Qantas takeover near miss a blessing
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Qantas takeover near miss a blessing
Lots of words stating the bleeding obvious............
Qantas takeover near miss a blessing | The Australian
Qantas takeover near miss a blessing | The Australian
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One can only wonder why it has taken the major press this long to report, as you say, the "bleeding Obvious". All they had to do was read the threads on Pprune and read from the very people who were directly influenced by those pending decisions.
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So bloody obvious that even yesterday's AIPA President said a couple of weeks back: 'being grateful that Qantas isn’t in administration doesn’t help understand and predict what Qantas and its pilots will face in the months and years ahead'.
Now that he's gone, the new team can have a field day convincing the new Qantas execs: 'why AIPA members shouldn’t be unduly burdened by short term solutions to far reaching problems'.
Now that he's gone, the new team can have a field day convincing the new Qantas execs: 'why AIPA members shouldn’t be unduly burdened by short term solutions to far reaching problems'.
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In China the so called "execs" would be making a purchase
"their own bullet"....
what a disgrace....they should all be in the lockup..we came close to the sort of situation that saw the demise of Ansett
Ansett didnt go under because of bad employees, but because of a totally incompetent set of owners and senior management. Interesting that many of them attached to senior qantas positions now and the so called APA bid.
No one will ever understand how close we came and for what its worth the work of the AIPA GM Peter Somerville behind the scenes lobbying major share owners and the govt.
"their own bullet"....
what a disgrace....they should all be in the lockup..we came close to the sort of situation that saw the demise of Ansett
Ansett didnt go under because of bad employees, but because of a totally incompetent set of owners and senior management. Interesting that many of them attached to senior qantas positions now and the so called APA bid.
No one will ever understand how close we came and for what its worth the work of the AIPA GM Peter Somerville behind the scenes lobbying major share owners and the govt.
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What Dixon and Jackson did with this take over must border on criminal activity. And to think he got away with it scott free. They hung Jackson out to dry and they are doing it again with the cargo management because of the cargo price fixing stuff.
It sends a shiver down your spine to think what might have been, and if it did happen Dixon would be fat dumb and happy with his earnings from the takeover and the government and tax payers would be left to pick up the tab.
The people who over saw this bid should not be allowed to run any other Australian companies ever. This is just gambling with too many people lives for the financial gain of a few individuals.
It sends a shiver down your spine to think what might have been, and if it did happen Dixon would be fat dumb and happy with his earnings from the takeover and the government and tax payers would be left to pick up the tab.
The people who over saw this bid should not be allowed to run any other Australian companies ever. This is just gambling with too many people lives for the financial gain of a few individuals.
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The Club
CEOs,Chairpersons,media,politicians and prominent business people all belong to the same club...watching out for each others interests.
Dont ever expect any member of the club to be prosecuted.
The little guy farts in the wrong place and he is crucified.
No so with fatcats who are above the law.
Its a total lack of morality and ethics.
Most countries are contolled by about 20 individuals...the so called elite and untouchable
Dont ever expect any member of the club to be prosecuted.
The little guy farts in the wrong place and he is crucified.
No so with fatcats who are above the law.
Its a total lack of morality and ethics.
Most countries are contolled by about 20 individuals...the so called elite and untouchable
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Us dumb drivers (and ex drivers) have been posting this for months. Where the hell is the ACCC in all of this, and ASIC. There is no doubt white collar crime has been committed, why has there been no investigation. Thirty six thousand people would now be probably looking for a job, unless the govt picked up the tab. Nothing more than a rerun of Ansett had this happened. What a disgrace. Ok it didn't happen, but how close it came. QF must NEVER be allowed again to be placed in such a position. Its akin to selling the CBR War Memorial to the Japanese.
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Can new management fix Qantas? -
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Ben Sandilands writes:
Qantas has scored three headline incidents so far this week.
There were two yesterday, a turnback to Melbourne by a 767 domestic flight with an undercarriage that wouldn’t retract, and the trans Pacific 747 flight that used a nearby Air NZ jet as a seeing eye dog when its weather radar was inoperative for many hours.
On Sunday another QF 747 from Frankfurt arrived in Singapore to fire engines because of an undercarriage problem that delayed passengers for a day while it was fixed.
None of these incidents necessarily relate to maintenance failures at Qantas. And whether they did or didn’t result from the lowered standards of care already identified by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority in its ‘special’ audit of the carrier, the pilots did all the right things when the problems arose.
But the defensive outbursts by outgoing CEO Geoff Dixon raise more fundamental issues.
Why has the last two years of his tenure been such a shambles for Qantas customers? And will incoming CEO Alan Joyce, and hands on chairman Leigh Clifford, stick with a management culture that is a proven failure from a customer perspective, or do something about an airline that can’t keep its jets clean, punctual and fully maintained to the standards that once defined the Qantas brand?
The refusal of mechanics to work overtime for ten weeks in the middle of the year is not the reason why the airline was dysfunctional for months before that dispute, and which has been over for more than three months yet the network is still a mess.
Overtime wasn’t the reason why Qantas overlooked cracks in drip trays on a large part of its fleet, causing one 747 to have a gravely serious crisis near Bangkok on 7 January. It doesn’t explain why a maintenance team at Tullamarine last October pumped nitrogen into emergency oxygen packs, a feat of towering incompetence given the supposedly idiot proof design of the equipment they were using.
It doesn’t pardon the lie from its chief of engineering David Cox, that there was no safety problem with a missed airworthiness directive to modify the forward pressure bulkhead on six of its aged 737-400s (the ones mostly used out of Canberra) which went undetected for five years.
If Cox really has such a disregard for the gravity of compulsory airworthiness directives, which are, surprise, issued in order to correct safety issues, why is he still running the maintenance side of an airline that insists safety is of paramount concern?
Dixon’s recent comments need to be read in conjunction with the CASA audit of Qantas, which found that the airline was failing to maintain its own standards and contradicts his airbrushing of the carrier’s maintenance record.
No amount of posturing changes the farcical record of Qantas jets were being kept on the ground because of lack of spare parts or through the burden of page after page of time limited defects on jets for which there continues to be an inadequate engineering and maintenance resources.
This note from author and Fairfax escapee Ben Hills at the start of the week is just one of the Crikey collection of complaints about the inability of Qantas to keep its fleet in working order:
Last night I was flying back from Melbourne to Sydney on QF 450, scheduled departure 4.30pm, and heard an interesting tale from two flight attendants. The flight was full to the rafters because it had been combined with QF446, which had been due to take off at 4pm but which had been cancelled. Turns out that everyone had boarded the plane when there was an announcement that they would have to deplane because of a “technical problem.”
In fact, said the two attendants, there was no technical problem. What had happened was that the plane scheduled for another flight, which was due to take off around the same time from Melbourne to Perth, had been discovered to have four blocked lavatories – apparently there are rules about how many lavatories have to be operating, and so the plane was ruled US. So Qantas decided to use the plane which had been scheduled for flight 446 instead, kicking off the Sydney passengers and replacing them with Perth passengers. To add to the chaos, there were not enough seats for everyone on QF 450, so some of those QF 446 passengers were kicked off the flight and left at Melbourne airport.
I cannot remember the last time I was on a Qantas flight that took off on time – not for at least a year. This has led to a curious fatalistic attitude by Qantas passengers, a bit like Londoners during the blitz, where they all gather together to share their woes and tell tall tales about their experiences, and the terrible lies that Qantas staff have to tell to cover up the airline’s problems.
There is a lot of work to be done to fix Qantas. Will Joyce take responsibility for this, or keep echoing Dixon’s platitudes?
Ben Sandilands writes:
Qantas has scored three headline incidents so far this week.
There were two yesterday, a turnback to Melbourne by a 767 domestic flight with an undercarriage that wouldn’t retract, and the trans Pacific 747 flight that used a nearby Air NZ jet as a seeing eye dog when its weather radar was inoperative for many hours.
On Sunday another QF 747 from Frankfurt arrived in Singapore to fire engines because of an undercarriage problem that delayed passengers for a day while it was fixed.
None of these incidents necessarily relate to maintenance failures at Qantas. And whether they did or didn’t result from the lowered standards of care already identified by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority in its ‘special’ audit of the carrier, the pilots did all the right things when the problems arose.
But the defensive outbursts by outgoing CEO Geoff Dixon raise more fundamental issues.
Why has the last two years of his tenure been such a shambles for Qantas customers? And will incoming CEO Alan Joyce, and hands on chairman Leigh Clifford, stick with a management culture that is a proven failure from a customer perspective, or do something about an airline that can’t keep its jets clean, punctual and fully maintained to the standards that once defined the Qantas brand?
The refusal of mechanics to work overtime for ten weeks in the middle of the year is not the reason why the airline was dysfunctional for months before that dispute, and which has been over for more than three months yet the network is still a mess.
Overtime wasn’t the reason why Qantas overlooked cracks in drip trays on a large part of its fleet, causing one 747 to have a gravely serious crisis near Bangkok on 7 January. It doesn’t explain why a maintenance team at Tullamarine last October pumped nitrogen into emergency oxygen packs, a feat of towering incompetence given the supposedly idiot proof design of the equipment they were using.
It doesn’t pardon the lie from its chief of engineering David Cox, that there was no safety problem with a missed airworthiness directive to modify the forward pressure bulkhead on six of its aged 737-400s (the ones mostly used out of Canberra) which went undetected for five years.
If Cox really has such a disregard for the gravity of compulsory airworthiness directives, which are, surprise, issued in order to correct safety issues, why is he still running the maintenance side of an airline that insists safety is of paramount concern?
Dixon’s recent comments need to be read in conjunction with the CASA audit of Qantas, which found that the airline was failing to maintain its own standards and contradicts his airbrushing of the carrier’s maintenance record.
No amount of posturing changes the farcical record of Qantas jets were being kept on the ground because of lack of spare parts or through the burden of page after page of time limited defects on jets for which there continues to be an inadequate engineering and maintenance resources.
This note from author and Fairfax escapee Ben Hills at the start of the week is just one of the Crikey collection of complaints about the inability of Qantas to keep its fleet in working order:
Last night I was flying back from Melbourne to Sydney on QF 450, scheduled departure 4.30pm, and heard an interesting tale from two flight attendants. The flight was full to the rafters because it had been combined with QF446, which had been due to take off at 4pm but which had been cancelled. Turns out that everyone had boarded the plane when there was an announcement that they would have to deplane because of a “technical problem.”
In fact, said the two attendants, there was no technical problem. What had happened was that the plane scheduled for another flight, which was due to take off around the same time from Melbourne to Perth, had been discovered to have four blocked lavatories – apparently there are rules about how many lavatories have to be operating, and so the plane was ruled US. So Qantas decided to use the plane which had been scheduled for flight 446 instead, kicking off the Sydney passengers and replacing them with Perth passengers. To add to the chaos, there were not enough seats for everyone on QF 450, so some of those QF 446 passengers were kicked off the flight and left at Melbourne airport.
I cannot remember the last time I was on a Qantas flight that took off on time – not for at least a year. This has led to a curious fatalistic attitude by Qantas passengers, a bit like Londoners during the blitz, where they all gather together to share their woes and tell tall tales about their experiences, and the terrible lies that Qantas staff have to tell to cover up the airline’s problems.
There is a lot of work to be done to fix Qantas. Will Joyce take responsibility for this, or keep echoing Dixon’s platitudes?
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Pegasus747 Thanks for the post I hadn't read it before.
It is concise and to the point by a journo who has been allowed to tell the truth and not have to worry about Dixon repercussions for the paper he writes for.
It is true that we all know what Dixon has been saying for the last 2 years is total and utter crap and lies. I also enjoyed the comment on David Cox, he is a obviously just a puppet to dixon, now that the puppet master has moved on we might see Cox follow suit.
This has been a long time coming and if Joyce has half a brain he will learn from Dixon follies and heed the writings of informed people and make a commitment and investment to get engineering and customer relations back where they used to be.
Qantas engineering used to be reveered, at the moment it is no more than a joke.
It is concise and to the point by a journo who has been allowed to tell the truth and not have to worry about Dixon repercussions for the paper he writes for.
It is true that we all know what Dixon has been saying for the last 2 years is total and utter crap and lies. I also enjoyed the comment on David Cox, he is a obviously just a puppet to dixon, now that the puppet master has moved on we might see Cox follow suit.
This has been a long time coming and if Joyce has half a brain he will learn from Dixon follies and heed the writings of informed people and make a commitment and investment to get engineering and customer relations back where they used to be.
Qantas engineering used to be reveered, at the moment it is no more than a joke.
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Qantas Management*Short on Height
It appears you need to be less than 170cms in verticality to be a Qantas CEO.
Being male and vertically challenged comes with some baggage..not being able to see eye to eye with most peole and having an incredibly short wick.
Not being able to see the wood for the trees is another problem.
That why Dixon and his fellow trough feeders thought the APA deal was a good one...they couldnt see past it.
Being male and vertically challenged comes with some baggage..not being able to see eye to eye with most peole and having an incredibly short wick.
Not being able to see the wood for the trees is another problem.
That why Dixon and his fellow trough feeders thought the APA deal was a good one...they couldnt see past it.
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Could a class action force him to pay compensation from his feed bag, for misleading shareholders & threatening all our jobs? 
Might go a long way in recouping the money lost in cargo cartel & LAME PIA. Must be close to half a Billion dollars in those two alone!
Might go a long way in recouping the money lost in cargo cartel & LAME PIA. Must be close to half a Billion dollars in those two alone!
Short_circuit
Can you show damage caused by the thing you would complain about?
If no actual damage, no damages payable.
It would be interesting to know if any criminal provisions in the corporations law would trip him up.
Can you show damage caused by the thing you would complain about?
If no actual damage, no damages payable.
It would be interesting to know if any criminal provisions in the corporations law would trip him up.
Just for a moment.
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If Cox really has such a disregard for the gravity of compulsory airworthiness directives, which are, surprise, issued in order to correct safety issues, why is he still running the maintenance side of an airline that insists safety is of paramount concern?
Beer for Sandilands!
