fishers.ghost
15th Apr 2011, 21:40
The ‘not the Qantas’ news brought to you by the ABC
April 15, 2011 – 6:41 am, by Ben Sandilands The ABC has led mainstream media into the Alice-in-Wonderland world of Not Qantas nonsense that Real Qantas has been struggling to reconcile itself with in terms of official statements since a minor incident at Sydney Airport on Wednesday morning.
To quote from that story:
Qantas says the Boeing 737 with the flight number QF50 that made an emergency landing at Sydney Airport on Wednesday was not really a Qantas flight at all.
The plane was flown by wholly owned, New Zealand-based Qantas subsidiary Jetconnect.
.We’ve been there for a while now, including yesterday, in relation to the Jetconnect tax and wages dodge involving an allegedly totally independent NZ company that just happens to be completely owned by Qantas and even calls itself The Spirit of Australia.
But the indifference of the mainstream media to anything about Qantas that doesn’t come predigested and Chairman’s Lounge friendly in a press release has at least been given a shake by the national public broadcaster. This is refreshing.
Updated The Crikey bulletin story which appeared this afternoon (below) asked additional questions of Qantas to which a response has now been received and added.
From Crikey: Qantas seems stuck for words over QF50, the Qantas flight that had a minor emergency at Sydney Airport on Wednesday morning when it was given priority landing because of a malfunctioning fuel valve during a flight from Auckland.
To consumers, Qantas insisted QF50 was a Qantas 737, painted in Qantas livery, including the words ‘Spirit of Australia.’
But to reporters, and even in evidence to Fair Work Australia, Qantas insists QF50 is a Jetconnect flight, operated by its independent but wholly owned NZ subsidiary of the same name, a name it goes to great pains to avoid using in order not to ‘confuse’ consumers, who might reasonably have though that something with a QF flight number is the real thing, and not part of an ambitious plan to de-Australianise Qantas as much as possible.
According to the Australian and International Pilots Association, the Jetconnect airline which is too shameful to be mentioned to the buying public, is a sham to replace Australian jobs (and taxation and superannuation obligations) with New Zealand terms and conditions.
Whatever the merits of that claim, on which a ruling is pending, Jetconnect is part of the branding deception which masks the transfers of Qantas assets and jobs overseas, both in its own right and through its Jetstar brand.
Jetstar now has two Australian registered wide bodied A330-200s based in Singapore, and flow by Australian and international employees, into and out of Australia, who are employed on Singaporean terms and conditions.
The NZ Jetconnect strategy involved NZ registered aircraft, and bears some comparison to the Jetstar NZ cadet pilot scheme, in which the inductees spent most of their time in NZ (up to three days) opening bank accounts and getting NZ tax file numbers so they could be paid and taxed as though they were living and working in that country rather than in Australia.
All of these ‘devices’ are seen by Qantas group management as the answer to its professed inability to generate adequate returns from Qantas international services or compete with overseas carriers.
In the cold light of day, much of the failings of the Qantas group are related to bad management, notably in terms of poor network, product and fleet decisions, which are reflected in shrinking market shares and earnings which fail to sustain dividends or an adequate share price.
Qantas plans to base a much larger fraction of its group fleet in Singapore as, or if, it gets Boeing 787s to fly from there to Europe instead of flying from here to Europe via Singapore with Australian employees.
The obvious questions were sent to Qantas this morning.
What is the future of the Qantas Australian Childrens Choir?
Will the Qantas anthem continue to be “I still call Australia home” when the public increasingly realise that the plot is to call Auckland or Singapore home?
Why is the symbol for Jetconnect flights operated for Qantas with QF flight numbers identical to that of Qantas, that is, a red triangle, on qantas.com?
If Qantas goes to the trouble of telling customers who book online that Jetstar flights aren’t Qantas flights by using a different colored symbol and a JQ designator, when will it differentiate between real and fake Qantas flights?
Qantas responded:
.We don’t accept the premise of your questions.
Jetconnect has been in operation for almost 10 years and operates under the red tail because it is a wet lease provider to Qantas. This is an appropriate and legitimate operating structure which is common within the airline industry.
Jetconnect is a New Zealand-registered company, operating New Zealand originating services. It holds a New Zealand air operator certificate, operates New Zealand registered aircraft and employs New Zealand pilots who are represented by the relevant New Zealand Airline Pilots union.
Jetconnect employs around 100 pilots in New Zealand. Despite the impression created by the Australian pilots’ union, in the time that Jetconnect has been in operation not one Qantas mainline pilot has been made redundant.
4 Comments flyboy125
Posted April 15, 2011 at 8:46 am | Permalink
I wonder if Qantas even know where they are at in this machiavellian twist of lies. To the paying customer “Yes, this is a Qantas service with the full product and safety standards that come with that ticket price” (a friend recently flew on one of these flights and yes indeed, John Travolta still welcomes everyone onboard in the safety demo video and still emphasises how ‘there’s nonone I’d rather have up the front than a Qantas pilot’).
To the Qantas Staff, ATO, Australian Government “Jetconnect is a an absolutely separate company, nothing to do with Qantas whatsoever”
This sorry tale seems more and more like an episode of Fawlty Towers. “Baaaasssssilllll!”
spaniard
Posted April 15, 2011 at 12:00 pm | Permalink
Hrrrrm. So Ben – does this mean that if Qantas management get what they want and base every pilot, aircraft, maintenance facility and flight attendant in Singapore/NZ/(*insert other country with inferior work conditions here) that NO Qantas flight will actually be a Qantas flight?
It’s a real kick in the teeth to Qantas mainline staff. Are QF management implying that the QF mainline operation is superior to the NZ Jetconnect? How can this be an excuse? THEY set it up!! THEY chose to employ staff on half the pay. THEY took to the aircraft with red paint and the “Spirit of Australia” punchline. It seems to me that its just an instrument to transfer blame to some other entity – who apparently doesn’t have a bank account…
Just hope the public can see through this nonsense. Problem is most don’t give a rats as long as they get to X with minimal damage to their bank account…
Ken Borough
Posted April 15, 2011 at 12:54 pm | Permalink
There is no doubt that it’s a Qantas flight, even if operated by a wholly-owned subsidiary. It is sold with a QF designator using QF Group owned equipment, scheduled by Qantas and with revenue accruing to Qantas. I bet Qantas counts as theirs the pax carried by JetConnect in its numbers reported to DOTRS (or whatever that department is called this week). Would the PR moppets resile from ownership in like manner if the incident involved QantasLink?
Obfuscation on the part of a spin-doctor in order to ‘hide’ a grand agenda does nothing to help Qantas’ dwindling credibility. To make matters worse, the mainstream media doesn’t have the attention-span or ‘smarts’ to research what is in fact the case.
interesting
Posted April 15, 2011 at 6:08 pm | Permalink
mmmm, “not made redundant” but what has happened to their flying hours and their opportunities for career progressions.
Qantas is more of a PR firm than an airline these days
April 15, 2011 – 6:41 am, by Ben Sandilands The ABC has led mainstream media into the Alice-in-Wonderland world of Not Qantas nonsense that Real Qantas has been struggling to reconcile itself with in terms of official statements since a minor incident at Sydney Airport on Wednesday morning.
To quote from that story:
Qantas says the Boeing 737 with the flight number QF50 that made an emergency landing at Sydney Airport on Wednesday was not really a Qantas flight at all.
The plane was flown by wholly owned, New Zealand-based Qantas subsidiary Jetconnect.
.We’ve been there for a while now, including yesterday, in relation to the Jetconnect tax and wages dodge involving an allegedly totally independent NZ company that just happens to be completely owned by Qantas and even calls itself The Spirit of Australia.
But the indifference of the mainstream media to anything about Qantas that doesn’t come predigested and Chairman’s Lounge friendly in a press release has at least been given a shake by the national public broadcaster. This is refreshing.
Updated The Crikey bulletin story which appeared this afternoon (below) asked additional questions of Qantas to which a response has now been received and added.
From Crikey: Qantas seems stuck for words over QF50, the Qantas flight that had a minor emergency at Sydney Airport on Wednesday morning when it was given priority landing because of a malfunctioning fuel valve during a flight from Auckland.
To consumers, Qantas insisted QF50 was a Qantas 737, painted in Qantas livery, including the words ‘Spirit of Australia.’
But to reporters, and even in evidence to Fair Work Australia, Qantas insists QF50 is a Jetconnect flight, operated by its independent but wholly owned NZ subsidiary of the same name, a name it goes to great pains to avoid using in order not to ‘confuse’ consumers, who might reasonably have though that something with a QF flight number is the real thing, and not part of an ambitious plan to de-Australianise Qantas as much as possible.
According to the Australian and International Pilots Association, the Jetconnect airline which is too shameful to be mentioned to the buying public, is a sham to replace Australian jobs (and taxation and superannuation obligations) with New Zealand terms and conditions.
Whatever the merits of that claim, on which a ruling is pending, Jetconnect is part of the branding deception which masks the transfers of Qantas assets and jobs overseas, both in its own right and through its Jetstar brand.
Jetstar now has two Australian registered wide bodied A330-200s based in Singapore, and flow by Australian and international employees, into and out of Australia, who are employed on Singaporean terms and conditions.
The NZ Jetconnect strategy involved NZ registered aircraft, and bears some comparison to the Jetstar NZ cadet pilot scheme, in which the inductees spent most of their time in NZ (up to three days) opening bank accounts and getting NZ tax file numbers so they could be paid and taxed as though they were living and working in that country rather than in Australia.
All of these ‘devices’ are seen by Qantas group management as the answer to its professed inability to generate adequate returns from Qantas international services or compete with overseas carriers.
In the cold light of day, much of the failings of the Qantas group are related to bad management, notably in terms of poor network, product and fleet decisions, which are reflected in shrinking market shares and earnings which fail to sustain dividends or an adequate share price.
Qantas plans to base a much larger fraction of its group fleet in Singapore as, or if, it gets Boeing 787s to fly from there to Europe instead of flying from here to Europe via Singapore with Australian employees.
The obvious questions were sent to Qantas this morning.
What is the future of the Qantas Australian Childrens Choir?
Will the Qantas anthem continue to be “I still call Australia home” when the public increasingly realise that the plot is to call Auckland or Singapore home?
Why is the symbol for Jetconnect flights operated for Qantas with QF flight numbers identical to that of Qantas, that is, a red triangle, on qantas.com?
If Qantas goes to the trouble of telling customers who book online that Jetstar flights aren’t Qantas flights by using a different colored symbol and a JQ designator, when will it differentiate between real and fake Qantas flights?
Qantas responded:
.We don’t accept the premise of your questions.
Jetconnect has been in operation for almost 10 years and operates under the red tail because it is a wet lease provider to Qantas. This is an appropriate and legitimate operating structure which is common within the airline industry.
Jetconnect is a New Zealand-registered company, operating New Zealand originating services. It holds a New Zealand air operator certificate, operates New Zealand registered aircraft and employs New Zealand pilots who are represented by the relevant New Zealand Airline Pilots union.
Jetconnect employs around 100 pilots in New Zealand. Despite the impression created by the Australian pilots’ union, in the time that Jetconnect has been in operation not one Qantas mainline pilot has been made redundant.
4 Comments flyboy125
Posted April 15, 2011 at 8:46 am | Permalink
I wonder if Qantas even know where they are at in this machiavellian twist of lies. To the paying customer “Yes, this is a Qantas service with the full product and safety standards that come with that ticket price” (a friend recently flew on one of these flights and yes indeed, John Travolta still welcomes everyone onboard in the safety demo video and still emphasises how ‘there’s nonone I’d rather have up the front than a Qantas pilot’).
To the Qantas Staff, ATO, Australian Government “Jetconnect is a an absolutely separate company, nothing to do with Qantas whatsoever”
This sorry tale seems more and more like an episode of Fawlty Towers. “Baaaasssssilllll!”
spaniard
Posted April 15, 2011 at 12:00 pm | Permalink
Hrrrrm. So Ben – does this mean that if Qantas management get what they want and base every pilot, aircraft, maintenance facility and flight attendant in Singapore/NZ/(*insert other country with inferior work conditions here) that NO Qantas flight will actually be a Qantas flight?
It’s a real kick in the teeth to Qantas mainline staff. Are QF management implying that the QF mainline operation is superior to the NZ Jetconnect? How can this be an excuse? THEY set it up!! THEY chose to employ staff on half the pay. THEY took to the aircraft with red paint and the “Spirit of Australia” punchline. It seems to me that its just an instrument to transfer blame to some other entity – who apparently doesn’t have a bank account…
Just hope the public can see through this nonsense. Problem is most don’t give a rats as long as they get to X with minimal damage to their bank account…
Ken Borough
Posted April 15, 2011 at 12:54 pm | Permalink
There is no doubt that it’s a Qantas flight, even if operated by a wholly-owned subsidiary. It is sold with a QF designator using QF Group owned equipment, scheduled by Qantas and with revenue accruing to Qantas. I bet Qantas counts as theirs the pax carried by JetConnect in its numbers reported to DOTRS (or whatever that department is called this week). Would the PR moppets resile from ownership in like manner if the incident involved QantasLink?
Obfuscation on the part of a spin-doctor in order to ‘hide’ a grand agenda does nothing to help Qantas’ dwindling credibility. To make matters worse, the mainstream media doesn’t have the attention-span or ‘smarts’ to research what is in fact the case.
interesting
Posted April 15, 2011 at 6:08 pm | Permalink
mmmm, “not made redundant” but what has happened to their flying hours and their opportunities for career progressions.
Qantas is more of a PR firm than an airline these days