish , weak as water.
You made the allegations and , when challenged , refused to reply.
I would have thought that , as a much trumpeted MBA , you would have researched your subjects before posting.
At least now we should see an end to the Qantas SYD-centric conspiracy theory.

[VH-Cheer Up]

Quote from lowerlobe

"After reading your posts apparently those limits do not include spelling and syntax,economics,basic understanding of psychology ,human nature and how to run a business."

Mr Pot, meet Mr Kettle; Mr Kettle: Mr Pot.

Do shake hands chaps. And lowerlobe, run off and practice your punctuation, there's a good fellow. The space comes AFTER the comma.

And why call someone a "tosser", unless you just want to prove you are no better yourself?

BTW, nothing wrong with the word "micturate". It's a word in the dictionary. Some even think it's the origin of the expression "Taking the Mickey". Get over it.

Least you can't say you don't come here and learn something from Sunfish. I know I always do.

[4PW's]

Lowerlobe sounds like he'd be a lot of fun on a trip:

Always right, never wrong. Hateful, spiteful and vitriolic if he is, and is shown to be. Nasty little boy when someone doesn't agree with him. Unable to provide useful comment, but does excel in flaming others. Applies perfect, flawless logic at all times. Never apologizes. Convinced of his superiority.

Better get a new attitude if you're soon to be on the road, looking for a job.

I'm not convinced your 'ocker' humor will amuse your new employers in India...

[Much Ado]

And on that note I think this thread has about run it's course...so 'click':ugh: