QANTAS - WHERE TO NOW?

[grip pipe]

Recent events concerning the airline business we call Qantas have been very unusual and the internal gyrations between various internal business divisions; long haul, domestic, intrastate and support interesting. The national interest in Qantas as a matter of national interest is fascinating and lack of commercial interest by airline customers strange.

Now if you look at the current attempts to make Qantas a profitable international conglomerate not a domestic business and you might be excused for thinking it is perhaps incompatible with what Qantas International once was or is , especially in the nostalgic mind's eye of its many customer memories of their flight experience.

Now, I confess I have never flown for Qantas or applied to fly for them or work with them, so I have always looked on as another member of the industry and public. I like most Australians have flown with them a lot. I must also confess that the form of aerial travelling shiftwork offered by Qantas was never to my liking. None the less it seems for reasons nostalgic we all seem to own or think we own Qantas in a way we are attached to other national symbols, such as Anzac day. Recently I have had cause of a personal nature to rummage about through picture archives, and other bits and pieces of airline memorabilia of airlines and Australian Aviation History. I have looked at timetables and video clips and worked my way through a number of operations manuals for aeroplanes long gone. After a while you develop a feel for the journey that Qantas has been on for many years and its association to the wider public and our own memories of Qantas. So recent years and more recent events and new raise the Question - Qantas Where to Now? This is an outsiders view.

I think once all Australians looked at Qantas as Australia's Airline, we had purchased an emotional ticket in the well being of Qantas, what they did, where they went and the aeroplanes they had. Qantas and its endeavours were part of the national psyche. But going to and fro from Australia there was not a lot of choice and the others were mere flavours of the same theme but from different places; American, Kiwi, Singaporean, Thai, Japanese and the odd European. The Qantas brand offered a kind of Australian certainty in a fast changing world and one that was chic and smart at times. What changed?

Once, Qantas was called an Empire Airway, then it became Australia's Overseas Airline, then Australia's International Airline, then the Spirit of Australia. Internationally it progressed from flying boats, DC-3s through the Constellation era into the 707 and then the 747 and 767. Qantas grew holding a tight grasp of the journeys to and from Australia and the places Australians were flying to. Always a government owned business enterprise despite its foundations in outback Queensland it was a flag for the country and embodied the safe success of air travel's development and growth. So the country and who came and went from it changed.

Fleet wise Qantas International was always a small player by most international comparison. The merger of Trans Australian Airlines (TAA) into the Qantas Group was seen as a good idea at the time but the domestic side always had a different culture and history than the international side. That common history and culture makes business's work and makes people want to work for them. It appears however that the overall success of the domestic side of the house hid some grim realities unleashed by Labour under Hawke and Keating and then the deregulation of the Australia-International market which created a whole new series of challenges for Qantas, that for a while they seemed able to manage. So the political and aviation policy environment changed.

The 80's through to post 2000 changed the airline business forever, mass market travel and tourism travel and sheer world population growth fuelled a phenomenal increase in air transport across the world. More people travelled more often to more places. Air travel became common place and routine. You have to have an edge like the Emirates do to play above your weight in the world of international air transport. Market size wins all in that game, so the market(s) changed.

Gyrations in the world of finance, resources and national economies have been subjected to unprecedented boom conditions and now an unprecedented bust. So the world of money changed.

Now Australia's airline has to stand side by side with all the others to attract the customers attention and loyalty and it has to do that in a world of globalised business, shifting centres of wealth and influence and the competing demands of nearly every place somewhere on the planet for tourism.

So, where to now for Qantas? I know what I remember about Qantas but I can find none of it in the current airlines experience. I cannot think of a single thing about Qantas that would now make me buy a Qantas ticket over another carrier or pay a premium to do so. Ten years ago I would have chosen Qantas first intenationally and split the difference domestically to be fair but now I cannot.

So to answer my question, where to now? the answer is in how you make Qantas unique again? and can you?

[ejectx3]

As the bloody CEO you could start by actually investing in qantas rather than bleeding it to death.

[Shark Patrol]

Or you could have the current Qantas CEO and Board bleed to death. Now that would be a really good start!!

[limelight]

I honestly think it is too late to save the patient. With the cutting back of services to Europe it will take an enormous effort to recover. I suspect this was their plan anyway, there would be no ability to go back.

It is very sad to see the brand trashed, such a valuable international asset, now being relegated to a domestic role.

[WorthWhat]

Problems always have solutions and the future of Qantas, as it is remembered, is no different.

What would be different would be the willingness of Government,Management and the Unions to actually agree on any solution put forward by a consortium of investors wanting to invest in Qantas - not Jetstar.

There are Investment Groups & other Airlines that think Qantas Airways Limited has a lot to offer, but simply don’t think it’s worth the time and effort to fight with Government, Management and Unions seemingly more interested in the next election, the next bonus and staying in office.

Without a truck load of fresh capital, expect Qantas’ Asia/Europe operation will continue to shrink.

[fender]

close down qantas and start a new airline called ANSETT.

[LHLisa]

A lot of our passengers are telling us that they want to fly with us but can't, because we don't go where they want to go. Passengers on board are still nostaligic for Qantas, what really suprises me is just how loyal our existing customers are. Passengers regularly tell me they are onboard because of the guy up front flying the plane. We definitely need new management, I can't believe our existing top guys are still there. It seems the bad decisions they keep making with Long Haul are deliberate. No one shrinks a brand to grow a company. I suspect insiders - as in our ex ceo - are still standing by to try and make a takeover and cut the business up for profits. On the plus we do have a lot of great staff, who do care, and are very loyal despite all thats happened. And we have a lot of loyal customers still, more than I would expect given the events of the past 6 months. A lot of customers do make derogatory remarks onboard about a certain Irish person. A lot of them seem to realise what is happening to us.

[Mr Leslie Chow]

Everything would be a lot clearer if the leprechaun or one of his management gerbils would outline at least to the staff some sort of direction for QF.

I swear, it's like a rudderless ship......

Will someone please lead from the front? QF needs the guy Mel Gibson played in "We were Soldiers"

[grip pipe]

LHLisa, interesting contribution. I agree with your point about Qantas not going where the passengers want to go, that would be an accurate assessment. I am also sure loyal and quote 'existing' customers have an affection for the company's product and operation, particularly professional aircrew.

My experience of the Qantas product goes back a long way and I have flown as a passenger in anything Qantas flew from the early 1950''s which means I have been in the PBY, the Connie, the Electra, the DC-4, the 707, the 747 and the 767 all international flights. Domestically all the NG series 737's and then back to 727's, DC-9's, DC-6B with TAA and Australian. The 707 and the Connie are both standout passenger experiences, both were comfortable, had great engine sounds and you were well looked after in the cabin. Going to a 747 mean a whole different travel experience and very few have done it well, well except all do 1st class the same, very well.

Maybe it is simply the freshness of the travel experience which made it different from a customer point of view, routine is routine after all, with everyone else doing it well it is hard to differentiate your product in the market, unless you were a pioneer route operator or legacy operator but that soon passes, did for Pan Am, did for BOAC and Japan Airlines.

I also agree with the point of Jetstar being a drain on management imagination and interest to the detriment of the international side. It is fine to build Jetstar as a business, after all it is what a large segment of the travel market are happy with but not at the detriment of the international side or as a play to the side on the domestic market. To compete against yourself domestically is crazy, you could get the same no frills service and a ride on a redtail and save a lot of paint.

The sad part is the people who are responsible for the company do not read PPrune or consider the points and debates had here some time, if they did they might learn a lot.

[Old but not bold]

G.P. A very good overview, I like you, never flew for Qantas, a lot of my friends did and loved every minute of it as did their passengers. But in this world of Micro Economics and Globalisation things have changed and will never again be the same, Qantas will most likely be another Vegemite, close to our hearts but not really Australian.

Over the years Qantas have made some very poor descissions and are now paying the cost with a very old fleet, high fares and average service and as such are no longer competitive.

Like most Australians, when I travel, my Airline of choice must have a modern fleet, the best fare structure, excellent service and a good safety record "and that aint Qantas" and that is a fact of life albeit a very disapointing one.
Oldie.

[pull-up-terrain]

I know this has been mentioned countless times. But i dont think Qantas would be in this current situation if they had bought the 777 10 years ago.
It also doesnt help when Jetstar are getting the 787's before QF.

[havick]

Grrreattt, another Qantas thread :rolleyes:

Perhaps the mods can merge them all

[qfcabin]

It is a little difficult to NOT have another Qantas thread in the down under area of PPRune.
Or should Qantas talk be in the African area, or the helicopter zone??

[havick]

I'd say %60 of the QF threads are all the same. (Alan Joyce bashing). Not that I don't agree or that it isn't deserved by any means, it's just that there's so many threads of the same nature that perhaps they should be merged.


The way QF is going, some of the African airlines probably provide a better product anyway, so perhaps it should go into the African section as you suggested.

[OneDotLow]

The way QF is going, some of the African airlines probably provide a better product anyway

I am the first to line up and have a bash at the Alan Joyce piñata, but having paxed on QF long haul economy (B747) for the first time in years last week, I was absolutely impressed. I have holed up in J class for years now and as such was dreading 14 hrs down the back of the jet. The cabin was new (refurbed B744), the crew were fantastic, the service was great and the crew were out in the cabin at least once an hour with water, hot chocolate, sandwiches, fruit, cheese & biscuits etc.

So as much bashing goes on from those who presumably haven't tried the product recently, I really couldn't fault the experience.

[havick]

I have tried the product recently, quite regularly in fact. The product is very hit and miss. Some flights are a great experience with new or re-furbished aircraft, and others are crap.

The problem is it's the bad experiences that most passengers remember, not the good ones.

[Sunfish]

Havick:

The problem is it's the bad experiences that most passengers remember, not the good ones.

There are rarely "good" flying experiences these days, we instead judge what is "least bad".

That is a function of travel to airport + airport experience + flight + airport experience + travel to destination.

Virtually none of it is "fun" anymore unless you are a first time traveller, and the gouging, security theatre and sheer inconvenience of the major airports almost guarantees a rotten time without even considering such things as delays, bogans and lost bags.

My preferred mode of travel now focuses on not more than Twelve hours flying, then a sleepover, then onwards to somewhere in Europe that I can catch a train. I will not fly into any British airport at any price - and America you can completely forget about.

...Unless someone else is paying for valet parking, the lounge and a business class seat.

[unionist1974]

And none of the problems relate to staff attitudes or stupid Union officials who have routed qantas . I include myself in that description of people who have over the years milked qantas for all they cpuld.
Now the time is to change or QF WILL go under .
I have no time for the current team running the place , but harking back to the past is not a plan to secure the future .

[Flyingblind]

To my mind the 'transformation" of the Qantas brand is at the behest of the Board. It is the board that appoints the CEO and it is the board that ensures the CEO is taking the product where the board thinks it should go.

For my money it is not the current CEO who's steering the ship, he's just the monkey, you need to look at the organ grinder to find out who has the plan.

When Ansett died Qantas where in a remarkable position with staggering opportunity for company growth and shareholder wealth, looking at the Qantas of today one could not help but think that only a deliberate and systematic destruction of the brand in a deliberate attempt to negate the unions and their demands must have been made. I can only guess but the boards background of non union negation must have played a part in their longer term thinking.

They had a 'vision' for Qantas that did not included accepted Australian wages and conditions, the only way to bypass those conditions was to bypass the Qantas brand and invent another airline with a methodology and cost base more sympathetic to the boards ideal.

If we had Chapter 11 in Australia then I'm sure the board would have taken that option as demonstrated by their peers in the US.

[Baxter Dewall]

Flyingblind,

You have summed it up totally, 100% agree :ok:

[TallestPoppy]

Flyingblind

I assume you think that Qantas could be turned round, with it's current cost base and industrial agreements intact, if only the CEO had 'vision'?

[Angle of Attack]

I assume you think that Qantas could be turned round, with it's current cost base and industrial agreements intact, if only the CEO had 'vision'?

The major cost base is a battalion of middle manager leechers that do nothing that try to justify their own position. Virgin's ATR's have ironed out their problems and for a better term raping the Q400's on profitability. Plans are for 50 to be ordered in the near future. The QF fool managers are so intent on paper clips and KPI's that they have lost the focus. As for QF longhaul well all involved are on the gravy train and they will be gone in the next few years anyway.

[TallestPoppy]

AoA are you really suggesting the only cost base problem is middle managers?

Is the cost base of the incumbent crews and their industrial practices not a drain on the airline as well?

[DirectAnywhere]

I refuse to go until I get a package. I'll spend the time until that occurs doing as little as I'm legally allowed to.

[PPRuNeUser0198]

Virgin's ATR's have ironed out their problems and for a better term raping the Q400's on profitability

Evidence to support this?

[Angle of Attack]

ATR's are on around 49% burn of Q400's for very similar load. The evidence will be borne out over time, what evidence do you need.. just look at the specs of both aircraft.

Is the cost base of the incumbent crews and their industrial practices not a drain on the airline as well?

No that is why I mentioned the gravy train, the incumbent awards are complicated and expensive, lets face it the long haul award is dying a slow death, but I still suspect the vast majority of waste is in the admin side.

[tail wheel]

It is a little difficult to NOT have another Qantas thread in the down under area of PPRuNe.
Or should Qantas talk be in the African area, or the helicopter zone??

It is important and inevitable there will be Qantas related threads in Dunnunda Reporting Points forum, however there is no excuse for the number of Qantas threads, most of which are either similar or related. And whilst some Qantas threads start on different topics they inevitably end up going down the same monotonous, tedious, repetitious, whinging route.

We know the problems at Qantas; we believe you; we don't need to be repetitiously reminded in every post, every Qantas thread! Please consider the Mods - we have to read all that cr@p!:ugh:

Related threads will continue to be merged - unless Mod patience runs out then the superfluous and duplicated threads will be closed.

ATR's are on around 49% burn of Q400's for very similar load. The evidence will be borne out over time, what evidence do you need.. just look at the specs of both aircraft.

Considering the ATR72 has PW127 engines producing 2,750 shp (2,050 kW) each and the Dash 8 400 has PW150A engines rated at 5,071 shp (3,781 kW), one would expect the ATR to burn around 55% of the Dash 8 400 fuel burn, but considering the ATR72 cruises around 270 kts and the Dash 8 cruises around 360 kts, the seat/mile fuel burn of the Dash 8 400 appears to be only very marginally higher than the ATR72? But at the same time, the 33% higher cruise speed of the Dash 8 400 gives far better aircraft and crew utilisation? I suspect the Dash 8 400 would have lower seat/mile costs than the ATR72?

[TIMA9X]

It is important and inevitable there will be Qantas related threads in DunnundaThanks tail wheel, hear you loud and clear..

May I suggest, the name of this thread QANTAS - WHERE TO NOW? would save a lot of thread duplications.... covers a lot of issues in just four words... and probably gives War & Peace a run for page numbers..:)


Great header
Thanks gp :ok:

[TheWholeEnchilada]

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.
--
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776





Qantas chiefs chat: who gets the tab?
Mark Hawthorne and Eli Greenblat
March 30, 2012 - 12:06PM

http://images.smh.com.au/2012/03/30/3175508/qantaslead-420x0.jpg
Cheque please ... Qantas boss meets with his predecessor Geoff Dixon in Sydney. Photo: James Brickwood


Qantas chief Alan Joyce and his predecessor, former CEO Geoff Dixon, have clocked up some $50 million in pay between them. So which of them picks up the drinks tab?

In exclusive pictures that will hardly warm the hearts of long-term Qantas shareholders - or the airline's 30,000 rank-and-file staff - the two were photographed last night in deep conversation that lasted for three hours.

Qantas CEOs' pay: who earned what

One can only imagine what they were talking about last night, as they enjoyed a beer and a couple of glasses of wine at the bar of the Park Hyatt Hotel at The Rocks in Sydney.


It's not the cheapest place in town to buy a drink - a beer alone tops $10 - but that should hardly trouble the pair.

According to the company's annual reports, Dixon and Joyce have earned $50.7 million in pay, bonuses and shares from running the nation's national carrier since 2002.

Indeed, during his tenure at Qantas, Dixon could lay claim to being the highest paid airline executive in the world.

In 2008 he pocketed $10.7 million before he departed Qantas - for just five months of work.

Ten years ago, Qantas shares were trading at almost $4.40 apiece. They peaked in 2007 at $6.05, amid the Dixon-led private equity play for the carrier. Today the shares trade at a much more humble $1.81 per share.

One thing is for sure - despite their self-professed leanings to the left side of social issues, a love of unions is unlikely to have been on the agenda.

Joyce has followed his predecessor's course of battling the unions that represent the airline's employees.

http://images.theage.com.au/2012/03/30/3175518/qantasbody.jpg

In 2003, Dixon remarked: "Whenever I refer to the possibility that Qantas may need to relocate work offshore, I am greeted with shock. But that is the reality of the aviation industry today. [Although] we need to be successful in our efforts to secure greater efficiency and cost reductions, we still have to pursue actions in order to remain competitive."

In his tussle with the unions over the past year, such a line could have come straight from the Joyce script.

Of course, neither man has made a secret of their regular meetings.

Last year Dixon admitted they met every few weeks and just this week Joyce flagged plans to catch up with the old boss.

We've put in the call to Qantas to ask which of the two picked up the bill. We'll keep you posted.

[email protected]

Follow Mark Hawthorne on Twitter

Read more: Qantas chiefs chat: who gets the tab? (http://www.smh.com.au/business/qantas-chiefs-chat-who-gets-the-tab-20120330-1w287.html#ixzz1qYq6cwJw)

Dixon led private equity bid?...Hmmmm.

[jet.jackson]

Neither one of them.
Qantas picks up the tab.Claimed as a business meeting
Dixon looks a little worse for wear.Photos must have been taken toward the end of their sojourn.

[Sunfish]

They were most probably talking about raising money for charity, anything else would leave open the possibility of transgrssing the ASX continuous disclosure rules, not to mention all sorts of laws wouldn't it?

[Ken Borough]

I refuse to go until I get a package. I'll spend the time until that occurs doing as little as I'm legally allowed to.

This is major cultural problem at Qantas in that very, very few either resign or retire. Instead, many time-servers greedily and selfishly hang around like bad smells doing and contributing very little waiting for the Company to pay them to go. You might like to read this but it's true. I ask: how many people do you know who have left Qantas of their own volition, as opposed to VR or 'the package'? :ugh::ugh:

[prunezeuss]

You might like to read this but it's true. I ask: how many people do you know who have left Qantas of their own volition, as opposed to VR or 'the package'?

More than you think Ken.The place is toxic.Many Exco stay because its a gravy train and they are unlikely to obtain employment elsewhere.Management have set the benchmark.Employees aspire to that benchmark.

[waren9]

I refuse to go until I get a package. I'll spend the time until that occurs doing as little as I'm legally allowed to.

That assumes there will be something left in the pot when the lights go out.

[SpannerTwister]

This is major cultural problem at Qantas in that very, very few either resign or retire........waiting for the Company to pay them to go.......how many people do you know who have left Qantas of their own volition, as opposed to VR or 'the package'?

Of course Ken, if what you say is correct and you're going to stick with it, what do you think it says about the company if the staff know that every few years the company will be coming around getting rid of staff ?

Here are a few options, feel free to tick the one you feel is most correct !

[ ] Incompetent management frequently get rid of experienced and valuable staff, only a year or two later to find they have cut too deep

[ ] Sadistic management like firing and hiring staff just for fun

[ ] Inexperienced management doesn't really know how many people it takes to run an airline

[ ] Frequently recycled managers have no idea of their predecessors plan or vision for the departments

[ ] Amateur management believe hucksters telling them that contracting / outsourcing jobs will be cheaper, only to soon find out they were conned

[ ] All of the above

ST

[TIMA9X]

Qantas chief Alan Joyce and his predecessor, former CEO Geoff Dixon, have clocked up some $50 million in pay between them.It's no wonder people in the know get upset, $50 million is a lot of money, and what have these guys delivered? In my view nothing positive just negative vibes..




This is the major cultural problem at QantasWhat goes around comes around, don't blame the staff Ken, I think most people who join Qantas want to stay there, there are still many who joined way before Dixon & Joyce came along.....

QANTAS - WHERE TO NOW?

It hasn't changed much since Dixon took the controls... it's all about them and what goes in their wallets, in my view.. probably why stories like the smh one above keep popping up on a more regular basis these days...

SFdBkeoe29c

.

[Tankengine]

Ken,
I am a long term employee [and share owner - who bought more shares than just employee bonuses]:sad:
Up until fairly recently I was a loyal employee.
After the last few years of management crap I am now with Directanywhere!
:*

I will get what I can, while I can!:eek:

If the board an CEO change [both physically and in direction] then I will go the extra yards again - but not with these idiots.:mad:

[DirectAnywhere]

Ken's on my blocked list (in fact he is my blocked list) but I assume he was talking about me.

Against my better judgement Ken...

The day I joined QANTAS was one of the happiest of my life, second only to a couple of better ones. I used to go the extra yard, answer the phone on my day off, go in when they were short of crew, volunteer for unpaid duties. You name it, I'd do it, because I loved the place and the job.

So what is the result of all that? I am now well and truly surplus and staring down the barrel of redundancy. I plan to hang around as long as I can, get a package if and when I can, and no longer feel the motivation to do any more than I am paid to do.

That's it.

[Captain Gidday]

Ken, in the last 35 years not a single pilot has been offered a redundancy package from Qantas. Not one [unless there has been a private tap on the shoulder for someone who 'they' wanted to get rid of who was made a very quiet one off offer that no one knows about].
In the last 35 years, I'm guessing, about 800 pilots have retired or resigned. Not one package, Ken. The current crop leaving are not getting any redundancy packages either. They are either resigning outright, with heavy hearts for the most part, or taking 'leave of absence without pay' usually for three years but knowing deep down that there is unlikely anything to come back to.
I'm not speaking for other classifications but this is the PPRuNe, after all.
At least ask a management mate for the truth before you make such wild and untrue allegations.

[neville_nobody]

Mind you the free A320 endorsements being thrown around might as well be considered a redundancy package! :mad:

[EWP]

Superb commentary - brilliant!

[EWP]

Ken you are are just like BA - the whining continues even when the engines are shut down - you have so much to say however you don't have the guts to say who you are....believe you me - people know who you are and you opinion is not valued at all.

[gobbledock]

Ken is a nimrod. Plus he is never correct with his information because he is only a plane spotter. Ignore his comments as they are fantasy, guess work and basically all crap.
I'm betting Ken snapped the photo of his two hero's sipping on those urine spritzers! Ken would have been on his way with scanner and camera to roll off some happy snaps of aircraft when he spotted his idols. Or is Ken a sick freak who stalks his idols??

[balance]

Will you people stop feeding the Troll please?

[Captain Gidday]

Nev, It's getting sad when a type endorsement is seen as a 'freebie'. God help us - even at Cityrail and Sydney Buses the drivers don't have to pay for their endorsements. How low can this profession sink?
Now don't hit me, lads, but I've got to say I don't actually mind Ken. Sure he's factually wrong sometimes but often he articulates what might be called the 'management position'. Part of the problem, and why there are so many 'where to now, Qantas' type of threads here [and in other similar places] is that QF management is spectacularly bad at engaging the troops in any meaningful and coherent dialogue. They are hunkered in their bunker and you'll just do what you're told or else. We are the managers and we have the Divine Right of Kings to manage, Goddammit!
The travelling public and sections of the media are equally confused by the whole 'dual airline/ LCC' thing. I think it's been done to death that setting up a Magda Cheap and Cheerful brand and then putting loyal high expectation Qantas customers without any choice onto a codeshare with Jet* has been a recipe for disaster. You save a dollar but lose the customer, anywhere they have a choice. It does not matter whether the cheap brand has the new aircraft etc. It's all about brand positioning and customer perception. That's the point of failure with the model. And yet they want to export this model all over Asia? As minority partners in hostile environments? Management expertise, anyone?
So keep contributing, Ken. I often don't much like what you say [and I'll be happy to tell you when you are factually wrong] but we'd be silly to exclude your opinion from the debate.
Not that any of this is going to do us any good. Hanrahan is no longer with us, but you know what he always said.

[V-Jet]

The problem is that Qantas Management (for want of a _far_ better word) are totally incompetent.

They have not a clue about how to run a business, would be incapable of it on their own and can only do it when there are hundreds of millions of dollars to play with.

The BBCTV series Back to Floor might be a good place to start.

I am indescribably angry at these thieves and charletans for doing what they have done. They STILL just do not even understand how much it is they don't understand. And it is nothing about engagement. Qantas staff didn't need to be engaged in the past, they took great pride in their jobs - the engagement came from their own activity not from management. It was taken for granted everyone did their 'best' for the company - Qantas was everything. Under the appalling management of the last ten years staff are not even being given the tools (mental and physical) to be able to take pride in their roles. Current engagement is a symptom of sycophantic yes-sir management that is totally devoid of airline operational experience. It (engagement) is emphatically NOT about excel awards or 'meet the troops' meetings. All of those things are nothing but an insult when they are given by people who it is absolutely impossible to respect. Management requires exacting standards of its workforce. Unfortunately management is clearly demonstrating in every way possible that they are a bunch of unpoliced, unskilled, greedy & incompetent buffoons who know less than nothing about brand management and airline operations.

Qantas staff see themselves as custodians of the brand, and much like country farmers have a very strong desire to leave the land to their children in better condition than when they got it themselves.

Qantas management see themselves as worthy of grand remuneration and self aggrandisement and have a very strong desire to leave themselves in a much better financial position when they leave the company than when they joined. And which company they join and leave is irrelevant.

When 'management' applied to work at Qantas, they applied for a job (with an insulting staff travel category). When 'staff' apply they apply for a career with an icon and to be part of something very special. This is the principal difference in attitude between the two groups in Qantas.

[teresa green]

I don't know what you do with a airline that is such a integral part of the country, such a part of the history of the country. QF is not nor ever has been just a airline, its the National Carrier, the big fella, with a proud war history, one of the most prestige companies in the country. Its not something you can just ignore, let it run down and say blithely cost to much to run, so over to JQ, much cheaper. The day Joyce pulled the plug sent the country into a shockwave, waddya mean its not flying? All of a sudden the people were without their security blanket, no red tails overhead, all of a sudden something was missing, the country was not the same, they felt outraged, vulnerable, it mattered not they were not booked to fly, that was not the point, and the outrage came thru media outlets for the next 48 hours as Joyce went from villain to hero back to villain as confusion rained. When the dust settled, Joyce must have felt unsettled, as he would have to have recognised he was dealing with something else other than just another airline, that he was dealing with history, a huge part of the history of this country, for without the aircraft this country is to big to operate, (as we found out to our horror in 89) as Australia started to grind to a halt. By fair means or foul, QF must never be allowed to diminish, never, it must be there for future generations of pilots, engineers CC and ground staff, it must be there for the future of the country, for the history of the country, it has well and truly earned its place in history and that can never be diminished, and it must be passed on to a CEO and board who give it the respect it deserves, and the future it deserves. Simplistic yes, but even in this "slick" time when history matters nil, somethings just don't warrant changing, QF is right up there.

[Sunfish]

It is quite clear what the Qanatas model is; grow Jetstar overseas while starving Qantas Domestic and International.

At some point in time, an all out assault on the Qantas sale act will be launched - on the basis that there is nothing left to protect.

Then Jetstar - with its crummy work practices and cheap contractors will be rebranded "Qantas"

Simple really.

Gina Rhinehart is trying to do something similar with the "Guest worker" proposal.

What it means is that Australians will be treated exactly the same as third world workers.

[Ken Borough]

Ah well, it's good to see that the usual suspects have been out in force with their personal denigration, not just of me but with anyone who dares put a contrary view. What a sad and sorry lot some of you are who cannot get above the personal and debate the substance of an issue? You know who you are, and what fun you must be to work with! Amen to that.

[V-Jet]

Sunfish:
It is actually not about third world workers in Qf case. The 'real' staff at QF work for basically the same rates as they would work for any number of foreign airlines. And THAT is the tragedy, despite what the incompetent buffoons in charge dictate to the media, it is at its base level utter garbage.

The 'legacy' costs of Qantas Mainline are the costs that the idiots getting paid millions forced on the company by thinking they should be earning the same pay as the APA boys, playing finance games and not listening to anyone who had any operational experience of airlines or indeed anyone with even a quarter of a brain who said '777's'.

So.... There is no way in the world/universe that a 380 burning 13k of fuel per hour carrying 100-150 more pax than a 777 that burns 6k per hour is EVER going to compete.

And that is the problem. The buffoons in charge blame equal cost labour to make up for their total incompetence.

Who cares? They want to destroy the iCon and their incompetence actually increases the likelihood of 'proving' the case.

Scrotum Face has a nice Chateau in France (like Abeles did) and no doubt Elaine will achieve the same lofty personal bank account from the following the same path as dictated by Grand Poobah Clifford and Scroaty... All I can say is, I would LOVE be hit with the same barrage sales pitch that Airbus must have done on these guys - it MUST be a worlds best...

[shon7]

I don't know what you do with a airline that is such a integral part of the country, such a part of the history of the country. QF is not nor ever has been just a airline, its the National Carrier, the big fella, with a proud war history, one of the most prestige companies in the country.

Thats all well and good but when it comes to travel the budget traveller looks for price - where QF cannot compete (excluding Jetstar). The premium traveller looks for service - where too QF cannot compete.

Ask Australian citizens if they are ok with a Qantas tax that will be used to pay the QF salaries and support the organisation as is and all this nationalistic talk soon dies down.

[Tidbinbilla]

Gina Rhinehart is trying to do something similar with the "Guest worker" proposal.

Gerry Harvey from Harvey Norman proposed this idiotic idea several years ago, Sunfish.:ugh:

It's all about profit, Jerry. Not about Australian Jobs. We're a wakeup to you!

I stopped being a customer after that press release.:ok:

[psycho joe]

Gerry Harvey from Harvey Norman proposed this idiotic idea several years ago, Sunfish.


The Billionaires lament.

IIRC He was having trouble finding enough Australians who would demonstrate the required level of gratitude for receiving the min wage to have the opportunity to muck out his stables. :rolleyes:

[gobbledock]

Hmmm. Gerry Harvey is from the school of Dixon and Joyce, load your bank account to overflowing at the expense of unappreciated staff, offer a crap product and then sook when your millions or billions just don't seem like enough! He is a parasite.
As for Elaine and Darth, it is funny, perhaps even ironic when you look at those photos. Elaine has a few extra chins and has had cancer a few times. Darth looked like the living dead, or at least looked his age - really old. So no matter how many millions they have it can't and won't save them from things like cancer, aging and the like. Sorry grubs, all your millions won't buy you two weasels popularity or longevity and quality of life when everything is done and dusted. Enjoy!

[TIMA9X]

Alan Joyce's AUD5m pay shot down by Qantas pilots | thetelegraph.com.au (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/alan-joyces-5m-pay-shot-down-by-qantas-pilots/story-e6freuy9-1226315228845)

Stunning photo Al :)



Alan Joyce's AUD5m pay shot down by Qantas pilots



http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2011/08/16/1226116/077053-alan-joyce.jpg
Joyce said if one considered his "conservative" AUD5 million a year salary and the hours he worked, he was lower paid than some senior pilots and captains. Source: The Australian



QANTAS pilots have lashed out at their chief executive Alan Joyce after he claimed he earns less than some of them.

After a brief lull in the war between pilots and the airline that culminated in the fleet's grounding six months ago, Mr Joyce has reignited their fury by discussing his salary in an magazine interview. He said if one considered his "conservative" AUD5 million a year salary and the hours he worked, he was lower paid than some senior pilots and captains.


"Alan Joyce is a mathematician, but I think he probably needs to invest some of that AUD5 million in a new calculator," Captain Richard Woodward, vice president of the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) said. "To put that sort of package in perspective, if Mr Joyce worked 14-hour days, six days a week and never took a holiday -- he'd be on an hourly rate of AUD1,107.



"To describe AUD5 million a year as conservative is outrageous and insulting."


Mr Joyce made the comments to GQ magazine, saying: "What Qantas pays me as CEO is actually very conservative compared with the other ASX 100 companies and if you ranked salaries by hours worked, I'm not even the highest paid person in Qantas because the pilots and senior captains get paid a lot more."
However, AIPA said even the top handful of pilots employed by Qantas, senior A380 captains, would have to work an impossible 357 hours a week to get Mr Joyce's annual package.
The average hourly rate is AUD169 and the minimum guaranteed hours per year is 1040. Salaries range from AUD36 an hour for the lowest paid to the highest at AUD260 -- and these pilots have more than 12 years of experience.
Well said RW and good to see a story like this in the mainstream Murdock press. (for a change)


It is actually not about third world workers in Qf case. The 'real' staff at QF work for basically the same rates as they would work for any number of foreign airlines. And THAT is the tragedy, despite what the incompetent buffoons in charge dictate to the media, it is at its base level utter garbage.

The 'legacy' costs of Qantas Mainline are the costs that the idiots getting paid millions forced on the company by thinking they should be earning the same pay as the APA boys, playing finance games and not listening to anyone who had any operational experience of airlines or indeed anyone with even a quarter of a brain who said '777's'. :D

This is why these guys running the show at Q are on the nose... people are starting to wake up and why pictures like this are finding their way into the mainstream press.

http://images.smh.com.au/2012/03/30/3175508/qantaslead-420x0.jpg

Not a great year so far for these two, The Qantas brand is suffering and Tourism Australia are struggling to attract bums on seats inbound... whilst local tourism is suffering a down turn...

AUSTRALIANS place more trust in brands like Google, Apple and Ikea, while former leaders like Qantas are losing credibility.

Australia’s top 12 brands of the future:


Google
Apple
Ikea
PayPal
Youtube
Microsoft
Windows 7
eBay.com
Wii
Dyson
Vegemite
Subway

Some of the bigger brands that have seen a consistent decline in trust over the last five years:


Qantas
Dairy Farmers
Kodak
OPSM
Mr Sheen
Dymocks
Levi's
Meadow Lea


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/google-apple-and-ikea-among-most-trusted-brands-while-qantas-is-on-the-nose/story-fn7j19iv-1226310510471
Operators fear tourism fall as Australian dollar climbs (http://www.theage.com.au/travel/travel-news/operators-fear-tourism-fall-as-australian-dollar-climbs-20110102-19d2w.html)

[V-Jet]

I trust our buffoons will be careful wrecking our icon in China....

Matthew Ng's tragedy:
.... The crux of Ng's case has been a crude power play for control of the lucrative travel company, GZL, which has offered a sobering insight into the influence of state-owned enterprises and the murkier aspects of China's judicial system

The oft quoted rising Aus dollar BTW might be decimating the local economy, but it does help outgoing tourism and thus pax numbers. Aussies are travelling like never before. I just hope the economy stays 'reasonably' strong, despite our dreadful government.

[teresa green]

Your quite right Shon 7 of course they go for the cheaper airline, no different to me going to Bunnings then the more expensive privately run hardware shop down the road, but for some inexplicable reason I still like the hardware shop down the road, and admire the bloke for still battling Bunnings up the road. And they are the same, they use a cheaper airline to go to Bali, but expect QF to be always there, because its supposed to be there, its part of the countries fabric, and the minute it gets threatened they all start yelling lay off it. The point I am making is Joyce has been placed in the unenviable position of not just running any old airline that he can close down when it starts to fade, and bring in a young fresh airline that is more economic to run, but a airline that is married to the country it represents, and thereby lies the problem. Joyce and probably Dixon would probably just like the close the whole box and dice down, and make the far more economical JQ the new National Carrier, Joyce after all was not born here, so would not have the same affection or loyality that QF attracts, and Dixon is only ever attracted to a dollar, but had the sense not to go to far with QF before he found himself drawn and quartered, far easier to hand it over to someone who has little idea and take the flack. So doomed if he does and doomed if he does not is Joyce, dealing with a top heavy aging airline, that is so firmly entrenched in the country, he cannot destroy it, as much as he would love to, so all that is left is dismantle it slowly, destroy its engineering capacity, making life difficult for its pilots, destroying moral amongst its cabin crew and ground staff, taking it off lucrative routes, and failing to buy the 777, but keeping aged uneconomical aircraft flying and slowly but surely it will die and natural death, that cannot be blamed on its board or CEO but a natural death caused by a changing world, that a old fashioned company like Qantas cannot possibly keep up with, and JQ the new kid, economical, with the newest aircraft, cheap labor both on the flight deck and behind it is the way to go. This is obvious to even blind freddy, but now its up to its staff to halt his progress, for QF is a fine airline that deserves better, and is worth fighting for, and hopefully its staff will eventually win, Joyce will go and someone who has the companies future as heart, who is prepared to take it into the future as a vibrant, experienced airline will take his place. One can only hope.

[SpannerTwister]

How much does a full page advertisement in the AFR cost ?

Split that among half-a-dozen unions ?

Run it once a week for a month ?

We need to win the PR war, right now although we're not losing, that's not good enough.

ST

[shon7]

Your quite right Shon 7 of course they go for the cheaper airline, no different to me going to Bunnings then the more expensive privately run hardware shop down the road, but for some inexplicable reason I still like the hardware shop down the road, and admire the bloke for still battling Bunnings up the road...

How exactly would you sustain QF on the international side where it is losing tons of money. As I said before, all this nationalistic talk goes out the window if you ask people whether they are ok with their taxes being raised to support the airline.

[TheWholeEnchilada]

Shon7, it is Qantas management saying that "Qantas International" is losing money. However, they produce no accounts for "Qantas International", so it is a "trust us" statement. I don't buy it, show me the data, and the assumptions in the accounts. Don't just take this statement at face value, when it is un-testable. This is the crux of the issue, if something is repeated enough does it becomes the truth? Propaganda 101.

Lets for the sake of the argument take at face value that "Qantas International" is losing money. Is it because of:

Inefficient aircraft (old aircraft)
High maintenance costs (old aircraft)
Labour practices
Internal accounting practices

Which makes the biggest contribution to the loss? If you have two internal airlines, one with new aircraft, one with old, I wonder which one will make the losses?

The truth is there would be only a few executives who know on a genuine like-for-like basis, the comparison of the profitability of any of the internal operations. As Sunfish has so adequately demonstrated, there is little to no expert aviation accounting outside the airlines, an hence they are effectively a law unto themselves.

This is why the "Group" structure is so useful, all the segments can be thrown in, mixed around in a big stew, with the final profit figure ladelled out in the ASX statutory accounts along with the "trust us" profit & loss for the internal divisions.

To what end? To negate The Qantas Sales Act and set course for a rollicking deal-a-thon and immense personal wealth.

http://images.smh.com.au/2012/03/30/3175508/qantaslead-420x0.jpg

[teresa green]

Shon 7, the people would probably react the same way as they did when Gillard announced yet another legup for the car industry, but as the car industry, namely Holden, did not offer any compensation for the money like increased productivity, in fact the car unions on upon hearing the wonderful news immediately asked for a pay rise! So the public are not exactly enamoured by "leg ups" to any industry. Qantas perhaps might be treated a little differently, perhaps nationalisation would be again considered, perhaps not, and in reality Holden and Qantas are and were almost partners in Australia's growth, from the end of the WW2 to the nineties and beyond. As for QF international who knows what money they do or do not make, it is not clear, and many believe money made is siphoned off into JQ, that the truth is not being told, in fact too many believe it for it not to have some basis. Be in no doubt the plan since Dixon was to destroy the QF we know, to hand the basis of it over to the "joey" where the same job can be done for nix compared to QF, whether they planned to totally destroy QF or leave it as a" boutique" airline, only they know, but they will do what they think they can get away with, of that you can be certain, unless some clear thinking individual comes along who believes QF is and should remain the national carrier, and run it accordingly. The next two years will be telling. If I was a S/O now for QF I would cut it and run, if I wanted to stay in OZ I would head to JQ, even if it was a DRW basing or whatever, adjust the families lifestyle to the new wage, (you are still not going to starve) and hope for a command in the next ten years. My second youngest is about to do just that, and I don't blame her one moment, in fact I encouraged it. Its a gamble but then so is life, and once done you can then settle to a new career, instead of looking over your shoulder. This is of course a intensely personal decision, but she is sick of not being sure anymore, its not what she hoped for, or expected, but she is only twenty six with no dependents (well, one cat) and her life ahead of her. This is not to encourage others to follow her, far from it, but it is a action that reflects where QF is today, and never was before, it would have been a unthinkable action even 10 years ago.

[TallestPoppy]

Theresa

I fully agree with your post, such as, if now a Second Officer in mainline, now it the time to leave.

Sadly those at the top of the QF pilot gravy train see no need for a change. Those below just keep up a 'stock together' mantra, and fail to see that the industry has changed.

The employees in QF needed to volunteer and drive changes to their working practices a long time ago. Jeez, talk to BA pilots, they have had 3 paycuts in the last decade or so, but still fly all their own aircraft. They just bought BMI, (the old British Midland), and agreed to work harder in shorthaul and gave up 2 leave days in long and shorthaul to amalgamate the loss-making BMI into BA.

I do not work for either QF or BA, but I would prefer BA to be my employer than QF

[Collando]

It's certainly strange how qf international has made profit for he last 10 yrs and suddenly its bleeding to the tune of 200 mill.(see previous AGM statements) no mention by exec how after 8 yrs J * aisia make a paltry profit of 18 mill ? Where's the return on capital there ?
Creative accounting at its best!

[gobbledock]

The funny thing with the egotistical disconnected Irish Nupty is that he actually believes his own delusional ramblings. He is forgetting some fundamentals;
• Although QF is ASX 100 listed, it's value has plunged since he took charge, by 83%. Lucky for him that his salary obviously isn't performance based otherwise he would be owing Qantas.
• Stating that he is paid less than other ASX 100 CEO's is true. Somebody better show him the profits of a handful of the other companies as at least those CEO's partially deserve their massive pays, they deliver far more than the little fella.
• Is anybody else sick of hearing this little fella's ramblings about only earning $5 million? He keeps forgetting bonuses, perks and other treats. His earnings are closer to $10 million. There are additional rumors that he has business links to airline service suppliers, consultancies and other interests which earn him an additional $5 - $9 million per year.

I think he should be very very grateful for the fact he gets to extract such a disgustingly high unjustifiable existence out of QF, considering the companies current shape. As for comparing what he does to what pilots do well that is a complete laugh, the difference is obvious;

- Pilots try to strengthen and promote the brand by offering an actual service, under impossible demands each and every day.
- Pilots think of others than themselves at work, they consider the crew, passengers, the reasonable care of the machine they are flying.
- Pilots focus and perform their role based upon processes and safety foremost.
- Pilots accept and acknowledge that their actions could either tarnish the brand, destroy a life or bring negative consequences upon the companies reputation based upon the pilots own individual actions.

AJ's daily concern - me me me $$$$$$.

[M Taylor]

Teresa

How absolutely terrible for your daughter imagine the nerve of Qantas/Jetstar paying $30K for an airbus endorsement for her then only paying a 26 year old a six figure amount - it is just appalling mistreatment.

Tell the public they will riot in the streets for you. They will demand that all Qantas pilots get paid at least $150K for a Second officer, have six weeks leave and fly no more than than 600 hours on average per year.

[OhSpareMe]

They will demand that all Qantas pilots get paid at least $150K for a Second officer, have six weeks leave and fly no more than than 600 hours on average per year.

Well mate, you seem to have all the answers. But let me tell you - I am a QF pilot that would be happy to fly more hours - as I am paid by the hour. Except that Alan and his mates reckon someone else can (and should) do it cheaper.

[teresa green]

Get knocked back Taylor?

[LHLisa]

Spanner is right - ads in the Australian, the AFR etc. On my last flight I had pax at boarding saying "thank goodness" they were getting on the red tail and how good it made them feel. I am still blown away by the emotion we evoke in people. And its in large part thanks to managements wonderful "I still call Australia home" advertising I think. People love us, they hate us, but really they love us. We should capitalise on that. I have not seen an "I still call Australia home" ad for a while, I think management may have seen it as a conflict of their current interest? A bit like the John Travolta demo? And I applaud Teresa s post, its very true, regarding the sentiment, the war and bunnings etc. Well written. Maybe we would all be better with just one union? A super power union?

[TIMA9X]

On my last flight I had pax at boarding saying "thank goodness" they were getting on the red tail and how good it made them feel.Folks, probably the best set of words I have read for a while, if we are really honest with ourselves, I think most of us on here have been close to saying that or the though at least crossed our minds from time to time..

gulp, here goes,

Well, I have a few times... it's a cultural thing.. I'm sure there are a few Brits, Americans, Canadians, Kiwis as well as other Australians on here who know what I am talking about..... they feel the same about their Legacy encumbered national airline/s as well.

In my youth, in my neck of the woods, it was in the unwritten rules to make the gap year pilgrimage to London. (or you haven't lived yet type of peer pressure stuff).. turned out to be a good unwritten rule for me... I learned all cultural Y class SYD-LHR SYD via, via via travel experiences, some pleasant, some indifferent, some downright awful... that's life.. but as I got older and wiser (many Aussies have to fly a long way to get home) I found it nice to rejoin the culture I knew, and paying a little more for a direct flight home with a minimum of fuss became the norm.

For me it was Qantas and for a few years the short lived Ansett International which had a stunning product.. I still miss it..

So here we are today, the Asian LCC's with tiny seats are invading Sydney.....

ue_ynpLUFaQ

AirAsia X takes fight to Qantas (http://www.smh.com.au/business/airasia-x-takes-fight-to-qantas-20120402-1w8lj.html)

As an aside....Her voice reminds me about one of those indifferent Y class missions to London Cabin PA announcements.... long..

IT WAS another sign of the changing face of air travel in Australia.
Low-cost airline AirAsia X touched down in Sydney yesterday, on Qantas's home turf, for the first of the foreign carrier's new daily flights between Sydney and Malaysia.
The no-frills airline - you want water on board? pay for it! -

Read more: AirAsia X takes fight to Qantas (http://www.smh.com.au/business/airasia-x-takes-fight-to-qantas-20120402-1w8lj.html#ixzz1quNZXHiX)
Meanwhile, AJ and BB are fighting back with " you can fly from Sydney to KUL on Jetstar provided you go via Melbourne & Singapore..:ugh: (So much for all those meetings in KL guys, as if you didn't know AA were coming.. :E)


Price war looms as first AirAsia flight hits Sydney


Read more: Price war looms as first AirAsia flight hits Sydney (http://www.smh.com.au/travel/blogs/travellers-check/price-war-looms-as-first-airasia-flight-hits-sydney-20120402-1w7jo.html#ixzz1quLJjrFM)



In fact, AirAsia X will have a prized “first mover” advantage of nearly three months to entrench its position before Scoot’s arrival, during which time, while still being the price leader most of the time, it will be charging up to 50 per cent more than Scoot’s introductory offers for a seat to South-East Asia.
It’s not until Scoot arrives in Sydney on June 26 that AAX pares back fare levels to match it, with fly-only rates on both carriers (AirAsia X to Kuala Lumpur and Scoot to Singapore) for about AUD192 one-way. That's a fraction of the prevailing rates starting at around AUD913 return.
At the same time, however, AirAsia X is charging up to AUD480 one-way for a ticket from Melbourne to KL.
The seats on both carriers are a super-squeezy nine-abreast in the AirAsia X A330s and 10 abreast in Scoot’s B777-200s.
Scoot will also be flying five days a week from the Gold Coast to Singapore on top of AirAsia X’s five a week to KL.
Jetstar flies only to Bali and Phuket in South-East Asia out of Sydney, with Thailand priced from around AUD365 one-way.
Jetstar is pushing connecting services to its add-on Asian destinations, such as Kuala Lumpur, Phuket, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh, from Melbourne through its daily Melbourne-Singapore A330 service.
Meanwhile, Scoot appears to be competing only for point-to-point Sydney-Singapore travel as it does not have any formal marketing relationship or connectivity with Singapore Airlines (SIA), its full-service subsidiary Silkair or budget carrier Tiger Airways, of which SIA owns 33 per cent

No doubt people will go for the cheap introductory fares, but for how long?

But remember these are low-cost airlines that don’t make most of their profit out of ticket sales per se, but out of optional add-on “ancillaries”.
Just be careful you don’t end up getting sucked into a cheap headline price to find you’re up for squillions for extras.
Qantas could counter the attack with simple all inclusive value for money fare structures that may see off the LCC model.. if the market was aware that the 787 would be coming to Qantas first... I think there are a lot of people who would put up with the old metal for a bit longer if they indeed knew the 787 was on its way into mainline... I wish.. A lot of people will pay a bit more rather than fly in a small space with their knees up their nostrils. There will always be a premium long haul airline in Australia, why not Qantas?

nCXRYPsZMGE

(for those who haven't seen it)

[ejectx3]

That sneeze put me off of breakfast

[teresa green]

From now on I am asking for the jump seat.

[TallestPoppy]

TIMA9X "Qantas could counter the attack with simple all inclusive value for money fare structures that may see off the LCC model".....

That won't work with the current cost base. For QF to survive, or even thrive, it needs to reduce its management numbers, and get much greater efficiencies from its crews.

To compete at all with LCC's you need a drastically lower cost base. Just slagging off the CEO won't keep the QF group as a whole out of the red.

[Cactusjack]

Perhaps offering up a maggot delicacy would lift an ailing profile? Or has that already been tried:E

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTFGdGczqQ5IEEjxA8o9KGMq6gYlbgJIQV2xDkpLJb 6sHMIeX9B2g

[teresa green]

Given them up for Lent, thanks anyway Cactus.

[TIMA9X]

Just slagging off the CEO won't keep the QF group as a whole out of the red.Fair point TP, but it feels like the CEO of Qantas is working for Jetstar only, he has done a terrible job with the Qantas brand, always talks in the negative... other words Jetstar has two CEO's AJ & BB.... and I don't believe Qantas is in the red, it's doing a fine job carrying the weight of Jetstar on its back since 2004.. that's why I slag him off, he can't manage or understand the premium product, that's for sure...

AirAsia X and Scoot help make Sydney Australia's hub for low-cost long-haul carriers | CAPA (http://www.centreforaviation.com/blogs/southern-contrails/airasia-x-and-scoot-help-make-sydney-australias-hub-for-low-cost-long-haul-carriers-70987)Jetstar likely to enter Sydney-Singapore

Whereas Scoot served as a nudge to AirAsia X, both carriers, and Scoot in particular, are likely to nudge Jetstar to operate Sydney-Singapore service.
While Jetstar operates long-haul services to Singapore from Melbourne, as well as from Sydney to long-haul destinations including Bali and Honolulu (http://www.centreforaviation.com/profiles/airports/honolulu-international-airport-hnl), Jetstar has stayed off the Sydney-Singapore route. This, however, is likely to change this year. Jetstar has slowly taken on traditional corporate markets. The biggest change came last decade when Tiger Airways Australia (http://www.centreforaviation.com/profiles/airlines/tiger-airways-australia-tt)'s entry into Melbourne Tullamarine (http://www.centreforaviation.com/profiles/airports/melbourne-tullamarine-airport-mel)-Sydney saw Jetstar respond with its own services from Melbourne Tullamarine (http://www.centreforaviation.com/profiles/airports/melbourne-tullamarine-airport-mel), whereas it previously served Sydney from Melbourne alternative airport Avalon (http://www.centreforaviation.com/profiles/airports/melbourne-avalon-airport-avv). In Dec-2010 Jetstar entered the Melbourne-Singapore route, having been previously confined to serving primarily leisure long-haul destinations.
The entrance of Jetstar on Melbourne Tullamarine-Sydney and Melbourne-Singapore raised the matter of cannibalisation of parent company Qantas (http://www.centreforaviation.com/profiles/airlines/qantas-airways-qf)' traffic and yields. The prospective entrance of Jetstar on Sydney-Singapore will raise that issue even more as Sydney-Singapore (and onwards to London) is thought of within Qantas (http://www.centreforaviation.com/profiles/airlines/qantas-airways-qf) as a sacrosanct market, and indeed one of Qantas' last after recent route reductions. The entrance of Jetstar would effectively leave Qantas with only Los Angeles (http://www.centreforaviation.com/profiles/airports/los-angeles-international-airport-lax) as a flagship high-profile route. While this is unlikely to irk astute Qantas senior management that has, against much public headwinds, sought to stem its loss-making international operation, lower managers and Qantas' vociferous unions are not likely to respond well.
The addition of Jetstar on Sydney-Singapore could add 4242 weekly seats, further cementing Sydney's position as Australia's low-cost long-haul hub.

[Sunfish]

The addition of Jetstar on Sydney-Singapore could add 4242 weekly seats, further cementing Sydney's position as Australia's low-cost long-haul hub.

The moron who wrote this doesn't seem to understand that for Australians living outside Sydney, the cost advantage of a "Low cost" airfare out of Sydney is signifigantly less because a domestic flight is required and a transfer to the international terminal.

Factor in a minimum of another Four hours travel time for this, maybe an overnight stay in Sydney as well.

[Taildragger67]

While Jetstar operates long-haul services to Singapore from Melbourne

Wrong!

The relevant aircraft are "based" in Singapore (despite carrying VH- registrations)!

Therefore it must be the other way round - Jetstar operates long-haul services from Singapore to Melbourne!

Sorry but I really couldn't control my cynicism on this one.

[TIMA9X]

Qantas shows Air Canada who's boss | Ken Phillips | Commentary | Business Spectator (http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Qantas-Air-Canada-industrial-relations-pd20120404-SZS8A?opendocument&src=rss)
Qantas shows Air Canada who's boss



"Mayhem erupted across Canadian airports with flight cancellations stranding some 24,000 customers, many who were unable to get their luggage for up to ten hours. Passenger anger resulted in confrontations with Air Canada employees with one employee being spat on, an event that symbolised what Canadians think of their national carrier.

The entire (unresolved) dispute has strong parallels to the Qantas dispute of 2011 with one massive difference. Air Canada management has lost control of its management capacity. Events control it rather than management controlling events. In comparison, through its temporary closing (http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Qantas-ground-flights-Joyce-Clifford-Virgin-unions-pd20111029-N4BGB?OpenDocument&emcontent_Gottliebsen)down of the airline, Alan Joyce at Qantas showed that management is running Qantas.

Qantas management have had firm control for a long time. Their 2004 move to start up Jetstar, as a low cost subsidiary carrier competing directly with Qantas has been their saviour. Jetstar has enabled them to take on domestic and international budget airlines and win.

I’ve previously observed that 'Qantas’ is headed to primarily becoming a marketing and brand manager of airlines (Qantas' final destination (http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Qantas-IR-Jetstar-union-airlines-Virgin-Fair-Work-pd20111014-MLULR?OpenDocument&emcontent_spectators), October 14, 2011). Jetstar's newly announced expansion into the Japanese and Chinese domestic markets reinforces this. Expect to see Qantas international primarily reduced to the Australia-London and Australia-LA routes.

Where Qantas has Jetstar, Air Canada has failed to kick start a similar ambition for an Air Canada owned, low budget airline. Air Canada unions don’t want the budget airline and have worked hard to block the start up. Now Air Canada is being cannibalised by an increasingly popular domestic low cost carrier, Westjet. Qantas responded to the challenge from Virgin with Jetstar. Air Canada has failed to respond and is suffering the consequences."A few interesting points in this piece...

Global News | Feds move to block Air Canada work stoppage (http://www.globalnews.ca/feds+move+to+block+air+canada+work+stoppage/6442599345/story.html)

[another superlame]

If the federal government can throw hundreds of millions of dollars to the US based car industry that operates in this country, then why can't they throw a hundred or so mill at Qantas to build a heavy maintenance hangar capable of housing everything up to an A380?

The open skies policy that previous governments endorsed has allowed the nations once great flag carrier to be eaten away by the likes of SQ and EK, so in return, build them a big hangar so they have no excuse for sending work overseas and then throw in a few tax breaks for training apprentices and building the industry up again.

They might even want to build Virgin a 777 hangar as well. Two world class facilities would be better than one.

I think this would get the unions off their backs, prove management are a pack of fools and maybe even earn a few extra bucks.

If the germans can build a big hangar in Frankfurt and charge Euro rates, then surely we can charge aussie dollars and still be competitive.

[HF3000]

Sunfish,

The moron who wrote this ...

Yes, regrettably it is true. The morons at CAPA have proven themselves time and time again with each press release they excrete, that, they are, indeed, morons.

[TallestPoppy]

Anothersuperlame, are you really suggesting the Government should prop up Qantas?

Perhaps they should also then subsidise your local plumber and butcher to?

If Qantas can't be run successfully as a business, sadly, it should be allowed to fail.

[mcgrath50]

Perhaps they should also then subsidise your local plumber and butcher to?

Either we live in an economy that has government subsidies or we don't. It creates a worse marketplace to subsidies some (car manufacturing) and leave others to deal with market forces (aviation maint.) what you end up with is one industry so far out on a limb, it becomes a massive drain on government resources.

You can't do subsidies half heartedly for long term economic management, vote winning on the other hand... :=

[another superlame]

The car industry is forever being bailed out.
I am not saying subsidise the aviation sector indefinitely, but a one lump sum.
Tell QF and VB, here is the money to build you new facilities and to get them running.
Qf are always banging on about the cost of such a facility, and they cant afford to build it for only 14 aircraft. So if the facility is built for them and it can handle any widebody flying today and into the future then their argument would be invalid.

And butchers and plumbers, the coles/woolies duopoly is to blame for the the end of the local butcher/baker, but the trades are still available.
Plumbers and sparkies, the red headed bogan wants to bring in US trades people.
That is a short term solution, but are they going to increase training for these trades to deal with it in the long term?

Also the aircraft apprentice trade has been smashed over the years, 20 years ago when you completed your trade you had a cert to cover the whole aviation maintenance industry for your trade.
QF has bastardised the system so you now only complete what they want you to complete, so when QF makes you redundant as they seem to these days, you are left with a ticket that doesn't include GA and helicopters. That is OK if QF keep you for your whole career but that doesn't happen anymore.

[Taildragger67]

Poppy,

On your argument, GM shouldn't get any federal money but rather should just shut up shop & go home.

The issue is not the viability of a particular business, but retention of an industrial base and related skills, as a national resource.

That's why we pay gazillions to build subs & warships here, rather than just buying them all off-the-shelf.

But then again if the government doesn't want for us to have the skills to be able to fix things onshore, then fine, let the business concerned either sink into the swamp or send everything to Manila or Xiamen.

[shon7]

all this conjecture is nonsense.
Qantas is in serious trouble and AJ is one of the few managers that can fix it.

If the board had an issue with him they could have removed him by now. Apparently, that is not the case.

The sooner QF employees realize this the better it is. Passengers dont care about the bickering, noise and the back and forth. At the end of the day the booking decision is based on either price or service - QF provides neither.

[SpannerTwister]

.....Qantas is in serious trouble and AJ is one of the few managers that can fix it.......Passengers dont care about the bickering, noise and the back and forth. At the end of the day the booking decision is based on either price or service - QF provides neither.

Your opening argument is that AJ walks on water, your closing argument is that he is not performing.

Please pick one.

ST

[another superlame]

AJ was employed to do a job.Break the unions. I think like it or not he has gotten his way.(or Geoff Dixons way)

[V-Jet]

Elaine is (like all his masters) an absolute incompetent buffoon.

Like it or lump it guys - QF is finished.

These clowns got themselves paid deca millions to trash the place and put money in their own pockets.


Look at it this way.

Every time a jumbo or dugong takes off on a long haul flight it is burning at LEAST 40,000kgs MORE JetA or JETA1 than its nearest competitor.

And they did this deliberately. Or at the very least incompetently. GROSSLY incompletely. And my money is on deliberately.

I heard from a reliable source today that they are panicking about the inroads VJ Aus is making into their domestic market. So they have employed (again) at huge expense an outside marketing firm to 'retrain' cabin crew.

Do these idiots know nothing..... Sorry, waste of time, rhetorical questions.

Incompetence.... disgusting and appalling incompetence.

[my oleo is extended]

Does Joyce accept dares?? If so, I dare him to resign, accept a role with a Chinese carrier as CEO and burn that companies profits by 83%! I can tell you what his bonus will be - death by firing squad!

Joyce, face it, you are out of your league. You were a two-bit manager buried in the bowels of Ansett in a chump department, a no better manager at Onestar and now you have completely decimated a national icon. You give some genuinely good Irish people a bad name. Your track record speaks volumes - everything you touch (in aviation) turns into brown matter.

[73to91]

they have employed (again) at huge expense an outside marketing firm to
'retrain' cabin crew.
which leads to the question, who is responsible for the training now? have they lost their job because surely someone believes they are not doing a good job.

[TIMA9X]

I heard from a reliable source today that they are panicking about the inroads VJ Aus is making into their domestic market.It appears JB is indeed making all the right moves... stories like this are appearing more frequently, whilst AJ and co are busy sorting out long haul, now the domestic division is attracting attention... the saga continues..

Virgin chasing Kangaroos tail for business - ETBMICE (http://www.etbmice.com/article.asp?articleid=7464)Virgin chasing Kangaroos tail for business

Thursday, April 05, 2012

http://i.etbnews.com/etb/article/2012/130413.jpg Having just launched business class in January 2012, Virgin Australia is gaining business traveller’s favour with 54 per cent of travellers considering the airline for their next business trip.

Monopolising on disgruntled Qantas business customers as a result of the airline’s grounding of all planes in late October 2011, Virgin Australia has seen a rise in popularity.

Introducing business class has also opened Virgin Australia’s attraction of advertisers in the in-flight magazine, on airport signage and planes.

According to the Roy Morgan Air Travel Survey, Qantas still is preferred consideration for business travel; however this has dropped 3 per cent from last year’s 75 per cent for the twelve months to August 2011.

Both airlines now face the challenge of understanding their customers’ needs to better satisfy them and win business.

MICEBTN - More business going Virgin (http://www.impactpub.com.au/micebtn/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11390&Itemid=49)

and this one;

'UNACCEPTABLE' - Katter slams Qantas fares - Local News - News - General - North West Star (http://www.northweststar.com.au/news/local/news/general/unacceptable-katter-slams-qantas-fares/2512909.aspx)

THE cost of Qantas flights from Mount Isa to Brisbane is "unacceptable", says the new Member-elect for Mount Isa, Robbie Katter."It's totally unacceptable that they fleece us and subsidise their other routes," Mr Katter said

[AnQrKa]

"Every time a jumbo or dugong takes off on a long haul flight it is burning at LEAST 40,000kgs MORE JetA or JETA1 than its nearest competitor."

Really? How do you figure this?

[Wedcue]

"Where to now" should read, "Cutting to where now?"

If you are a Qantas pilot, I wouldn't be too concerned just yet. Qantas will have a very difficult time making pilots redundant. They have to offer employment to people in their other business branches such as Jetstar (provided they are employing) before you get made redundant.

However, Jetstar is going on a pretty hard recruitment drive and it's tough to see where they will be based, it's almost like Jetstar is starting to hold the surplus.

As for Qantas offering jobs at Jetstar to pilots, it's all well and good while they are associated... but what if China Eastern decided to buy Jetstar.. And Qantas is no longer part of the Jetstar group...

China Eastern would love to spread their wings...

Just rumours.. Discuss.

[V-Jet]

"Every time a jumbo or dugong takes off on a long haul flight it is burning at LEAST 40,000kgs MORE JetA or JETA1 than its nearest competitor."

Really? How do you figure this?

B777 @ 7,000kgs per hour x 10 hours = 70,000kgs
B747 @ 10,000kgs per hour x 10 hours = 100,000kgs
A380 @ 13,000kgs per hour x 10 hours = 130,000kgs

Rocket science isn't my strong point, but I am pretty proud of myself out doing our Mathematician 'Dear Leader'.

Those extra 120 odd pax get VERY expensive. Nice one Dixon, well earned $80m - We're all mighty proud of ya!

The numbers get far worse though - especially in the case of the Dugong. Whispers from the Bazaars suggest SIA are none too happy and have asked Boeing for a solution, the pax numbers just do not stack up and the longer the thing flies the worse it gets. Great up to 8 hours - exponentially worse after that. Most of its flights are 12-13 hours+. It needs to carry 600-650 pax to work efficiently and it just doesn't. It probably will in time, but what about the next 5 years. What about $150 or even $200 fuel price?

And these idiots decree a different APU policy every 30 seconds to 'save fuel'!! Talk about Deck Chair Management!!!

This has degenerated to absolute insanity - QF management is totally incompetent, completely out of their depth and daily insulting staff with 'outsourced' retraining etc. They cannot even think of the real reason for failure (THEMSELVES) and are conducting nothing more than straw grabbing exercises on a grand scale.

Good points Wedcue (above) - interesting thoughts.

[tgbgtgb]

Those extra 120 odd pax get VERY expensive.!But how many more W/J/P pax can a 380 take over a 777? Id say a seat on a 380 is probably worth more than a seat on a 777 on the same sector.

I still think theres a gap in the fleet somewhere between a 330 and a 380 that a 777 should fill though. If you could replace all of the 747s with them tomorrow or even three years ago that is.

[V-Jet]

Id say a seat on a 380 is probably worth more than a seat on a 777 on the same sector.

Surely you are not suggesting Qantas could pursue a premium product strategy are you? That sort of lunatic idea went out 10 years ago. EVERYONE at Qantas KNOWS the only way to make money is to sell something as cheaply as you possibly can. Or even better, sell it for LESS than it costs you! That is the way of the future - we have millions of expensive consultants reports that prove that is how you do it...

How can you expect to be treated seriously tgbgtbgbgbgbgtbtgbtg with heretic thoughts like that! Idiot!

[1a sound asleep]

B777 @ 7,000kgs per hour x 10 hours = 70,000kgs
B747 @ 10,000kgs per hour x 10 hours = 100,000kgs
A380 @ 13,000 per hour x 10 hours = 130,000kgs


Hypothetical 10 hour sector -

Emirates Airlines Airbus A380-800 Version 1 489 PAX TOTAL
266 KG PER PAX

Emirates Airlines Boeing 777-300 3-Class (773) 440 PAX TOTAL
159 KG PER PAX

I realise that there are other factors including pax class configs/mix and freight revenue, BUT no matter which way you look at it the 773 is a winner. Why do you think EK has another 80 on order?

This is fuel burn savings alone. Ad in reduced capital/lease cost and less maintenance and it's obvious that there was a home for the 773 in QF

Reality is the dugong was the must have in the boys toy room and yes there are routes that really need 4 engines. BUT QF never needed the A380.

[hotnhigh]

And every night when qantas and Voz taxi in lax for sydney, the respective fuel uplifts differ by about 80t.
No secrets when Voz and qf share the same handling agent over there and fuel figures are passed on vhf.

[TallestPoppy]

And the situation will continue until Qantas lowers it cost base, and can increase its yield.

There is no way Qantas can afford the Capital Expenditure required to replace the B747's with B777's until the above happens.

Sorry guys, but your current costs are too high, and your product and its marketing isn't attracting enough Business and First Class passengers to the airline.

Qantas and its employees need to change to suvive.

[Capt Kremin]

Fine.

1. Sack all upper management. (That was the cornerstone of my engagement survey response). Replace them with airline people who believe in the brand and the staff.

2. Sell off the entire J* Int and its franchises to anyone silly enough to buy them. Keep J* Australia as the LCC/feeder to mainline.

3. Use the money earned (because it is such a fantastic business) to replace the 747's about to be retired with 777's.

4. Use the 787-8's to replace the 767's on Domestic and long/thin international routes. Use them to eventually replace the A330's.

5. Use the A380's only out of SYD, BNE and MEL to SIN, BKK, PVG and HKG as feeders to the 777/787-9's that will hub out of there with increased frequencies from SYD, BNE. MEL, ADL, PER, CNS and DRW; that will open up all those European destinations QF used to go to.

That will do for a start.

[limelight]

Nice precis from Ben Sandilands at Crikey.

How could Qantas have done better in the 90s? (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2012/04/06/how-could-qantas-have-done-better-in-the-90s/)

April 6, 2012 – 4:42 pm, by Ben Sandilands (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/author/bensandilands/)

The question has been asked here (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2012/04/04/what-will-we-think-about-australia-europe-non-stop-flights-in-20-years-time/#comments), and elsewhere, as to how Qantas might have pursued a strategy to retain market share and brand strength in the face of competition from the likes of Emirates and Singapore Airlines.
At the outset, the history of those times tells as that Qantas management was convinced that the Joint Services Agreement with British Airways, then a 25% cornerstone investor, was the key defence. It began in 1995, the year Qantas was listed on the ASX and it preceded by three years the formation of the oneworld alliance.
The JSA has always been more important to Qantas than oneworld. It has also been successful in leveraging good outcomes for what unfortunately was a nevertheless limited or Anglo-centric view of the future, which included a complete failure to recognize and deal with the vacuum left by the retreat of Lufthansa, Air France and KLM from the Australia-Europe routes, in the same decade that saw Garuda give up on such services where it had in fact made inroads, and the withdrawal of the old Soviet and post Soviet Aeroflot flights that for many years had been the source of unbeatable if at times scary bargains.
That vacuum began to be filled by Emirates and failure to recognize and act on the emerging commercial realities of those times has proven devastating for Qantas in the present, and will prove exceedingly difficult and time consuming to repair.
In the 90s the Qantas market share of international traffic peaked at close to 40%. On the routes to Europe its capacity rose to at least five 747-400s a day at its peak, including tandem services like Amsterdam plus Manchester. Today the Qantas capacity to Europe all the way in its own equipment is two A380 rotations to London and one 747 rotation to Frankfurt a day, having recently dropped two additional 747-400s daily in favour of trying to persuade its patriotic customers to connect for most of the way on BA flights.
The Qantas attitude to Europe is that of reducing the risks of having to compete by withdrawing from services, and then complaining that 82% of the international Australian market choses to fly with someone else, often because there is no Qantas service available.
Qantas does nothing to address in its own right the services its competitors with hubs in Dubai, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore and Abu Dhabi offer to a wide and growing range of destinations in other eastern and western European cities, the Middle East, central Asia and the western, northern and eastern African economies, places it ignores at its peril, except that I don’t believe there is an atom of long term or broad scope strategic thinking in Qantas beyond short term possibilities to sell out of the main carrier or pursue the potentially lucrative expansion of its Jetstar low cost franchise.
There are many excuses offered for this including the lower cost of doing airlines everywhere but Australia, and being at the end of the line, and so forth. To the extent that these excuses are valid, there has also been no strategy to mitigate the loss of brand power or market share by actually doing things that might be more useful that demonizing staff, treating customers with contempt, and engaging in woe-is-me hang wringing.
But what might it have done? In the late 90s it could have invested in Boeing 777-200ERs to fly non-stop to Dubai and on to such destinations as Amsterdam, Manchester, and Rome as an alternative to closing them down and in effect giving the business to its competitors, because flying to them via London is not over a period of time something that will build brand loyalty, and customers will value getting where they want to go up to half a day faster when Thai, Singapore Airlines, oneworld partner Cathay Pacific, or Emirates offer it.
The -200ERs would not have been a replacement for A380s for routes with slot limitations, nor for A330-300s, which are unbeatable on routes like Sydney-Hong Kong because of the merits of an airframe that is as perfect as it can be for a nine hour flight in terms of fuel efficiency and payload to airframe weight matching.
But what the 777-200ERs would have done was protect the brand and prevent Emirates from an expansion in this market that was accelerated by not being opposed by competing product, city pair by city pair.
The 777-200ERs would also have made it easy for Qantas to transition to -300ERs with more seats, and better fuel economy, as what were once core Qantas services to Europe continued to grow.
These Boeings would have also meant that customers who wanted to fly Qantas from Brisbane or Perth, or Melbourne would have had more opportunities to avoid changing between Qantas domestic and Qantas international at Sydney, a factor that caused it to bleed market share.
The retention of more of a share in a strongly growing market would have also opened the very real possibility of negotiating a deal with Emirates, in that the purpose of Emirates like that of Singapore Airlines has always been to develop the respective economies of the Dubai and Singapore by encouraging traffic. There is an interesting divergence between the experience of Emirates and Singapore Airlines in this regard, in that Dubai is too successful at attracting more than 100 competing carriers to its airport, while Singapore Airlines failed to contribute to growth at Changi to expectations in recent years, and appears to be struggling in some measure to adjust to the opportunities of low cost air travel. Singapore Airlines is less relevant to Singapore than ever, while Emirates is highly relevant to Dubai, yet competitively challenged by Asia, Middle East and European brands determined to offer their nationals a flag carrier service to the Gulf economy cross roads.
Would this have made Qantas both more profitable and larger than it is today, even if Emirates hadn’t done a deal? I think so, but there is a further element that better management could have adopted to make that profitability increase more convincing.
And that is fleet financing. Qantas has clung to the once nearly universal view that it needed to own and maintain its fleet types for decades, rather than churn the aircraft through a mixture of leases and outright purchases with a view to keeping its average type age young. I can remember James Strong as CEO and Gary Pemberton as chairman saying that Qantas would buy its jets in small numbers and never place large orders, and sweat the asset, in the lovely phrase of the 90s. And, in the always perfect rear vision mirror view of history, they were wrong, or rather, became wrong. High fuel prices, the need for the very latest in fuel efficiency, and the need to avoid major aircraft age or cycle related maintenance schedules, are far more important now than then.
It is sad that Qantas is clinging on to 747-400s, including the first, last, only and thus middle aged 747-400ERs, when its competitors will be retiring their first A380s for upgraded versions as this decade comes to an end.
It is true that depreciation regimes in some countries disadvantage Qantas, but so does the way Qantas persists in managing its fleet. It is next to useless to move to outsourcing jets to work shops in Asia if the jets concerned are so passé that some centres might only see them in freighter conversions in a few years time. Qantas has an old fleet of 747s and 767s, and had the old knowledge and experience to get away with it.
Squandering that resource was business school text book perfect, and dead stupid in an operational sense.
Had Qantas done things differently, and more ambitiously in the 90s it would still have lost market share to the likes of Emirates, because free or freer trade has enriched Australia in real net terms, and protecting the carrier is way, way down the list of national government priorities in the 21st century.
But in the process Qantas would have addressed internal reforms as to how it organized and managed its fleet, and its people, with less disruption and morale and brand damage than today, because it is always easier to reform a growing business than a shrinking business.
If Qantas was on 25-30% of international market share today it would nevertheless be a larger enterprise than it was on around 35-37% share of the smaller total market of the mid-90s.
Such a Qantas could still have the benefits of its Jetstar brand at its current size internationally, because unlike its domestic routes, its long haul route contraction has scarcely been driven by very long haul Jetstar activity, which remains negligible.
Jetstar has been successful on Japan-Australia routes, but is it in part illusory because we have a lack of evidence as to how many former Qantas full service customers have opted to fly via Hong Kong or Singapore on non-Qantas carriers, and because we don’t know the intentions of a post bankrupt Japan Airlines in relation to its full service ambitions on the route?
Low cost flights to Europe on Air Asia X have failed. On flights to Singapore non-stop on A330s, from Melbourne and Auckland, Jetstar seems to have wobbled a bit, with frequencies being cut. And this is before Scoot clocks on in June.
Qantas in the 90s, and thus into this century, could have stood its ground and built itself a hub in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, and fostered a profitable but not wildly profitable relevance to Europe. The airline is unlikely to become fabulously profitable until something extraordinary happens to its fortunes, but it could have done better, much better.
Had the airline kept some of the advantages of size it would have also commensurately increased the quite remarkable contribution to profits of its loyalty program. It would have saved on costs, and it would have inhibited or even completely discouraged the international adventures of what is now Virgin Australia.
There are a quite a few billion dollars at least in additional profits this century in such consequences of this reverse hypothetical, as well as from the benefits of Qantas managing its fleet and market planning and opportunities more optimally than it did since the mid 90s.
A bigger, more successful, more relevant, and less ideologically obsessed airline could have been really good for its staff, its shareholders and its country.
Instead it’s an embarrassment, and fixing it is problematical.
My starting point is to be straightforward. I’ll call it as I see it.

[mohikan]

And the situation will continue until Qantas lowers it cost base, and can increase its yield.

There is no way Qantas can afford the Capital Expenditure required to replace the B747's with B777's until the above happens.

Sorry guys, but your current costs are too high, and your product and its marketing isn't attracting enough Business and First Class passengers to the airline.

Qantas and its employees need to change to suvive.

The problem is that when someone says "your costs are too high" and "you need to change" they only refer to the operational staff - the LAMES, The Pilots and FA's.

This completely ignores the thousands of staff having coffee and meetings each day at the QC precinct in Mascot.

This also completely ignores the millions upon millions of dollars paid to Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Co and Oldmeadow Consulting. In the case of the latter, this consultants business model is designed to ensure ongoing conflict between the workforce and management.

This also ignores the 140 million being currently pi$$ed away building a new 'corporate campus' at mascot (at the expense of crew parking of course) at a time where SLIC would have us believed that the bankruptcy of the group is not far around the corner.

It also ignores the setting up of the new 'Qantas Strategy Department' - staffed almost entirely by ex Bain & Co personnel, the majority of whom are on 6 figures and the 'super executive' staff travel benefit scheme.

All of this is against the complete and utter failure of the business strategy as so succinctly outlined by Ben Sandliands.

The great tragedy of all this is that when Qantas fails (and I believe that is inevitable now given all of the above) it is the hardworking operational staff who will be blamed. The true culprits will escape to their next big payday

[booglaboy]

Well said mohikan. From my observations, there is probably 10 corporate staff for 1 front-line person. It's an inverse pyramid. The operational staff r not over-paid or overly expensive. We all know this as we r now being forced to look at alternative employment with other airlines and have priced ourselves in the market. It's corporate spin to save corporate butts until the very end

[TallestPoppy]

Booglaboy, what are these 'corporate staff' positions that aren't necessary?

Does anyone actually know of any bloated, unnesessary departments? Or is it all just heresay?

[V-Jet]

I am being very serious here.

Anyone above operational level HAS to go or Qf is dead.

It is that simple.

[booglaboy]

I believed its been outlined. Hundreds of advisors, more management positions than there r workers. Even social media managers. 100's of Millions spent on a corporate campus but they can't invest in an appropriate fleet or maint hangars? It's not heresay. Take a walk inside the jetbase. It used to be full of engineering skill, now it's full of I.T. Nobody's. I see it daily in every area.
A while back they supposedly reduced management by 500 people. I don't know anyone who actually knew any of these 500 managers. God only knows where they worked or what they actually contributed to the running of the company if u can't tell they r gone

[Fatguyinalittlecoat]

In Flight Ops they just changed the name. Fleet manager became Fleet Captain. Manager of Fleet Training became the senior training captain, and so on. I'm not saying these positions are not needed, but that is an example of where these "managers" went.

[teresa green]

QF, to my knowledge has always been top heavy, full of middle managers building little empires in corners, in fact in the early nineties when bomb scares were in fashion, some dill rang and said there was a bomb in Admin 1, they reckon people came out nobody had seen for years, in fact they thought they were dead! Qantas for some totally unfathomable reason, go every four years or so on a witch hunt. They sack anybody remotely knowledgeable, and with experience, then start recruiting again bringing in people with no experience at all. Anybody who has managed to survive one or more of these purges knows exactly what I am talking about. Truly QF flies in spite of itself, it truly does, and yet its exasperated but incredibly loyal staff, just keep on keeping on, and always have done, they deserve better.

[TallestPoppy]

That is such a shame. It sounds like no-one within Qantas actually wants to save their own jobs long term. If the Flight Ops managers aren't even trimming their patch, what hope for the rest of the Airline.

In an airline where seniority rules, I bet the senior people will be ok for a few years until Qantas disappears. As for the junior people, its such a shame. If I was junior in QF, I think my future would have to lie elsewhere.

[DEFCON4]

If I was junior in QF, I think my future would have to lie elsewhere.~many already have found their future elsewhere

[TIMA9X]

QF, to my knowledge has always been top heavy, full of middle managers building little empires in cornersplus the cost of consultants, they appear to be breeding at an alarming rate.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-LRtkMy8CdLI/T378LCjKeFI/AAAAAAAABuI/7accXw_07dY/s571/parasite-Bonusasouros-2-up.jpg

[mcgrath50]

Negative Selection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_selection_(politics))

Negative selection is a political process that occurs especially in rigid hierarchies, most notably dictatorships, but also to lesser degrees in such settings as corporations or electoral politics.
The person on the top of the hierarchy, wishing to remain in power forever, chooses his associates with the prime criterion of incompetence – they must not be competent enough to remove him from power. Since subordinates often mimic their leader, these associates do the same with those below them in the hierarchy, and the hierarchy is progressively filled with more and more incompetent people.

If the dictator sees that he is threatened nonetheless, he will remove those that threaten him from their positions – "purge" the hierarchy. Emptied positions in the hierarchy are normally filled with people from below – those who were less competent than their previous masters. So, over the course of time, the hierarchy becomes less and less effective. Once the dictator dies — or is removed by some external influence — what remains is a grossly ineffective hierarchy.

[Short_Circuit]

A while back they supposedly reduced management by 500 people. I don't know anyone who actually knew any of these 500 managers. Problem is anyone not operational is a manager. Manager of what? Usually manager of their secretary and possibly one other and that is it. Thousands of managers managing no one!! :ugh::ugh::ugh:
So you would not notice 500 or 1000 going missing.

[V-Jet]

I think the point is being a little missed. I don't think this is about 'anti management' per se. Just 'anti THIS management'.

They have proved their incompetence over decades.

Question:
How many consultancy firms has John Borghetti paid for since he has been at VA?

I don't know the answer, but I would be very surprised if it was many at all. Simply because he knows what he is doing. Much like the ALP running Australia, Qantas management is so inept they have to rely on consultants either to prove to themselves they are doing the right things or to be able to legitimately shift blame when it fails. It is the ultimate tool of the incompetant.

These guys are simply so far out of their depth it is frightening.

All businesses start out small. They are lean and competitive. They have to be. When you run a successful business you need to know what you are doing and you do it, fast and clean. If an error is made it is rectified immediately. What scares me most about Qf management is that they know errors have been made, major errors (well, at least I hope they do - if they don't I would be totally shocked) yet they continue down the same path to save face. Even worse, because they have no idea about how to run an airline (I do not think they understand airlines and premium branding at all) they spend millions on consultants who have been to the same business courses as they did (so they know the answers will be 'sound') who also have no understanding of the airline business to tell them how to run the place. These guys could not run a small business because they don't' understand the very basics. To fly a jumbo (or dugong) you start in C150's. To run a corporation you are _supposed_ to understand the business. Qantas current management do not understand the very basics.

Now, why is Virgin doing so well all of a sudden?

[DEFCON4]

A.John Massimo Borghetti

[shon7]

JB is a fine manager but the board made a choice to go with AJ. And they are sticking with it.

QF needs a drastic overhaul and AJ is just the guy to do it. And whether you like it or not, the business community in Oz loves him.
The unions thought they could pull their usual tactics but failed. And now cannot deal with the fact that they are unable to hold QF hostage to get their demands met. Thus the conspiracy theories, the moaning about management, the building at Mascot and whatever else comes to mind.

When things are going well the union mentality is "I show up to work so I should get a bonus." When things are not going well they are not willing to sacrifice.

[balance]

QF needs a drastic overhaul and AJ is just the guy to do it. And whether you like it or not, the business community in Oz loves him.
The unions thought they could pull their usual tactics but failed. And now cannot deal with the fact that they are unable to hold QF hostage to get their demands met. Thus the conspiracy theories, the moaning about management, the building at Mascot and whatever else comes to mind.

When things are going well the union mentality is "I show up to work so I should get a bonus." When things are not going well they are not willing to sacrifice.

Possibly one of the most ill considered posts I have ever read.

I would argue the numerous faults contained therein, but I really just cannot be bothered with such stupidity.

[Bad Hat Harry]

Do you work for BCG ?
Your profile indicates Ops Management.
Can you be more specific?

[psycho joe]

How many consultancy firms has John Borghetti paid for since he has been at VA?


Rumour is that the former CEO is paid circa $500k pa for just that purpose.

Another rumour is that $500k was considered a bargain to keep him away from the place.

[teresa green]

Shon 7, I am starting to wonder if you are really Elaine.....

[TIMA9X]

by mohikan; The problem is that when someone says "your costs are too high" and "you need to change" they only refer to the operational staff - the LAMES, The Pilots and FA's.

This completely ignores the thousands of staff having coffee and meetings each day at the QC precinct in Mascot.

This also completely ignores the millions upon millions of dollars paid to Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Co and Oldmeadow Consulting. In the case of the latter, this consultants business model is designed to ensure ongoing conflict between the workforce and management.

This also ignores the 140 million being currently pi$$ed away building a new 'corporate campus' at mascot (at the expense of crew parking of course) at a time where SLIC would have us believed that the bankruptcy of the group is not far around the corner.

It also ignores the setting up of the new 'Qantas Strategy Department' - staffed almost entirely by ex Bain & Co personnel, the majority of whom are on 6 figures and the 'super executive' staff travel benefit scheme.

All of this is against the complete and utter failure of the business strategy as so succinctly outlined by Ben Sandliands.

The great tragedy of all this is that when Qantas fails (and I believe that is inevitable now given all of the above) it is the hardworking operational staff who will be blamed. my bold

Love it mohikan! you hit it on the head! The operational staff are the airline, its always been like that at Q, and it will always make money with the right tools, a well oiled machine, (the same goes for most other successful, well established airlines currently flying the globe.)

It's all about how it is managed ... currently this lot running the show, collectively, seem to have misplaced the meaning of the word "operational".... or, they have confused it with a similar word, inoperable.

I think it is time for a new management team, a team who understands both words.

[TallestPoppy]

Many of you seem to have misunderstood me when I said the costs at Qantas are too high to support replacement of the B747's with B777's.

The costs of the whole airline need to be reduced to allow the capital expenditure, not just LAME's, Pilots, and F/A's.

The industry world wide has changed, the metal and fuel are still expensive, but the costs of actually doing the business have been lowered by many competitors, via lower remuneration and more efficient working practices.

Few within Qantas seem to heed the need to change, to survive. If they don't change, Qantas will wither further, and sadly an Aussie icon will disappear.

[ampclamp]

Starts at the top poppy. Anyone can bully, few lead by example.

[neville_nobody]

Tallest Poppy thats a load of crap given pilots and flight attendants can go overseas and make more money than they do here for airlines who are directly competing with QF.

If you want to start comparing with China Eastern etc then remember that australian airlines get free pilots. Chinese Airlines pay for the entire cost of training.

Maybe we should start comparing the CEOs salary with those of the competition in Asia? QF management cannot keep blaming everybody else for their own mistakes whilst taking grossly inflated salaries on a world standard.

[teresa green]

Most agree QF needs to go with the rest of the world, most agree QF needs to change some practices to continue to compete, but all agree to do that it needs a competent CEO, preferably Australian, that recognises QF for what it is, its place in this country, to have the respect of its staff, to encourage skills be they engineering, or whatever, and as most suspect, stop syphoning of monies made by QF to the offspring JQ, but instead use those monies for the advancement of QF as a vibrant and experienced airline, that is respected around the world. (Oh, and none of this political correctness crap about a Australian running the company, I say that because Australian children are taught in school about Qantas, its place in the country, its history etc and grow up with the knowledge it is the National Carrier and Australian as AFL, therefore they view it with pride and part of being Australian and it belongs to them, its difficult for someone outside the country to have the same affection.)

[ernestkgann]

Nev, pilots and cabin crew cannot go overseas and get QF salaries with their competitors. Businesses like EK are run with a far smaller bureaucracy and at much less cost than QF. Just about the entire administrative element of EK are sub-continental nationals earning a very average wage, less than $US 20 000 a year, and that's the high side. Caterers would earn less than $US10 000.
QF's competitors employ hosties from Asia at one quarter of the cost.
Pilot wages, particularly at the current exchange rate, are less. Tax free environments make a big difference, but don't come from the companies bottom line.
These companies don't have to work within the same industrial and political situations as QF without doubt but some of the hope for turning around QF International must come from lowered costs by trimming the QF bureaucracy. It is a legacy of the days of government ownership. Have a look at the number of employees per aeroplane compared to your competitors.
Teresa, I don't personally see QF as having some ongoing legacy as Australia's only airline. Kingsford Smith's ANA preceded them. Things change.

[mohikan]

EG.

Like most QF drivers I am looking at overseas gigs at the moment (I am a B767 Capt with B737 experience) and there are a number of good gigs that will pay me more in the hand each fortnight.

Otherwise you have hit the nail on the head.

Qantas has 141 staff per airframe - the highest of any carrier in the world. The next closest is UA with 119.

And the majority of those staff are massively overpaid compared to their counterparts in foreign, full service airlines.

Part of this is because a large of part of the bureaucracy that supports JQ is on the Qantas books - Capt Kremin analysed this in an excellent post some time ago.

Part of it is because the overriding philosophy of Dixon and now Joyce is that management and admin costs are a necessary part of doing business, but operational costs are unnecessary waste. This is because fundamentally neither understand about the required level of detail and excellence involved in running an airline.

But mostly its because the real argument is not about cost.

Its about the ideological war against the idea that any staff member outside the senior leadership inner circle is allowed to influence their working environment.

The real shame is that the major shareholders are prepared to allow their investment to be pi$$ed away in this ideological campaign. Perhaps their thinking is that once this reform process is complete their investment will be worth more, but nothing could be further from the truth..

All that will happen is that middle and upper managements KPI linked bonus's will be increased even further.

As I said previously, nothing can save Qantas now. As part of this process, the specific plan (devised by Oldmeadow) to inflict as much individual damage on each pilot in the process will also fail. 180 have left already, and many more are going each week.

On their own terms and to a better future.

[teresa green]

Nobody has said it is the only airline, but it is the only National Carrier, and that has been acknowledged since the end of the second world war, and that is the difference, ANA a fine old airline that is was, did not forge the Kangeroo route, it did not serve in conflict, it was in fact eventually part of Ansett, and of course known as Ansett ANA. I am a TAA man, not a QF bloke, though I did end up in its hallowed halls, but hate to see it go the same way as my airline, and of course it is a hybrid of my airline. Like millions of others I want to see QF stay right where it is, and become a great airline once more and refuse to believe it cannot. Ansett gone, TAA gone, that only leaves the big fella, its worth fighting for.

[ernestkgann]

Mohican, agree with much of what you say. I worked for EK, probably the major competitor, and the wages are not more than QF. It may be that the perceived in the hand is more but this is not a cost to the company. Singapore don't pay more, again you may end up with more in the hand but it's not fel in the companies wage bill. I can't speak to CX B scales except anecdotally, but HK is an expensive place to live and much of the wage gain is again in the low tax base.
Teresa appreciate your loyalty. If QF were to fold then the real value to Oz that would be lost are those legacy practices that added real value to the industry, safety, training, engineering excellence etc. Proud history aside, it is of no difference to me or many people I know whether the entity survives except for the many good people employed by them. They are not legislated as the National Carrier.

[shon7]

amen. We want a national carrier, management has done us wrong, legacy practicies add value (actually one of the funniest things I have heard in recent memory), passengers love flying on QF, sell JQ... blah blah blah are all excuses for not wanting to deal with the hard reality.

To survive QF needs drastic change. The sooner people get used to it the better it is.

Be a part of the solution not the problem. If you have a better plan lets hear it along with the numbers.

[balance]

What a load of tripe, shon7.

To survive QF needs drastic change.

Now that is the call of the brainwashed, sycophant, incompetant manager who hasn't got a clue how to run an airline, other than to cut costs.

It is management by wrecking ball.

In actuality, QF is doing just fine. Or at least it would be if these pathetic foolish managers werent destroying it in order to justify their own feeble existence. Especially considering the fact that they are propping up a parasitic organisation like Jetstar.

So shon7, attempt to justify your comment in light of the above, will you? I DARE you to use the grossly inaccurate figures provided by that idiot Irishman. You want to be shot down? Because this is the place to do it. There are a number of people on these forums that know what they are talking about.

And that is good, because YOU clearly do not.

If you have a better plan lets hear it along with the numbers.

Are you freaking serious? Have you not read all of the solutions provided on this thread, let alone all the others running on Pprune? Have you not read everything in the media? One must shake their head and wonder what is wrong with people like you.

Be a part of the solution not the problem.

Comments like yours, and that of Olivia's, and Joyces; THEY are the problem. YOU are the PROBLEM.

YOU fix it.

[teresa green]

Crap ex A380, QF is on the ground, all it needs is to be run properly, stop syphoning monies made off to JQ, give its staff a career instead of a contract, keep its engineering of excellence where it belongs, it is a very well known airline, a respected airline, all it requires is to be RUN PROPERLY. Its not like some old freakin washing machine that goes on the tip after 5 years. You don't write off a airline because it is not working, you FIX IT, they just need the right person, like Borgetti. That bloke would turn it around within a year, but the stupid bastards let him go. I would give him a block of flats to get him back.

[balance]

Hmmm. I must be crook or something. Teresa, we agree. In fact, your last entry is arguably the finest post ever to grace these forums.

Well said, Sir.:D:D:D:D:D

[shon7]

haha. TG and Balance have all the answers. They can work wonders. Wonder why the board didn't appoint them co-CEOs.

Fact:
At the end of the day you work for QF and AJ is your boss. If you dont like it - leave. If you think you can manage it better - do it. Quit whining. The airline owes you nothing.

Fact:
Passengers dont sympathize with you regardless of your silly little neckties or your entitlement mentality. They will vote with their feet and fly on a competitor.

Fact:
JQ is here to stay and if it wasn't for revenues from JQ you'd be facing mass layoffs by now.


Deal with it.

[C441]

JQ is here to stay and if it wasn't for revenues from JQ you'd be facing mass layoffs by now.

Shon7, the first few words of your observation from afar, are probably correct. Qantas management are determined for it to be so.

However, what I and I suspect many other Qantas staff, would be interested to see is each entity operate as a stand-alone organisation. I think you would then find Qantas International and Domestic coping considerably better than you might perceive. It may also confirm (or otherwise) that continued investment in the Jetstar model truly is worthwhile.........or maybe not so well advised.

Unfortunately this will not happen until Qantas group management have completed their (quietly) stated aim of driving Qantas to the Jetstar model, by which time Qantas will be unrecoverable.

Some here suggest that Qantas management are incompetent. I would suggest that they are being quite successful in their goal. The ongoing success of Qantas International is not, if we are being truly honest, part of that goal, despite the words of the CEO.

[standard unit]

shon7,

as our chief QF management apologist can you elaborate on the 20 million dollar TNT freight contract that Qantas just lost to Etihad??

A friend of mine you see just carried the head of TNT Australia who went on at great length to describe his dealings with Qantas management.

Firstly he claims to love Qantas and the brand, loves the service onboard and said he'd never met a cabin crew member that he didn't like but was most derogatory in his feelings about our management.

He described them as arrogance personified.

I'm not across the finer details as what I describe comes second hand however it seems in his dealings with them he asked for a little reciprocal support with regard to freight aircraft leasing. Whatever the finer details were Qantas management it seems refused imperiously.

He said the looks on Qantas management's representatives faces when they found out the 20 Million dollar contact had been awarded to Etihad was priceless.

As management can you fill in the details...........?

[balance]

There are none so blind as those who will not see....

shon7, you are truly foolish, or you are a troll. Either way, your argument with me endeth here...

Have a nice day.

[donpizmeov]

Guys,

Shon7 is a NRI (non resident Indian). Don't let him wind you up. I don't think they have got over the cricket.
If only Kingfisher stayed with making Beer, they have no clue about Aviation, aint that right Shon?

the Don

[ejectx3]

Everyone working under Joyce in management has been drinking the cool aid .

[ramius315]

shon7's first 2 'facts' are not QF specific and are indeed a generalization applicable to any company. (passenger = customer.)

His third 'fact' is a statement that has no proof attached.

That post merely confirms what a moron he is.

[shon7]

However, what I and I suspect many other Qantas staff, would be interested to see is each entity operate as a stand-alone organisation.

A group structure gives you better access to financing, better cost of capital and more purchasing power. It would be foolish to give that away.
Reality is QF international is being propped up and needs to generate enough profit to sustain itself. You may deny the reality in order to avoid the pain. Shock provides emotional protection from being overwhelmed all at once. But bottom line is - QF needs drastic change & it will be carried out.

The sooner you learn to accept it the better it will be for your own emotional wellbeing.

[booglaboy]

Shon7 you are truly showing your ignorance. Do you work for qantas? International is not losing money-fact!!! It is supporting unprofitable parts of the 'group' you so dearly love like Jq vietnam/Asia and possibly Jq international. Go troll somewhere else

[adsyj]

A group structure gives you better access to financing, better cost of capital and more purchasing power. It would be foolish to give that away.


Shon that is correct, but it only goes to prove the point that without mainline supporting Jetstar there would be no Jetstar. Get it.

[ejectx3]

If qf longhaul is losing money there's one reason why. Wrong aircraft. Wrong route structure. Wrong management .

Ok three reasons

[Longbow25]

Me thinks I smell a TROLL shon7?

[TheWholeEnchilada]

airline management positions
8th Mar 2002, 12:59
had posted this in another forum but I am hoping to get some more feedback here. . .. .What is the best way to get into an airline management position- specifically route planning/ development, fleet management etc. What is my best bet? Getting an MBA first or just getting any position with the airline and working my way up.
airline management positions (http://www.pprune.org/airlines-airports-routes/48287-airline-management-positions.html#post448562)


25th Oct 2004, 14:11
Concordia University Aviation MBA
Can anyone give me any information on the Aviation MBA at Concordia in Montreal specific or general.

Have you heard of the program at all?
How is Concordia Ranked as a school?
How is Montreal, Quebec as a place to live and work?
Why do they tout Montreal as the aviation capital of the world?

Any other information that would be helpful.

Thanks,

Shon
Concordia University Aviation MBA (http://www.pprune.org/canada/149618-concordia-university-aviation-mba.html#post1577222)

Management/ non-line flying jobs in Flight Operations after getting CPL

23rd Jun 2010, 05:20
What kind of management jobs or non-line flying jobs (but still in flight operations) can one try for after a CPL?

Ones I could come up with are

Training
Compliance
Operations Analysis/ FOQA
Management/ non-line flying jobs in Flight Operations after getting CPL (http://www.pprune.org/questions/418982-management-non-line-flying-jobs-flight-operations-after-getting-cpl.html#post5768506)

MBA recruitment at Singapore, Thai
26th Oct 2010, 02:54
Does anyone know if Singapore Airlines or Thai Airways have MBA recruitment programs for graduates out of business school?
MBA recruitment at Singapore, Thai (http://www.pprune.org/south-asia-far-east/431723-mba-recruitment-singapore-thai.html#post6016865)

Kool-aid drinking wannabe management pilot ideologue & pathological labour hater, engage at your own peril.

[my oleo is extended]

Nice investigative work Enchilada. It would indeed appear that shon7 is more like shisen7. Definitely an airline manager/wallstreet capitalist type fool. Another bottom dweller looking to make a name doing very little while being heavily remunerated. Throw in a little anti union rhetoric and a dash of airline manager ass licking and you have one shon7.

[V-Jet]

Maybe Shon7=Wirthless:) The same razor sharp intellect and ability to see the truth is clearly in evidence.

BTW I heard directly a QF fleet manager when forced to (I won't say who because I don't think it detracts from the point) actually admit that Elaine is in fact a liar. Not news to anyone obviously, but worthy of passing on.

Also a fleet manager (not necessarily the same one) was in SIN for a line crew briefing a couple of days before the grounding. More interestingly another senior captain who was meant to be with him wasn't even sent to SIN because at the last minute it was decided in the halls of power that only one need go for the briefing 'tour'. Mysteriously the last line crew briefing was cancelled and the fleet manager was paxed home a day early, for 'unknown' reasons. The following day of course Elaine woke up (and showing a spectacular grasp of the commercial realities of the airline business) had an epiphany and grounded the airline.

[shon7]

Stages of grief:

1. Denial and Isolation

It is a normal reaction to rationalize overwhelming emotions. It is a defense mechanism that buffers the immediate shock. We block out the words and hide from the facts. This is a temporary response that carries one through the first wave of pain.

(in this context: conspiracy theories, let JQ be stand alone, QF international is not losing money, its all an accounting game)

2. Anger

As the masking effects of denial and isolation begin to wear, reality and its pain re-emerge. The intense emotion is deflected from our vulnerable core, redirected and expressed instead as anger. The anger may be aimed at inanimate objects, complete strangers, friends or family.

(in this context: name calling, labelling, s/he is Indian, s/he is a troll, s/he is Australian, s/he is a mgmt wannabe).


2 more stages to come and you'll soon be nearer to acceptance.
Great entertainment in the meantime.

by the way in terms of facts nothing has changed:

QF international continues to lose money
JQ is still propping up QF
Drastic change is needed

[denist]

I read in this and other QF threads from a few posters (especially TG) who speak of QF being the "National Carrier" What does this term mean, I dont think it has any relavance now that the Government is not propping the airline up any more. I believe QF is now just another carrier and has lost its status a "National Carrier". TG and others are living in the past glories of QF and those times are never coming back, you can never recreate the past.

[busdriver007]

Shon7 is delusional....Low-cost Long-Haul will never make money beyond 5 hours.....Just ask BB....AJ will lie....If Jetstar is so successful why does it need Qantas? No Low-Cost Long-Haul has ever survived(Freddie Laker)....Yield is needed....Premium cabin that is a real premium cabin....Smoke & Mirrors..:ugh:

[TIMA9X]

QF international continues to lose money
JQ is still propping up QF
Drastic change is needed Is that you AJ? only he, one of his cronies or the Q social media department would say something like this on here...

Idolise Clifford? well you can't put brains in monuments either.

[booglaboy]

Where's your proof shon7? Your posts get more stupid and irrational each time. Move along pls, your pre-school teacher says you are behind in your finger painting

[TallestPoppy]

Booglaboy, you said "International is not losing money-fact!!!".........is that shown anywhere on published documents?

[Bad Hat Harry]

You close mainline down and the entire Group would collapse in six months.
Without mainline there is no Qantas.There is no Jetstar without mainline.

[TallestPoppy]

Harry, come on, surely you have no real proof for that? You even said back in 2009 that Qantas would be dead in six months.

Where do you get your figures from?

[booglaboy]

Of course it's not shown. That ruins the strategy of aj and his buddies. But the accounting we do know, totally flies in the face of Jq being profitable on its own. Qf owns the international Jq fleet, pays for its fuel, and continues to do adhoc maint beyond the scope of Jq engineers. International load factors for Qf are well above 80%. 10% greater than jq's. If you stop attributing the 'groups' costs to international, you may well find its one of the most profitable parts of the company. Even the frequent flyer and freight profits are off the back of international ops

[grip pipe]

Some quite interesting points made so far, the view that the current management team of Qantas is not up to it seem unanimous, even if it has the financial numbers it has no employee support, little public support and lukewarm market support. The notion of Qantas as a national icon seems predominantly supported and its place in Australian history clear. The vexed issue remains, where to next?

If you consider the history or growth of Qantas suggested by my first posting, you see a clear transition and development of what were two distinct businesses, Qantas and TAA into a singular business group Qantas. The original companies serviced very different markets, overseas and international travellers and domestic local travellers. I am not convinced that the joining together of the two ever made any business sense and there was little logistical saving in training or maintenance. The merger also in my view complicated engineering and fleet choices. To save both or the Qantas brand, which is really an international brand, seems to require that the company board and senior managers be replaced and the company be split into Jetstar, Domestic and International. All should be set loose to go after the market they are good at without being tied to each other. I would rebrand the domestic business RedQ-The Nations Airline and drop the Spirit of Australia crap from international. You could have Qantas Fleet be reconstituted into an aircraft leasing and maintenance organisation to service all three. You could have FT & S or C&T reconstituted to provide safety and training to all three, with free movement between groups to those involved if they so chose. My views are also based on the issue of mergers, most big business mergers rarely succeed and decoupling or business damage is frequent despite M&A being considered hot activity, the Qantas experiment is to my view consistent with this outcome, it has not worked and both entities are a drag on the other.

More food for thought!

Qantas International has to survive it is part of who we are as Australians (other company's could have been but did not survive) and I am sure there would be very few Australians who would like to see it fail and dissappear. Yes and Geoff Dixon's the 'sky is falling act' is not going to work for the current CEO, you don't need a re-write of the Air Navigation or Qantas Sale Acts, you just go around them by reorganising back to the way things were then go for it! Could do worse.

[TIMA9X]

stop attributing the 'groups' costs to international, you may well find its one of the most profitable parts of the company. Even the frequent flyer and freight profits are off the back of international ops Oh yes! The old CA, errrh, Corporate "Creative Accounting" trick! break up the divisions that make money by assigning them their own identity with a separate budget, as in the frequent flyer division for example...

After a couple of years (once the empire is built) the powers to be announce the yearly results for the group, highlighting, The frequent flyer division turning in a huge profit all of a sudden, which not too long ago was really part of Qantas International's profit results...


Could this be what is going on at Q? Certainly a way to make Q international suddenly look weaker to the market..:*

[Mstr Caution]

Shon7

A couple of guys put together a few questions for Qantas management, I was hoping you could answer a few of them. Managements been a bit quiet with the responses.

Qantas engineers serve carrier with Jetstar cost questions | Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2011/08/16/questions-that-qantas-investors-may-like-to-have-answered/)

[TallestPoppy]

The ALAEA put 61 questions together...........and didnt get a response.

Maybe if they had asked 2 or 3 pointed questions it may have worked. 2 or 3 may have stayed in the publics mind, or played better in the media. But 61? Jeez

[Keg]

Yes, because it's all about winning the PR battle rather than actually getting answers to legitimate questions. :rolleyes: :ugh:

[TallestPoppy]

Come on Keg, no battles have been won by any of the Unions. They have been played, or ignored.

Have any of the Unions' tactics actually advanced the members cause? It may have made them feel better, but has it actually reinforced their job security?

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

Imagiine what Qantas would look like now if there weren't any unions....

[TallestPoppy]

I assume thats Steve, do you think it would really look a lot different? Honest question, no vitriol please.

Looking at Qantas from afar, the ties, and left-handed working and PA's don't seem to have much efect.

[Ken Borough]

The practices to which Tallest Poppy has referred were very effective in that they demonstrated how futile and childish was the thinking of the Union 'leadership',,a term very loosely used.

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

A union is not just about one campaign. Its the ongoing stuff that most people never see. I could list dozens of examples but one comes to mind immediately.

Cabin crew ratios. Would be 50-1 right now if not for FAAA shorthaul and their lobbying.

It was after our last dispute that A330 maint was brought back onshore. There is a reason we may be quiet at the moment.

[Bagus]

One of Boeing's big selling points for the 787--its maintenance plan that promises lower operating costs because of fewer trips to the maintenance shop--has received FAA approval.

The FAA Maintenance Review Board has accepted Boeing's premise that the wide use of corrosion and fatigue resistant composites in the airframe and the new airplane's highly integrated systems architecture will require fewer of the time-consuming inspections and less maintenance than current generation aircraft, such as the 767.

In all, Boeing expects the 787 to save 30% in direct cash operating expenses over 767-era airplanes. In many cases, maintenance schedule intervals are twice as long for the 787.

For instance, the first external structural inspection for a 787 is set at six years of normal service rather than just three years for the 767. Similarly, the first internal structural inspection is planned at 12 years, rather than six on the 767.

The Maintenance Review Board's approval is part of the aircraft certification process. First flight is expected in the second quarter of 2009 and first 787 deliveries in 2010. Both are about two years behind the original schedule.

Photo: Boeing
This is what FAA said so Boeing can sell this aircraft but the reality is that there will be more smaller checks that has to be conducted which will require more additional manpower and more training,now itself Boeing has found problems and once aircraft in service more problems are anticipated,so if the engineering think they can reduce manpower good luck to them,

[V-Jet]

Fed Sec,
You have my total support. And the support of everyone I fly with. Engineers and Pilots were (in the circumstances) the picture of measured response to an overwhelmingly aggressive and irrational lying media and propaganda machine.

If not you, then someone of your ilk, along with a Pilot, F/A and ground staff member should have a board seat with considerable voting power. For it is they who care.

It is people like yourself who have the interests of this company at heart. Not the money grabbing and delusional financial alchemists who have been raping the company for years. The tragedy of the Craig Thomsons of the world is they gave perfect ammunition to the weasels buried deep in the Goebbels Dept at QCA to assist trash your sensible words.

In this 'dispute' the tragedy is that roles are completely reversed. Management is the wrecking ball, it is the 'workers' who care. The media is generally completely oblivious to the subtlety at work.

Bagus above:
Your post goes to the heart of the problem. No single person with any understanding of anything as complicated as a simple 'on/off' switch would believe that experienced Engineers are not required. On the '44, no Engineer would have ever recommended the half baked IFE we (or our pax) have suffered under for years. Nor be a 'launch' (or near launch) customer for any 'new' aircraft. It would take a 2-bit inexperienced 3rd rate management/board to make such stupid decisions again and again. As soon as an aircraft has no moving parts, hydraulic or electrical systems I will be happy to reconsider my position. Instinctively I will never believe an accountant or sales brochure. That type of thinking should be Swiss Cheese Modelling 101 for management.

As airline executives, credit where credit is due. QF board/management make outstanding room renovators. Their skill would easily see them to the finals of 'Renovation Rescue' or similar program. Unfortunately, the technological skill involved in putting vertical gardens on lounge walls is not quite the leadership and expertise that running an airline requires.

[Mstr Caution]

http://m.heraldsun.com.au/business/qantas-tipped-to-lose-passengers-to-new-virgin-service/story-fn7j19iv-1226321661903?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HeraldSunBusinessNews+%28Herald+Sun+%7C +Business%29

Meanwhile at Qantas Head office. AJ & the executives focus on Jetstar & Asia has allowed Virgin to continue to chip away at the domestic premium market.

Surely more bonuses are in order.

[MainDude]

Got to wait for the fat cats to saunter off as the milk gets sour. In the mean time Jet Star will take the scraps

[gobbledock]

Meanwhile at Qantas Head office. AJ & the executives focus on Jetstar & Asia has allowed Virgin to continue to chip away at the domestic premium market.
This is the core of the problem. While these fools are busy being distracted by the Asian fantasy, being distracted by how to fill their individual pockets and concentrating on protecting their enormous ego's the Australian operation slips quietly away and into the hands of Il Deuce. JB doesn't have to do much at all, in fact he has improved OTP, service and standards. Add FF points and QF is done and dusted.

For example I am not only industry and a former employee but have always been an avid QF supporter, FF points being the main draw and business class. But in the past 18 months I have gradually started flying VA regularly. Less delays, better international service and better aircraft from where I live, better pricing and so forth. All I want is FF points from them in a similar fashion to what QF offers and I will be a customer for life. My patience with QF from a customers perspective has run out. Sadly, the road ahead looks even worse with QF as there are no positive changes or corrections in sight so why should I remain with them? No reason whatsoever. No incentive whatsoever. No value whatsoever. No loyalty (thanks for grounding the airline Alan) whatsoever.

Mr Borghetti - Technicaly you have the easiest job in the world in this country, just sit back and receive. Team Rat are an uncontrolled wrecking ball. The damage their management are doing is something an opposition CEO's dreams are made from!
While QF lose sight of what is happenning in their own backyard, JB sneaks around QF's backyard pinching all their toys. It is too good to be true. How does Borghetti hold strategy meetings with his execs without pissing himself laughing? What would the minutes from Borghetti's strategy meeting consist of? I know, only one point - (1) Sit back and let Alan keep doing what he is doing to Qantas!!
Too easy!! Money for Jam! ANd at this rate Team Borghetti may even make more money for the next 12 months than QF, another good reason for not only passengers but investors to considering jumping ship!

Elaine is remarkably similar to the Titanic's Captain E.J Smith. Full of ego and pride, easily influenced by others, over confident in his own abilities and went full steam ahead without considering the risks or consequences.
We all know how Smith's ship ended up 100 years ago, how will Elaine's ship fare?

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTJQ4EbzLM9gFwiet8hVn8LUGcBhIrU_HC0_FCYiiH VFK30ahg7Aw



http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRt6EslmDWonnLwzhmaNwyHFjs0MjHOQid5ogHwQvr crqlkq7fgGQ

[Jack Ranga]

Mr Borghetti - Technicaly you have the easiest job in the world in this country, just sit back and receive.


You probably should be giving the bloke a little more credit than that. Reading what he has achieved so far has been a monumental task, he's had to make large capital investments and still returned a profit :D

All with the respect of his staff, people he obviously values. Good stuff Mr Borghetti :ok:

[flamingmoe]

Is there any truth that QF81/82 is going to Jetstar?? ADL-SIN.

[VBPCGUY]

Qantas really is in a sad state of affairs, I look across at the International terminal at Melbourne airport and see three JQ A330's and a Jetconnect B737-800 I feel for the QF employees that work so hard to uphold the Qantas name, it truely is a national tradegey what management are doing to this proud airline.

[Bagus]

I am sure alaea are doing everything in their power to maintain aircraft onshore,all we need to do is to put pressure, write to the PM to stop qantas of selling Australia hard working and experience workers offshore,All Aircraft maint should be done in Australia,qantas loosing money is all due to bad marketing and management giving bad news,when was the last time you saw qantas ad on tv,u only see jetstar and Garuda

[adsyj]

I see old mate Ken has found a friend.

I don't understand how those of you on the outside can throw stones at our various Unions and their leaders.

If you are a member of any of the Unions involved you have a vote and a chance to have your say.

If you are not a member of the union or an employee of Qantas whose job is being threatened then why do you care. The vast majority of members supported the Unions and thats what counts. Members of the peanut gallery are just that.

As Steve points out above it is the work the various Unions do on a day to day basis that those on the outside don't see.

Edit I should say that there are many many supporters of QF Pilots Engineers Grond Staff Cabin Crew who I thank for ongoing support. My Peanut gallery comments refer to the usual suspects on Pprune who take great delight in watching Qantas fail and people lose their jobs. I don't need to name them I'm sure we all know them.

[magic8]

Don't know of QF flights ADL-SIN going to Jetstar but have heard strong rumour that Qlink out of BNE taking over some QF flights.

[mcgrath50]

Flew today on a 737-800 with the new interior. That's where to now. The seats were comfortable (but took up less space so I assume fit at least an extra row in), we all had personal IFE, the bins were large yet took up less space, the cabin (thanks mostly to the lighting and pleasing curves) looked modern, the business class seats were business class seats. Whether I just lucked out on a great crew or it was due to an aircraft they can be proud of giving them a lift I don't know (suspect a combination of both), but the CC were top notch.

Compared to the 737-400 I flew on to go away before Easter. :rolleyes:

If there was an investment gradually over the years to get the Qantas fleet at that standard (which is doable, ANZ, SQ and others have done it and VA/VB are doing it much quicker) Virgin wouldn't be having such an easy time of it, as the standard of product I had today was as good as you could expect anywhere. The issue is, in 6 flights on QF in the past 12 months, this is the only time I've had it this good. The A330 does come very close, but the old 737-400s and 767s are embarrassing.

[TIMA9X]

over confident in his own abilities and went full steam ahead without :)considering the risks or consequences.:)https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-QaoSCv9ruKo/T4PxIhTFQVI/AAAAAAAABu0/gT-zjBujrh8/s1206/titanic-poster3.jpg

[gobbledock]

TIMA9X you are a freaking genius! Love you work.
Good thing it wasn't the scene inside the car in the cargo hold?
And in the S.S Qantas Capt Clifford won't go down with the ship!

[Tidbinbilla]

You just burned a few arses with that last post, Tim:}

[ozaggie]

Faaaaargin classic. Whens it out on Blu-ray. Must get a copy. This 9x bloke and the Gripper should be inducted into the Pprune hall of fame.

[teresa green]

Denist, I don't suppose it would cross your mind that QF is ninety years old. You would think in those ninety years that they would learn something, like survival in the industry, you would think that the history of the company would continually be built on, and the knowledge that only ninety years in the business could teach. It is the second oldest airline in the world, and for the last ten years it has been run by idiots, who have no interest in the airline itself, only how to conduct and run a airline at cost price. It has and always will be the National Carrier, as long as it has wings, and if the past has no interest for you, fine, but ninety years of experience should count for something, even in this fast buck world we now inhabit. Thousands and thousands of people have put their heart and soul into this company over the years, and made it one of the most successful airlines ever, until Dixon and now Joyce, so you will forgive if the older pilots and engineers do not greet their actions with enthusiasm.

[denist]

TG, I agree with all the history of Qantas, but now that it now longer supported by the the government, it is no longer the "National Carrier". The term "National Carrier" infers that it has some sort of priviliged status when it clearly does not. When you are using this term it is only as an emotive attachement that you have to the company. Like I said you cannot recreate the past and thus must move forward. No amount of pontificating at the local Surf Club bar will not change that.

[gobbledock]

TG, I agree with all the history of Qantas, but now that it now longer supported by the the government, it is no longer the "National Carrier".The term "National Carrier" infers that it has some sort of priviliged status when it clearly does not. When you are using this term it is only as an emotive attachement that you have to the company.
Dentist, no offence but it makes no difference who does or doesn't own QF - It will always be an Australian icon. The history of the airline, its pioneer Hudson Fysh and all sorts of achievements cannot and will not be confined to the annals of history. QF is part of our culture, just like Kangaroo's, Uluru, Sydney Harbor Bridge, Koala's and Vegemite! The Australian Government had it's incompetent paws on QF before plus we have had our share of 'modern day Ned Kelly's who robbed from the worker and gave to themeselves - Darth and Elaine! These two clowns may just see QF off with a fizz and buried in a time capsule like Ansett but you will never remove the link between the airline and our heritage.

Like I said you cannot recreate the past and thus must move forward. No amount of pontificating at the local Surf Club bar will not change that. Who is pontificating? When you spend most of your lifetime with the one airline, lets say 30+ years it becomes a part of who you are. Have you ever had a beer with life long MUA Wharfie or a life long Holden line worker from Adelaide? Drinking piss at the Surf Club while staring at some girls in thongs, sharing a laugh and a tear while recounting war stories is what defines some of us. It is far from pontificating, pontificating is for the current QF execs and selected predecessors who pontificate about how great they supposedly are, how they really don't earn as much as they actually deserve and how their management skills are second to none and it is the core staff that are the root cause of QF's problems.

pon·tif·i·cate
intr.v. (-khttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/amacr.gifthttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/lprime.gif) pon·tif·i·cat·ed, pon·tif·i·cat·ing, pon·tif·i·cates

1. To express opinions or judgments in a dogmatic way.
2. Refer Websters Dictionary under Joy.ce and Dix-on (e.g Where is our bonus,'pesky overpaid Pilots and Engineers). Also see plunder, greed, incompetence and f#ckwit.

[denist]

I think you are confusing the terms "National Carrier" with "National Icon" I have no dispute with QF being a "National Icon"

[hotnhigh]

Why is qantas stuffed?
Go to the bottom of the page and read the second last sentence.
How many layers exist? Who knows..............
Qantas careers - Finance (http://www.careers.qantas.com/Graduates/Finance.aspx)

[Fliegenmong]

Past graduates are currently working in a number of different roles including Financial Analyst, Principle Financial Analyst, Manager Financial Consolidation & Control, Manager Treasury Risk, Head of Finance and Group Treasurer.

Had a Principle Financial Analyst once...but the wheels fell off:suspect:

[teresa green]

Denist, if I am at the surf club with my mates, "The don't get me started party" I am far to pi##ed to pontificate, complain yes, pontificate no. If it makes you happy QF is a national icon, (and you are right) but to me QF has always been and will always be the National Carrier. Ask the kids who waited burnt and traumatised after Bali, just waiting for that tail, ditto after the Tsunami, ask the people who lost family after QF aircraft never returned during WW2, ask the Nats how they felt when they saw that tail after fighting in Vietnam, ask the Darwinians how they felt when they packed in like sardines on that 747/200, they were just grateful. If you want it to be just a Icon feel free, I am happy to call it the National Carrier.

[RATpin]

Yeah, PAN AM was an Icon too.
Fortunately or unfortunately, emotion has no place in business.
Of course,there is the option favoured by some political parties to prop up the company(aussie car industry) or nationalise.
Not much point complaining about it now, when the writing was on the wall when dixon purchased impulse.

[TallestPoppy]

Teresa, I agree that Qantas is an icon, with an iconic symbol that most Australians and many foreigners would recognise.

However, the world has changed. I don't know how long it is since you were in the TAA, and then, Australian Airlines crew room, for me its around 24 years (calm down, I left prior to 89). The airline business has evolved since then. New players have arrived, and old ones, such as Pan Am have disappeared. Others are still in the throes of change, eg Air France KLM (US$ 1 Billion loss for 2011), British Airways and Iberia (IAG) (US 651 Million profit for 2011).

Change is painfull, but change can sometimes result in a good outcome. I would like Fletcher Jones still to be going strong, and Blundstone's still to be made only in Oz, and for there to be Skipping Girl vinegar (not the band) and Nylex hoses, but competition is a real factor in business, and always has been.

For Qantas to exist without change taking place, without its costs changing would require taxpayer subsidy. I do agree that the CEO needs to drive chnge, and ideally with his employees support, but if need be without.

But if it is a taxpayer subsidy that QF needs, which Government programs do you want money taken from so that Qantas can do its business without actually being competitive?

[teresa green]

Lets end this guys, go to wikipedia, look up National Carrier Australia. There you will find,..................................QF. They call it the flag carrier, National Carrier, Flag Carrier whatever. It is not Virgin Australia (a pommy outfit) it is not JQ ( the joey) it is QF. End of story. Back to the serious stuff, like how do we save it?

[TallestPoppy]

Teresa, it will be saved, to an extent, without its employees buy-in. There is no stomach in the nation to "save the Aussie icon" for an icon's sake.

Unless those within it want to accept change, change will be forced apon them.

If the employees think the Govenrment should step in with its eternally deep pockets, you have to stand up and accept someone will have to pay for it. If you don't want to pay for it as employees, who is it going to be? Pensioners? Veterans? Disabled? Unemployed?

........and who is it your saving it for?......your memories, well paid employees Super, or 'the public' ?

[Keg]

I was having a play around with some Frequent Flyer stuff recently as to what I could get for various points, etc. I looked at some HNL flights over a range of dates for J class seats. Every selection burned my points on Jetstar rather than Qantas. There were no Qantas options available at all for the 2-3 months that I looked at. Every time it offered me the codeshare on Jetstar.

I wonder too what the FF people 'pay' J* for that seat and what they would pay QF- if a seat were available! I know many have asked the question before but the internal cost transfers for stuff like the FF scheme would be very interesting.

[FYSTI]

Unless those within it want to accept change, change will be forced apon them
Are you talking international only, domestic only? Workers or management? You need to be much more specific, general hand-waving is easy, or are you just mindlessly trumpeting the media spin deployed by management.

Here's one for you. QF Shorthaul crew, for the last 20 year to this day have one of the most efficient, if not the most efficient contracts in the world. Both QF & J* work to the CAO48E, VB do not. Jetstar's contract is more restrictive than the exception, QF is not - it is pure 48E.

Pay wise, there would be lucky to be 5% difference between those 3 pilot groups when comparing a given basket of hours actually flown over the course of a year. There are differences in the headline rate, but there are also differences in the penalty clauses (QF have none, J* have effectively double pay to work a day off, VB have min 5 hours on a day off etc). Even John Borghetti says there is virtually no difference: We pay enough says Virgin Australia CEO (http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/we-pay-enough-says-virgin-australia-ceo/story-e6frfku0-1226183816945). I would challenge you to provide evidence of a more efficient contract than QF Shorthaul. Further, contracts in Asia pay very close to all three contracts in after tax dollars.

However, management in there infinite wisdom have recently implemented rostering practices with this highly efficient contract that mean they have effectively lowered the ability to utilize crew by 10~12% below J*, and hence simply need more pilots to do the same work. This has nothing to with the unions or pilots or the contract, it was implemented unilaterally by management. Who should change?

Once again, easy to wave your hand, show us specifically what has to change.

[Wandering]

Ah, frequent flyer! I have had many lively conversations over the past while with frequent flyer attempting to get a "Qantas" flight with points. Every time I want to fly I can only get Jet* flights so I fone and debate. I end up not travelling with points as I absolutely REFUSE to fly Jet*! Been on Jet* twice and that's two times too many!

I no longer fly Qantas. I use Virgin!

Cheers.

[TallestPoppy]

G'day FYSTI, it's a while since I operated to CAO 48, but without you supplying hours per annum and Aussie Dollar costs we won't get anywhere.

At the moment you seem to have a CEO who seems confrontational, and a workforce which appears equally confrontational. Are you satisfied that your unions know what cost the CEO wants business done at? Have they negotiated around that figure? If not you might go out of business. If you try and maintain the statuse quo I fear you will go the way of Nylex, fondly remembered, but replaced.

It's up to you. Are your unions maintaining the status quo, or ensuring your employer stays in business? Regardless of the 'after tax' salary, you need your employer to emply you long term. And if it's a tax payer subsidy, who takes a cut so that you profit?

[FYSTI]

Poppy

QF max 1000 hours per annum
Jetstar max 1000 hours per annum
Virgin max 900


Profitability? QF domestic probably made $700 million plus 2010/11, given the alleged $216 million loss by longhaul.

Contracts, including rostering and rates of pay.

QF (http://www.scribd.com/doc/72097306/Qantas-Short-Haul-Agreement-2007)
Jetstar (http://www.scribd.com/doc/72097178/Jetstar-EBA-2008), rostering (http://www.scribd.com/doc/72097413/Jetstar-Roster-Build-Agreement-2010)
Virgin (http://www.scribd.com/doc/72097092/Virgin-Blue-Pilots-EBA-2007)

Are your unions maintaining the status quo, or ensuring your employer stays in business? There are many who remember the unmentionable year as well as many who were at Ansett when it collapsed, what do you think they want?

Almost everyone on the shorthaul side want a profitable, viable business (exactly what it has been for the last 20 years) and to go to work, work hard and go home with some semblance of a life beyond flying.

As I said, QF shorthaul is highly profitable right now without a taxpayer subsidy on a contract that is competitive across Australia & Asia. Management have implemented the inefficiencies not the union or the pilots.

I've put up, time you put up or shut up.

[theheadmaster]

Roughly 1/3 of the airframes doing domestic flying are with crew on the long haul award. As those aircraft are 767, A330 and 747 it would roughly equate to half of the seats.

The real issue is not crew efficiency. The unions have offered it and the company were not interested. The real agenda is setting up subsidiaries that sit outside of the Qantas Sales Act. The spin by management is not the reason, it is the excuse for why there is no investment in mainline QF. Mainline will be bled dry to set up these subsidiaries and those who organise their future sale will profit handsomely.

[waren9]

FYSTI

but there are also differences in the penalty clauses (QF have none, J* have effectively double pay to work a day off

Thats not how 26.6.1 seems to read?

JQ overtime starts at 75, not 58 and the fraction is a lot smaller as well.

[FYSTI]

Warren, that is not a penalty clause, it is the calculation of the overtime rate. You are correct with regard to the various differences in the rates for overtime calculations.

By penalty clause I mean that additional hours are paid above the work done, ie in the J* contract, section 25.5.4 working on a day off attracts a "days pay" plus an additional "days pay" - effectively 8 hours pay (subject to annual hours flown), regardless of hours flown in that duty. J* have more days off in which to attract the payment per roster.

J* also have an additional 2.5 days off per roster period (28 days QF, calander J*). At about ~850 hours per year this equates to double time. Virgin get min 5 hours on a day off (also ~11.5 days off per 28 day period). QF do not get any of these. At best, they may get an "bonus hour" for being called off reserve (min 4 hours pay) to do say MEL-SYD-MEL. But say a MEL-SYD-BNE-MEL off reserve is flight pay only. My info is that for QF, 95% of hours paid is hours actually flown.

J* also have a retention payment in addition to a profit share scheme (QF have profit share only)

I was very clear when I said "basket of hours". At first blush, the QF contract appears to be substantially better on the headline rate. As usual, the devil is in the detail and one needs examine closely all three contracts in their entirety and imagine the real world of 12 months flying with the usual roster disruptions and number off available to be called on, and the various penalties that apply. I think if you sat down with a spreadsheet and played around with some numbers that all three contract will very close in earning potential for a given basket of hours in the real world.

[waren9]

Not seeing the point of your argument? But, out of the 2 EBA's I know which I'd rather be on.

Regarding the "basket of hours" and I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that, if both groups work fly roughly 85hrs / month, again the QF pilot prices himself off the chart by pulling 27hours of overtime compared to a JQ pilot who pulls 10.

Unless I've got it all wrong, which is highly likely.:confused:

[Keg]

58 hours is 'min guarantee'. That is, fly 58, get paid 58. Fly 75, get paid 75. There is no 'overtime' rates per se between 58 and 75. The point that FYSTI is making is that when all three sets of crew fly 80 hours per month then their pay is going to be very close. In the J* and Virgin case, when the 'additional' rates are taken into account for day off flying etc, there is the potential for them to be earning more than the QF crew.

I'm not full bottle on the QF SH award so I may be out a bit too but that's the point I understand FYSTI to be making.

[maggot]

Unless I've got it all wrong, which is highly likely.


this is the case.

"overtime" on the SH award =/= a penalty rate. it's hours over the min pay level that will be paid after the months flying at the same rate as the previous 58hrs.

[InvestQLD]

In order to understand these decisions I am trying to get my head around MRO costs in Australia vs. overseas. What does a D-Check on a 767 cost? Is Singapore or China that much cheaper? Is the cost all in salaries?:confused:

[waren9]

"overtime" on the SH award =/= a penalty rate. it's hours over the min pay level that will be paid after the months flying at the same rate as the previous 58hrs.

I'm still not with you guys. Jeez I must be thick :confused:

After 58hrs QF pilots also earn 1/696th of base for each hour thereafter. EBA 26.6.1.

A JQ pilot earns 1/787th of (a lower) base salary only after he has flown more than 75. If both do 75 hours, then pilot J gets base salary only and pilot Q gets base plus 17/696th's, no?

So. Overtime cuts in earlier and is a bigger fraction of a better base.

How am I wrong?

[FYSTI]

Warren, perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been. By basket of flying, I mean the normal cut and thrust of short haul - additional flying that crops up, cancellations, reserve call outs working days off, etc in addition to normal rostered flying.
Keg is correct.

Take an additional MEL-SYD-MEL that all three Captains get asked to do on a day off, the QF guy gets $750, Jetstar $1400 and virgin $1100 (approx). In a 30 day roster both JQ and VB have 11.5 days (average) off, so there is good scope to pick up this flying. Of course the companies are going to try to maximise hours worked on those days. Working just two days off a month is very lucrative, and it takes the number of days off to match the QF guy.

Which contract would I choose? VB.

[blueloo]

What does a D-Check on a 767 cost? Is Singapore or China that much cheaper?

They do spend a lot of time on the ground in Australia when they get back getting fixed up. This cost is never taken into account.

On occasion the overseas maintained ones can be noticeably bad... switches not quite right...random stray electrons...very odd things.

Then again, maybe its just cause their old and need to be replaced.

[waren9]

Warren, perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been. By basket of flying, I mean the normal cut and thrust of short haul - additional flying that crops up, cancellations, reserve call outs working days off, etc in addition to normal rostered flying.
Keg is correct.

Take an additional MEL-SYD-MEL that all three Captains get asked to do on a day off, the QF guy gets $750, Jetstar $1400 and virgin $1100 (approx). In a 30 day roster both JQ and VB have 11.5 days (average) off, so there is good scope to pick up this flying. Of course the companies are going to try to maximise hours worked on those days. Working just two days off a month is very lucrative, and it takes the number of days off to match the QF guy.

Still, I wouldnt be sneezing at 1/696th after 58 if someone offered it to me.
As a general rule, I don't work days off. Life's too short to spend them at work as well.

[teresa green]

Enjoying it up in the sandpit, ex A380? A lot don't.

[Short_Circuit]

I hear the 200 engineers from Sydney got their marching orders yesterday. A sad day I suspect for QF,,, some 2000 years of real aircraft knowledge goooooone forever. :ugh:
Sir SP confirm?

[TallestPoppy]

FYSTI, thanks for posting the links to the EBA's etc.

It appears from afar that AJ is on a union busting exercise. I think we all agree on that.

It doesn't have to ba a union busting exercise though. It could be an agreement adjusting exercise. If your representatives can't get access to the CEO to discuss things, you need to get some fresh ones who can. If they won't negotiate to your long term career benefit, get some fresh ones.

QF wil roster you as efficiently to CAO 48 as they can, but if they can get JetStar to do the job for a lower cost they will.

The guys at the top of you list are sitting pretty, its the guys at the bottom who need to drive through change, as they will still want a job in 30 years.

Its your future. You either keep things as they are and watch QF shrink, or adjust and stay in a career.

[another superlame]

I think the marching orders were given to those who requested it.
If you believe management ( and who wouldn't? ) there will be no compulsory redundancies in Syd base or SIO as they got the numbers required.
They were short of LAMEs but a few have been given transfers to other ports and this will count in reducing the headcount.
They used common sense for once in allowing transfers to happen.

[theheadmaster]

Poppy, I fear the adjustment will be to change airlines to stay in a job, not change conditions to keep QF flying.

[teresa green]

Well if its so much fun, why do you feel the need to denigrate your old company exA380? You would think you would be just happy to move on.

[73to91]

Where to Now?

Article below relates to a 2nd Sydney airport but the highlight piece got a good laugh out of me..

Let’s get real. If you live in Melbourne, even Qantas will fly you non-stop to LAX. You’d be barking made to go via Sydney. And all those cruel nasty foreign Asian carriers, apart from the ones Qantas tried to suck up to, can fly you non-stop from Melbourne to all the major hubs, where you can easily, and for less money, fly direct to cities Qantas managers couldn’t find in an atlas standing up in a phone booth. If it’s not the mother country, Qantas isn’t interested, and if it is the mother country, it isn’t interested as much as used to be anyhow.

Sydney Airport? Just cut Sydney loose and get on with life | Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2012/04/11/heres-a-radical-pre-budget-thought-lets-cut-sydney-loose/)

[BuzzBox]

Great article - had me rolling on the floor laughing.

I can't see a second SYD airport happening anytime soon, given the politics. SYD has been a problem for 30-odd years and they still can't (or won't) make a decision.

Increasing congestion at SYD will eventually make the place unworkable. That roadblock will harm the NSW economy, but will encourage economic opportunities elsewhere and the international traffic will follow.

I agree with Ben - let it die.

[TIMA9X]

http://images.smh.com.au/2012/04/15/3221131/art-353-cbd-200x0.jpg

Knowledge gap ... Alan Joyce has wondered if Qantas once found its own oil. Illustration: John Shakespeare
Qantas's chief executive, Alan Joyce, helped narrow the location for Sydney's second airport on Friday before the launch of the airline's first flight powered by cooking oil (or at least a portion of it).
Asked where he thought the best location was for the second airport, on top of the dozen or so already picked around the Cumberland Plain since 1946, Joyce declared: ''Sydney.''
Present at the cooking-oil-powered flight event was Shell's chairwoman in Australia, Ann Pickard, who once had the honour of mention in a diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks. Pickard was keen to emphasise that the oil company had been supplying the Flying Kangaroo for 85 years. But she added: ''I'm not sure what happened for the first seven years.'' (Qantas was founded in 1920.)


From there, Joyce said: ''All I can suggest for the first seven years, Ann, is that I know our pioneers were very entrepreneurial. And I know the first seven years we built our own aircraft but I didn't know they drilled for oil at the same time.'

Read more: Joyce hits on new way to cut costs (http://www.smh.com.au/business/joyce-hits-on-new-way-to-cut-costs-20120415-1x1no.html#ixzz1s9u1wBAR)
Always looking for an angle, AJ has discovered Qantas was founded in 1920.. he has been in the seat for just over 3 years, sort of puts a perspective on his tenure... short termism personified.. :sad:

Oops I forgot, Agree 73-91 loved Ben's piece too:ok:

The other day Anthony Albanese officiated at the opening of the world’s slowest most inefficiently delivered motorway upgrade in history, at the duplication of the M5 from near Campbelltown to the M7 Junction. It took three years to go about seven kilometres. First the RTA built, make that hand crafted with a man with a shovel and ten supervisors, the two extra lanes, then ripped up the other two lanes. It plonked a pedestrian overpass over the freeway that took so long from the first foundations to the first graffiti upon opening that an entire generation was born and graduating from pre-school before it was finished.
The previous Labor Premier of NSW, Kristina Keneally, spent so long getting her name spelled right in the newspapers in her short tenure in the post that she lost oversight of the Sydney-Inner West metro line, and set a record for spending at least $500 million on a project for which not a single metre of tunnel and rail was dug or laid.
Sydney Airport? Just cut Sydney loose and get on with life | Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2012/04/11/heres-a-radical-pre-budget-thought-lets-cut-sydney-loose/)
Appears, it's tough for everyone out there in aviation land.. it just gets harder and harder for the operational staff, ... no one at the top seem to know what they are doing, but its costing the taxpayers, then, in some cases, their jobs.... private or government organisations. I call it "Infrastructure mismatch management" feels like a plague of it may be imminent.

[TIMA9X]

Jetstar Japan sells 10,000 one-way tickets for 1 yen each ? Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion (http://www.japantoday.com/category/travel/view/jetstar-japan-sells-10000-one-way-tickets-for-1-yen-each-on-6-domestic-routes)TOKYO —
Budget airline Jetstar Japan on Tuesday said that it sold 10,000 one-way tickets for one yen each on six domestic routes in a two-hour online campaign during the day.
I wonder, who will be paying the start-up costs for this?:rolleyes:
It took Jetstar SIN eight years to make a profit, still waiting for a profit from the Jetstar rabble in Vietnam.... Even more worrying, the Qantas brand which has been funding this venture since conception is having its routes clipped... great business plan if you have shares in Qantas, another eight years before we see a dividend? ...:{



https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VofFh_aROa4/T431L8Rl25I/AAAAAAAABvc/1zrNDpkFbK4/s629/12-month-Qantas-shareprice-April-2012.JPG

Notam BBC News - Pretty pictures: Can images stop data overload? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17682294)

Your laptop is open on the desk next to you with another set of figures you need - meanwhile you're frantically tabbing through different documents on the main screen.
You have a meeting in 20 minutes and you suddenly feel as if you're swimming in a sea of impenetrable data, and you're starting to sink.
Welcome to the 21st century workplace, and "data overload".
Under siege You're not alone.
Dr Lynda Shaw is a neuroscience and psychology lecturer at Brunel University in the west of London.
"I've been interviewing a lot of senior business people lately, and they're actually hiding... because they're frightened they're going to be asked questions they can't answer, so they're delaying making really quite important decisions," she says.
"When we're inundated with emails, Twitter, Facebook, social media, search engines like Google, it's as if we're expected to know more than we actually do, and we can't retain that level of information, that bombardment.
"When we feel overwhelmed we start to delay making decisions."
and easy to forget the real state of play...

[ypph1]

Looking at the CASA aircraft registry on their website I came across three interesting observations

1. A330-200 in Qantas livery with Jet* being the leaseholder/registration holder.

VH EBP

Power Driven Aeroplane with Tricycle - Retractable landing gear
2 Turbofan engines

Manufacturer: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE
Model: A330-202
Serial number: 1174
Aircraft first registered in Australia: 19 November 2010
Year of manufacture: 2010

Full Registration
Registration holder as of 19 November 2010

C.I.T. LEASING CORPORATION

Jetstar Airways - Att: Roland Berger Level 4, 222 Bourke Street
MELBOURNE VIC 3000
AUSTRALIA

Registered operator as of 19 November 2010

QANTAS AIRWAYS LIMITED

Level 8, 241 O'Riordan Street
MASCOT NSW 2020
AUSTRALIA


2. A330-200 in Jet* livery with Qantas being the leaseholder or owner/registration holder

VH EBA

Power Driven Aeroplane with Tricycle - Retractable landing gear
2 Turbofan engines

Manufacturer: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE
Model: A330-202
Serial number: 0508
Aircraft first registered in Australia: 11 November 2002
Year of manufacture: 2002

Full Registration
Registration holder as of 20 June 2006

QANTAS EBA G.I.E.

Company Secretary QCA/9, 203 Coward Street
MASCOT NSW 2020
AUSTRALIA

Registered operator as of 15 February 2007

JETSTAR AIRWAYS PTY LIMITED

GPO Box 4713
MELBOURNE VIC 3001
AUSTRALIA

3. A330-200 in Qantas livery with the Commonwealth Bank being the leaseholder/registration holder


VH EBL

Power Driven Aeroplane with Tricycle - Retractable landing gear
2 Turbofan engines

Manufacturer: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE
Model: A330-203
Serial number: 0976
Aircraft first registered in Australia: 26 November 2008
Year of manufacture: 2008

Full Registration
Registration holder as of 22 December 2008

CBA AIR PTY LTD

Commonwealth Bank Of Australia Level 22, 201 Sussex Street
SYDNEY NSW 2000
AUSTRALIA

Registered operator as of 22 December 2008

QANTAS AIRWAYS LIMITED

Level 8, 241 O'Riordan Street
MASCOT NSW 2020
AUSTRALIA

[tgbgtgb]

I suspect you are looking for a conspiracy where there is none

[theheadmaster]

If you want a conspiracy to trace, look at the register to find the leasing companies for the aircraft not 'owned' by Qantas, then try to find out who owns some of those leasing companies ;)

[TIMA9X]

Where to Now? OK, not directly related to Q but believe the brand and /or CEO could be inserted in this story in various places.;) (interesting perspective considering the contents of this thread)


A bias of Titanic proportions


Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking. You probably heard about it.
Every major news organisation covered it. Two cruise ships tossed wreaths into the ocean where the ship sank. Apparently, a New York food group re-created the final meal of the ship's first-class passengers. "Something about it is intriguing," the group's chef said.


The Titanic's sinking, which claimed 1500 lives, was a tragedy. But almost no one ever mentions a word about the 1987 sinking of the ferry boat MV Dona Paz, which killed 4375 people. Or the capsizing of the MV Le Joola, which claimed 1863 lives off the coast of Gambia in 2002.


Using 2010 statistics as a reference, 1500 Americans likely died in traffic accidents in the last two weeks alone. No food club will re-create their last meal 100 years from now.


Some stories capture our attention more than others that are objectively bigger and more important. I don't know if there's a name for that, but it should have one. Let's call it the Titanic bias.


The Titanic bias shows up in the financial world all the time. We spend too much time focusing on some financial stories while ignoring others that are more important.

The importance of dividends
Think about this: One thousand dollars invested in the S&P 500 in 1950 would be worth about $78,000 today if you focus on the index alone. But with dividends reinvested, your $1000 actually grew to $622,000 - eight times higher than the index shows.


Over the long haul, dividends provide the majority of returns. That should be the biggest story investors spend their time and energy on. Yet look what gets almost all the attention in the media: daily market swings of a few points here and there, none of which matter over the long term.


Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) fell a few percentage points on Monday, bringing shares back to where they were literally a few weeks prior. And the media went wild. By my count, nearly 2000 articles referenced Apple's "plunge" - many as front-page stories.


Meanwhile on Monday, Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) raised its dividend for the 56th consecutive year, this time by a lofty 7 per cent. Only a handful of news outlets picked up on the news; most were buried by headlines of Apple's one-day hiccup.


For those looking to build wealth, consistently growing dividends are far more important than daily market wiggles. Yet most of us are captivated by the latter. There's your Titanic bias.

Who's really overpaid?
Then there's the Titanic bias that exists when we talk about CEO compensation. The media have become fascinated with overpaid CEOs. Former Home Depot (NYSE: HD) CEO Bob Nardelli was obsessively criticised for taking a severance package worth nearly $200 million after the company's stock fell 40 per cent during his tenure. His pay was the topic of dozens of front-page news stories.


Nardelli was grossly overpaid and deserved the criticism. In Australia we tend to focus on the multi-million dollar remuneration of Rupert Murdoch, Frank Lowy and our bank bosses. But there are more sinister and widespread examples of corporate overpay that go largely unnoticed.
Consider the compensation of money managers.


According to S&P Capital IQ, Nardelli earned $US254 million at Home Depot from 2000-2006. That's 0.8 per cent of the $US32 billion in profits the company earned under his watch.


Compare that with US mutual fund managers. One analysis by Yoseph West of Vuru concluded that management fees collected on equity mutual funds captured one-third of all investor profits from 2000-2010 - and the vast majority of those funds underperformed a simple index fund.
In 2011, US money market funds distributed $US5.2 billion in dividends, but only after collecting $US4.7 billion in management fees, according to the Investment Company Institute. That's nearly half of all income. And as Reuters explained, many of those funds are run by one (highly paid) manager.
You call that work?


Another study by David Norman, former CEO of Credit Suisse Asset Management, found that UK investors pay 8 billion pounds a year in hidden fees to financial advisors, capturing upward of one-third of all investor returns.
Several years ago I learned that an unsuspecting family friend was being charged 1 per cent a year by a financial advisor to park her money in a product that yielded about 1 per cent a year. The advisor was taking just about everything for himself, in other words. And he called it "work".


Forget Nardelli. Forget the bank CEOs. The real pay scandal is the one Titanic bias shields our attention from, and it's probably affecting you, right now, whether you realise it or not.


It's a terribly complicated world. Whatever you're worried about, frustrated about, or upset about, there's probably a bigger issue out there that deserves your attention. Something about that is intriguing, you might say.

Morgan Housel is a Motley Fool (http://www.fool.com.au/) contributor. The Motley Fool's purpose is to educate, amuse and enrich investors. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691)

Read more: A bias of Titanic proportions (http://www.smh.com.au/business/motley-fool/a-bias-of-titanic-proportions-20120420-1xc8j.html#ixzz1sbQd6Npb)
As I see it, the operational side of the business keeps the show on the road... carrying a lot of administrators on it's back... Any CEO who hasn't paid a dividend for a while, would be worried.... the institutional share holders may be becoming a little restless?

.

[TIMA9X]

Singapore may be base for premium airline: Qantas CEO

Singapore may be base for premium airline: Qantas CEO - Taipei Times (http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2012/04/24/2003531105)


Australian flag carrier Qantas is still considering Singapore as the base for a premium carrier in Asia, chief executive Alan Joyce said in a report published yesterday.


Qantas’ Asian plans — which it sees as key to its strategy of revitalizing its loss-making international business — were dealt a blow when talks with Malaysian Airlines over the premium joint-venture collapsed last month.
Talks with Singapore on the issue had also lapsed, but Joyce told the Australian newspaper that the airline was still looking at a range of options for a premium Asian airline, including the city state.


“This will take a bit longer than we originally thought, but we’re still keen to set up a premium airline in Asia and we’re still looking at a range of options available to us — and Singapore is one of them,” Joyce said.
He added that Qantas was still talking to the Singapore government on the idea.


“We work with them on a range of issues and one of them is keeping the door open to the possibility of a premium airline,” Joyce told the newspaper.
Qantas holds a 65 percent share of the domestic Australian market, but has struggled with an underperforming international business.
It is attempting to refocus on Asia, the world’s fast-growing aviation market, and last month announced a new Hong Kong-based budget airline, Jetstar Hong Kong, which it hopes will be in the air next year.


However, Joyce said that for long-term success, Qantas, which has a weak market share in Asia, needed to participate in the premium end of the regional market.
“Qantas could probably live with it for the next few years, but I’m committed to [the idea] that in the future we have to address it, and the way to address it is to be involved in a premium airline in Asia,” he said.
Joyce said while there would be costs associated with establishing a new Asian operation, it was needed to fix the longer-term problem of Qantas being relevant in the region.
“It’s something we have to do in the long-term, but we don’t have to do immediately,” he said.


Qantas’ Asia plans sparked a fierce domestic backlash when unveiled last year, with Australian unions concerned the move would see jobs sent abroad.
The ensuing acrimony between management and unions saw Joyce ground the entire Qantas fleet in October, stranding thousands of passengers at airports around the world, digging into the airline’s bottom line.





Meanwhile,



Scoot announces Bangkok flights for the taxi fare to Changi | Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2012/04/24/scoot-announces-bangkok-flights-for-the-taxi-fare-to-changi/)

There is, as always, more than immediately meets the eyes in the announcement today that Bangkok will be a new Scoot destination with daily return flights from Singapore from 5 July, adding to previously announced services between Singapore and Sydney, Gold Coast and Tianjin in northern China.
The Bangkok service joins Sydney as one in which the 100% Singapore Airlines owned wide body low fare carrier will compete at both economy and premium service levels with its parent.
And it will also take on Singapore Airlines’ minority owned Tiger Airways for the first time on the comparatively short route as well as Jetstar Asia flights between Singapore and Bangkok.


It just gets more confusing.. what's the plan for next week? :(

[DEFCON4]

There is a direct correlation here.
As Jetstar rises the QF shareprice falls

[Captain Gidday]

It just gets more confusing.. what's the plan for next week?

Tim,
The strategy is pretty obvious. Far Q Premium is still on. However, while they are shedding lots of employees in Australia they just can't talk about it out loud. Remember, 'the Asian strategy does not give rise to job losses in Australia'? They don't want any bad publicity like Toyota Australia, do they! It is still the plan, it's just gone underground.

Then, dirty work completed, up pops the new 787 base in Singapore, all sorted and ready to go. [What a surprise!].

[gordonfvckingramsay]

I hope AJ doesn't plan to use the "spirit of Australia" line if he gets his wish to base in Singapore; Singapore certainly is not Australia. Alternatively, he could fvck off and try starting his own airline in Asia, just leave our airline alone. Fool!! :mad:

[73to91]

In case you missed it, this was in paper yesterday, a public holiday. - (my bold)


QANTAS chief executive Alan Joyce says investors can still make returns out of aviation and defended the company not paying dividends for the past few years.

"Qantas hasn't been paying dividends because of the global environment we've been in and with regards to the importance that we maintain our investment-grade credit rating.," he said.

Speaking at an Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce lunch in Sydney yesterday, Mr Joyce said the airline remained focused on turning its international business around.

The value created by its low-cost arm, Jetstar, was as great as the successful Irish carrier Ryanair and Britain's easyJet, Mr Joyce said. "Jetstar today, after seven years, is bigger than Ryanair was after seven years," he said.

Singapore-based Jetstar Asia, in which Qantas invested $80 million, was another example of shareholder value being created, he said.

"Based on Tiger being listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange, Jetstar Asia is worth $250m to $300m. That's not a bad return for shareholders in the space of a few years."

Mr Joyce reiterated calls for changes to be made to the Fair Work Australia Act, namely the removal of the prohibitive content clauses. "Before this act came in, there were a whole series of items that you didn't have to talk to the unions about which were general strategy about the company and our ability to have flexibility and to adapt," Mr Joyce said.

Under current laws, Qantas has had to negotiate a series of items around the strategic direction of the company, including restrictions on the airline building infrastructure for future projects.

"One of the proposals was to build a 787 or A380 hangar for aircraft that do not need maintenance until 2025," Mr Joyce said.

The success of Jetstar, Qantas domestic and the frequent-flyer business meant the company's focus remained on the turnaround of its international business after a $200m loss last year.

Mr Joyce compared the international business to the car and steel industries, saying it was a trade-exposed operation with its cost base mainly in Australian dollars, and that had hurt efficiency. "We're implementing a huge change to our core operations, change in the way we do maintenance, change in the way we do catering and change in the aircraft," he said.

Asked if Qantas was making Jetstar international larger at the expense of its international arm, Mr Joyce said millions were being invested in new aircraft and new services to keep customer service at the highest levels.

"We have a capital discipline approach and we will allocate capital to the businesses that are making the return," he said. "But I have a fundamental belief that we can grow Qantas and we can grow Jetstar because I think there is a role for a premium airline and (one) for a low-cost airline."

Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/qantas-still-good-value-says-ceo-joyce/story-e6frg95x-1226337501978)

[hotnhigh]

Memo to Alan, Leigh and Olivia.
The enemy is not your employees, it's the mob at the other end of the terminal. You are about to be screwed by a virgin.......
Hope the big institutional shareholders like the wacky tabacky that Alan must pass around at investor briefings, to retain their confidence and support.
They are going to need a whole lot more if they believe the good ship QF is in expert hands.
Virgin sets its compass to Asia (http://www.canberratimes.com.au/business/virgin-sets-its-compass-to-asia-20120424-1xjgi.html)
:{:{:ugh:

[Bagus]

Asian airline is watching the way AJ setting up jetstar in Asia,they don't like it as he is using Qantas reputation to sell Jetstar,it won't last they are going to screw u AJ,

[Mstr Caution]

Meanwhile, the virgin screws continue to tighten on AJ's domestic network.

Virgin bets on new planes - The West Australian (http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/13522093/virgin-bets-on-new-planes/)

Time for a new board, CEO & new vision.

[standard unit]

Yes, quick before it's too late.

[ohallen]

Now lets see where AJ has the Rat placed...serious alienation of most staff, shut down of routes, retirement of aircraft with no replacement, a semi serious competitor on domestic front, selling $1 fares in Japan, a LCC plan that seems to take on all major Asian carriers assuming they will not protect their patch, a premium airline that is being planned with no details and a PR team that feeds lines from GD 10 years ago that are being derided by JB. That about sums it up.

The one part of the puzzle that seems to be a bit unclear is the major deal re NEO engines, presume that fits with frames that may or may not arrive depending on Asian LCC strategy.

This should be fun soon I suspect, as the stars align.

[Stalins ugly Brother]

The one part of the puzzle that seems to be a bit unclear is the major deal re NEO engines, presume that fits with frames that may or may not arrive depending on Asian LCC strategy.


Pretty easy one. Buy low and sell high. Get the commission.

Meaning they will acquire large slots on the production line at bargain rates in the hope to on sell them for a profit to real airlines in the future with plane orders.

The catch is the individuals involved will get a commission.

Just like a short term trader, except with QF mainline money and not their own cash. But hey, at least they take home the commission either way. :sad:

[gobbledock]

Now I wonder 'who the individuals involved may be'?

[Shed Dog Tosser]

How ironic, Joyce hell bent on harnessing the bogan low cost model for the entire airline.

Whilst Borgetti is hell bent on kicking the bogan low cost model for a full service airline.

I know who my money is on.

[Mstr Caution]

Shed Dog

I agree. After a long career at Qantas JB would be intimately aware of all QF strengths & weaknesses.

He would be positioning Virgin to gain from the weaknesses that Joyce it yet to discover, has no history of managing or continues to ignore at mainlines peril.

I'm sure Qantas mainline staff continue in hope their tenure outlives that of the Dixon / Joyce destructive years.

[TIMA9X]

by Mstr Caution, He would be positioning Virgin to gain from the weaknesses that Joyce it yet to discover, has no history of managing or continues to ignore at mainlines peril.

I'm sure Qantas mainline staff continue in hope their tenure outlives that of the Dixon / Joyce destructive years. Well said MC, the last two years have been hell to watch unfold for all of us, it's painful.


VSX9IZkyVNE

[gobbledock]

QF is suffering a terminal illness called 'death by Joyce'.

After all he was speaking at an Australia/Israel commerce function so maybe he is courting Israel as another potential notch in his Qanstar international plan? To be followed by Zimbabwe, perhaps Iceland and McMurdo Sound.

He should hang his head in shame claiming aviation is still a good investment platform! Give me a break. It would be one of the highest risk investment platforms going.
For example, and i am not quoting QF here, hypothetically try combining the risk of accidents, disease outbreaks, war, social unrest, economic downturns, natural disasters and oil instability with let's say an airline management team who are incompetent, rudderless, almost legendary for making loss making decisions, disconnected, out of their league, untrustworthy, sociopathic, unpredictable and peddlers of lies, deceit and self greed and ask yourself would you really risk investing in that, especially if say dividends are never posted, the management team have murdered the companies share value and all they do is talk, talk, talk and more talk while
producing - ****e! That is what the average aviation investment consists of around the globe.

I bet you're thinking some of those 'Nigerian investment schemes' are looking a lot better right about now?

[Nadzab]

out of their league,

sums it up perfectly

[teresa green]

Cheer up fella's, just imagine what would have happened if Dixon and Jackson had pocketed their 100 mill? One mob who wanted to buy QF has gone broke, Mac Bank are in deep ****e, and shedding staff, and poor old QF? Swannie would be wringing his hands, as Elaine begs for money to save 35, 000 jobs, (and his own) Swannie screaming what about my surplus, ahhhhg, Gillard prattling on about going forward, working families, and it the right thing to do, (not saving QF), meanwhile Slipper would be running up bills in A1 with plenty of trips to BKK and MNL, and we would have even a bigger mess than we have now. Great call Dixon, great call, and you almost got your way, so very close. Be grateful fella's, be grateful.

[blow.n.gasket]

So what have we got, Qantas pilots and their agent, AIPA, a union that up until now has not called for industrial action for what ,close on 45 years, a union that an Industrial Judge, I believe, once described as "the quintessential union", are being crucified for being tardy and inefficient.
Now let me get this straight ,before an EBA can be voted on, both the Company, Qantas, and the Union, AIPA negotiators, have to agree to a position and then the Union Commitee of Management then vote upon the negotiated position prior to presenting the new EBA for voting by the rank and file members. So what is the company, Qantas, really saying, has AIPA have been far too successful at EBA negotiations than the company Management sent in to bargain with? After all it's been 45 years since the last industrial action, It's not as if Qantas has had a loaded gun pointed at their head all these years! I hardly call red ties and a PA as high stakes industrial argy bargy. :ok:

[Arnold E]

I am not of QANTAS but I have followed what is going on, (on this forum and the newspapers). Maybe its time to let Qf go, and infact assist in its demise. Why would I say that I hear you say. Well, it is clear that this is what the current management want. Well, let them have it, and then embrace the new airline which takes its place, which is what happened when Annset failed, Virgin took its place and is growing. If Q failed I would imagine that Jetstar would go the same way, so Joyce an cronies would end up with nothing. Would I realy like to see QANTAS fail, ofcourse not, but I really dont see any other alternative, Joyce and cronies are NOT going to resign, they will bleed the last cent out and then move on. Why not restrict the cents that they can get. At the end of the day, there are so many people that need moving around Oz and if Q aint there someone will have to fill the void. To continue to fight Joyce and cronies is to be a loser, but to push for failure of his (wet) dream is to beat the B*****D

[IsDon]

The problem with what your suggesting Arnold is that a significant number of QFs senior management, including Joyce and Stranbi and a whole host of others, including a large percentage of the board, WERE PART OF ANSETT'S MANAGEMENT TEAM LEADING UP TO ANSETT'S DEMISE.

These pr!cks make a living, a very good one, out of destroying companies and then moving on to another victim. If QF were to fail in the near future, as it almost certainly will, management couldn't give a hoot. They'll just move on and destroy another company.the only victims are the employees. I was unemployed once thanks to these oxygen thieves. I don't wish to go through that again with QF.

[Sunfish]

Gobbledock:

He should hang his head in shame claiming aviation is still a good investment platform! Give me a break. It would be one of the highest risk investment platforms going.

WRONG!

Qantas is an excellent investment if I can get it for a song.

Say $1.00 or less per share.

Remember that Management and the Board under Jackson/Dixon tried to take it private. There are always buyers - if the price is right.

That is why the current business strategy is so perplexing, one could be forgiven for thinking that they are destroying shareholder value and sending the share price South.

[TheWholeEnchilada]

Sunfish, I've got a post on another thread:Globalization Debt & Banking post #311 (http://www.pprune.org/dg-p-reporting-points/456639-globalisation-debt-banking-16.html#post7161172) that may provide another piece of the puzzle, here's a snippet
But what my work focuses on is: what kind of frauds are the most devastating? And it turns out that the most kind of problems that we’re seeing, systemic problems and such, arise when we have, what we call in criminology, control fraud. And control fraud simply means when you have a seemingly legitimate entity and the person who controls it uses it as a weapon to defraud others. And so in the financial sphere the weapon of choice is accounting and the losses from these kinds of control frauds exceed the financial losses from all other forms of property crime combined....


The big thing about the seemingly legitimate entity when the CEO is the crook is, first, everybody reports to the CEO ultimately, right? So the CEO is the point failure mechanism where if he or she goes bad, almost everything may go bad as well. So all those things that we call internal and external controls, all report to the CEO and the CEO therefore can, as I’ll describe, use compensation, hiring, firing, praise, and such to produce the environment that will commit, create allies for his fraud. Now, note that what I’m saying. The CEO, the art of this is not to defeat your controls. The elegant solution as in mathematics is to suborn the controls and turn them into your most valuable allies. And therefore, for example, when you’re running accounting control fraud where your weapon of fraud is accounting and that weapon of choice in finance is accounting. You’re going to want to hire the most prestigious accountants as your outside auditors because it is precisely their reputation that is most valuable when you can suborn them. And, they give you that clean opinion that you just described that will help you deceive other shareholders. So one enormous advantage is internal and external controls come to the CEO level.


Here's a link to the Akerlof paper:Looting The Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy For Profit. (http://www.signallake.com/innovation/Looting1993.pdf)

The we read:
"To maintain 20 per cent market share by 2020, we need about 400 aircraft," Buchanan added without elaborating when the carrier will start making orders of those aircraft.
Jetstar to invest $470m in Singapore hub (http://www.smh.com.au/business/jetstar-to-invest-470m-in-singapore-hub-20110718-1hkun.html)

With a business model based on selling coffee and muffins (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/travel-old/jetstar-makes-more-money-from-muffins-than-tickets/story-e6frg8ro-1226057942626) as a profit centre. Is this a Ponzi scheme in the making? I simply ask why this whole scheme is being undertaken for such a small economic return for the shareholder?. There must be another reason.

[Waqavukatau]

Where to for QEA? Where to indeed.

It has been apparent for some time that QEA is shedding its planes (747, 767), as well as its more expensive pilots, cabin crew, engineers, etc. What it wants to be is a centrally controlling admin for the eight or so airlines in its assets list, without having expensive attachments such as those just mentioned.

The new Chinese/QEA airline will fly between Oz and Europe/UK. The QEA NZ operation will fly Oz/US. Both will have much cheaper crews, etc.

Where to for Qantas? Guess.

[73to91]

Where to for Qantas?
APPLE AUSTRALIA TAKES TOP SPOT IN ANNUAL CORPORATE REPUTATION INDEX (http://www.stwgroup.com.au/whats-interesting/GetWhatsInterestingPost.aspx?id=801)

ANNUAL CORPORATE REPUTATION INDEX

Not surprisingly Qantas dropped 18 places (from 7th in 2011 to 25th) for Reputation following the airline’s controversial and highly publicised shutdown last year.
“Based on data we collected in November, Qantas’ reputation has recovered substantially from the initial impact of the shutdown, but clearly there is substantial distance still to travel to return to the levels of February 2011,” said Oliver Freedman, Reputation Practice Director and General Manager, AMR Sydney. “The brand has clearly regained some ground and the results indicate Australians still have a relatively strong emotional connection with the Qantas brand.”

Further commenting on the aviation industry’s performance, Freedman said: “Virgin Australia showed positive climbs in the reputation stakes increasing its ranking from 13th to 6th. Furthermore, Virgin ranks in the top 3 for Governance.”

[hadagutfull]

How many more f@$&(ing big black X 's on a managements performance report card will force some retaliation by the major shareholders .
They have the grogan touch... Everything they touch turns to complete Shyte!