Qantas Management is Damaging the Brand
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Qantas Management is Damaging the Brand
April 8, 2011 – 12:12 pm, by Ben Sandilands
The approval announced this morning for a comprehensive code sharing arrangement between Air New Zealand and Etihad isn’t big news, yet it adds to the growing framework of links between those carriers and separately, each of them with Virgin Blue, that is starting to throw a shadow over a shrinking Qantas.
A highly respected figure in Australian aviation earlier this week made the point to me that Qantas had lost sight of its main asset which was, he said, its global network.
What is significant with the interlinking of Virgin Blue, Air New Zealand and Etihad is that it adds to consumer awareness of an expanding alternative to Qantas, even if the revenue is split between three parties, or by route, two of them at any time.
And perceptions are powerful. As Qantas un-Australianises itself, and cross subsidises a Jetstar that alienates many Qantas customers at first flight, Virgin Blue (or Virgin Whatever) becomes a more visible national face of a very useful strategy of having alliances to Europe via Abu Dhabi, to New Zealand, which is Australia’s biggest overseas market, and if approval is ever granted, to the US in the form of additional links with Delta.
All of these routes flown by three carriers with very new aircraft and cabin product.
Today’s deal doesn’t direct more existing revenue to Virgin Blue, since it is between Etihad and Air NZ, but it does create a structure which gives consumers more reason to think about a Virgin Blue code share with either of them on a whole range of routes as an alternative to ditching Qantas for Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Thai and Emirates, who are all benefiting from the Qantas obsession with down scaling the full service brand to core routes, something Qantas has gone ahead with even though the new fleet it needed to make it work is trapped years away in the 787 nightmare in Seattle.
In the nitty gritty, the new Etihad Air NZ deal means Etihad code shares on its trans Tasman flights, and Air NZ code shares on the Australia-Abu Dhabi-London flights by Etihad, which includes its triple daily frequency into Heathrow from a Middle East hub that some travellers describe as much more pleasant to use than nearby Dubai.
This is surely an indication that QF management have no idea of how to run an international full service airline.Joyce and his cohorts are the ones trashing the Qantas brand....not the pilots,not the engineers nor any other employee group~~my comment not Ben Sandilands
The approval announced this morning for a comprehensive code sharing arrangement between Air New Zealand and Etihad isn’t big news, yet it adds to the growing framework of links between those carriers and separately, each of them with Virgin Blue, that is starting to throw a shadow over a shrinking Qantas.
A highly respected figure in Australian aviation earlier this week made the point to me that Qantas had lost sight of its main asset which was, he said, its global network.
What is significant with the interlinking of Virgin Blue, Air New Zealand and Etihad is that it adds to consumer awareness of an expanding alternative to Qantas, even if the revenue is split between three parties, or by route, two of them at any time.
And perceptions are powerful. As Qantas un-Australianises itself, and cross subsidises a Jetstar that alienates many Qantas customers at first flight, Virgin Blue (or Virgin Whatever) becomes a more visible national face of a very useful strategy of having alliances to Europe via Abu Dhabi, to New Zealand, which is Australia’s biggest overseas market, and if approval is ever granted, to the US in the form of additional links with Delta.
All of these routes flown by three carriers with very new aircraft and cabin product.
Today’s deal doesn’t direct more existing revenue to Virgin Blue, since it is between Etihad and Air NZ, but it does create a structure which gives consumers more reason to think about a Virgin Blue code share with either of them on a whole range of routes as an alternative to ditching Qantas for Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Thai and Emirates, who are all benefiting from the Qantas obsession with down scaling the full service brand to core routes, something Qantas has gone ahead with even though the new fleet it needed to make it work is trapped years away in the 787 nightmare in Seattle.
In the nitty gritty, the new Etihad Air NZ deal means Etihad code shares on its trans Tasman flights, and Air NZ code shares on the Australia-Abu Dhabi-London flights by Etihad, which includes its triple daily frequency into Heathrow from a Middle East hub that some travellers describe as much more pleasant to use than nearby Dubai.
This is surely an indication that QF management have no idea of how to run an international full service airline.Joyce and his cohorts are the ones trashing the Qantas brand....not the pilots,not the engineers nor any other employee group~~my comment not Ben Sandilands
Last edited by tail wheel; 9th Apr 2011 at 10:57. Reason: Your last reason for editing removed as it reflects on your upbringing!!!
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QF Management Mantra - Downsize, Outsource, Offshore
I can understand why Joyce and Buchanan want to wipe-out Qantas and increase J*, after all J* is their baby.
What I can't understand is why the QF Board are just sitting back and doing nothing (apart from Clifford, that is). What's their record for the past few years? Shrinking share of the market, aging fleet, demotivation of the entire workforce, no dividend paid, collapsing share price.
The following article sums things up pretty well:-
Although protected (read legal) industrial action is not going to happen at Qantas this side of Anzac Day, what would happen if the pilots, the engineers, the refuellers and the baggage handlers all withdrew their current pay claims?
Nothing. Based on nothing more than the statements made by Qantas group CEO Alan Joyce about how unprofitable its international business is, and how crippling labor costs are in Australia, it wouldn’t matter if the respective unions lined up outside Joyce’s office tomorrow morning promising a pay freeze for the next three years or five years.
Their jobs are still toast, because no matter what productivity deals they offer, no matter how much they are prepared to curtail pay and conditions, the company refuses to negotiate guarantees over keeping flying and engineering jobs in this country.
In a real sense, the noise the pilots and engineers and other Qantas employees are making about job security, are giving a failed management a cover behind which to hide.
While the timing is coincidental, and simultaneous protected industrial action by pilots, engineers, refuellers and baggage handlers may seem bad news for Qantas and travellers, the labor unrest is no more serious than the apparent failure of the current management and board to run an expanding, profitable and useful company.
For at least the past three months the tired old clichés about Qantas being undermined by ‘dumping’ on international routes have looked absurd beside the likes of Singapore Airlines and Emirates charging more for their premium products than Qantas, and holding their market share steady or rising while Qantas, clinging to aged jets and poor network decisions, keeps sinking toward single figures in market share.
(Qantas had only 17.7 percent of the international market in February, and even with Jetstar international reaching 7.6 percent share, it only had 25.6 per cent of the market as a group compared to a 35 per cent share in 2003 before Jetstar was invented, only to help drive Qantas customers elsewhere.)
The lesson from international traveller defections to foreign carriers may be that premium payers don’t care what a fare costs, and are abandoning Qantas for what they see as superior quality and convenience.
The current Qantas group strategy seems to be one of continued contraction, in international travel, and a line in the sand in domestic which is starting to look as much under threat from Tiger as Virgin Blue. It can’t go on.
In this morning’s installment of the industrial-action-about–to- tsunami-Qantas genre, in The Australian, its spokesperson says:
“The unions are threatening industrial action while the company deals with rapidly increasing fuel prices, an underperforming international business and the operational impact of natural disasters in New Zealand, Japan and in Australia.”
But its competitors are dealing with the same misfortunes, yet benefiting from the rebound from the GFC far more successfully than Qantas. Apart from the A380 groundings, Qantas has the same challenges as its peer airlines, who are all posting record profits and paying their shareholders dividends, while Qantas isn’t.
It is this group under-performance that leaves Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, and Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford and the board, no-where to run.
Their only answer is to pursue a policy of shedding Australian jobs, and Australian taxation and superannuation levy obligations, by sham arrangements in which its pilots, cabin attendants and engineers, some of them still resident in Australia, are paid according to Singaporean or New Zealand work place agreements.
The implication of what Joyce says is that Qantas cannot afford to be Australian to be competitive. It intends to deal with foreign competition to Europe for example, by basing Australian registered jets in Singapore, where they will fly between Singapore and Europe and Singapore and Australia, thus imitating the advantages it says Singapore Airlines enjoys.
This de-Australianisation of Qantas may reflect a wider view in business that Australia cannot maintain internationally competitive enterprises in its own country. It’s a debate quite a number of business leaders have joined one way or the other in recent decades.
But it is a painful position when it involves a strategy to gut the piloting and engineer excellence of Qantas for the cheapest source of labor available abroad. It even involves under cutting Australian jobs within Jetstar with Asia sourced Jetstar employees being paid according to Asia terms and conditions while flying in Australia.
These strategies, which also included Jetstar flying cadet pilots to NZ to open NZD bank accounts for pay which would avoid Australian superannuation and taxation obligations while working and flying exclusively in Australia, are at the core of union unrest and calls for job security clauses, whether pilots or engineers.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of demanding job security, there is a much bigger issue for the government of taxation security. Will it allow a precedent where anyone can be employed under a foreign contract issued by a foreign entity and evade Australian taxation and super levies while performing duties in Australia?
For Qantas, this off-shore migration of assets and labor is unlikely to lift earnings enough to sustain the profits and dividends shareholders might have expected if Qantas and Jetstar continue to drive customers away because of poor management decisions on fleet and network.
Qantas needs to attract customers more than it needs to destroy its traditions of skills and excellence in flying and engineering. If it fails it will not be in a position of strength when, as most analysts expect, the Asia-Pacific airline industry gets serious about trans border consolidations.
From "Plane Talking" by Ben Sandilands
What I can't understand is why the QF Board are just sitting back and doing nothing (apart from Clifford, that is). What's their record for the past few years? Shrinking share of the market, aging fleet, demotivation of the entire workforce, no dividend paid, collapsing share price.
The following article sums things up pretty well:-
Although protected (read legal) industrial action is not going to happen at Qantas this side of Anzac Day, what would happen if the pilots, the engineers, the refuellers and the baggage handlers all withdrew their current pay claims?
Nothing. Based on nothing more than the statements made by Qantas group CEO Alan Joyce about how unprofitable its international business is, and how crippling labor costs are in Australia, it wouldn’t matter if the respective unions lined up outside Joyce’s office tomorrow morning promising a pay freeze for the next three years or five years.
Their jobs are still toast, because no matter what productivity deals they offer, no matter how much they are prepared to curtail pay and conditions, the company refuses to negotiate guarantees over keeping flying and engineering jobs in this country.
In a real sense, the noise the pilots and engineers and other Qantas employees are making about job security, are giving a failed management a cover behind which to hide.
While the timing is coincidental, and simultaneous protected industrial action by pilots, engineers, refuellers and baggage handlers may seem bad news for Qantas and travellers, the labor unrest is no more serious than the apparent failure of the current management and board to run an expanding, profitable and useful company.
For at least the past three months the tired old clichés about Qantas being undermined by ‘dumping’ on international routes have looked absurd beside the likes of Singapore Airlines and Emirates charging more for their premium products than Qantas, and holding their market share steady or rising while Qantas, clinging to aged jets and poor network decisions, keeps sinking toward single figures in market share.
(Qantas had only 17.7 percent of the international market in February, and even with Jetstar international reaching 7.6 percent share, it only had 25.6 per cent of the market as a group compared to a 35 per cent share in 2003 before Jetstar was invented, only to help drive Qantas customers elsewhere.)
The lesson from international traveller defections to foreign carriers may be that premium payers don’t care what a fare costs, and are abandoning Qantas for what they see as superior quality and convenience.
The current Qantas group strategy seems to be one of continued contraction, in international travel, and a line in the sand in domestic which is starting to look as much under threat from Tiger as Virgin Blue. It can’t go on.
In this morning’s installment of the industrial-action-about–to- tsunami-Qantas genre, in The Australian, its spokesperson says:
“The unions are threatening industrial action while the company deals with rapidly increasing fuel prices, an underperforming international business and the operational impact of natural disasters in New Zealand, Japan and in Australia.”
But its competitors are dealing with the same misfortunes, yet benefiting from the rebound from the GFC far more successfully than Qantas. Apart from the A380 groundings, Qantas has the same challenges as its peer airlines, who are all posting record profits and paying their shareholders dividends, while Qantas isn’t.
It is this group under-performance that leaves Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, and Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford and the board, no-where to run.
Their only answer is to pursue a policy of shedding Australian jobs, and Australian taxation and superannuation levy obligations, by sham arrangements in which its pilots, cabin attendants and engineers, some of them still resident in Australia, are paid according to Singaporean or New Zealand work place agreements.
The implication of what Joyce says is that Qantas cannot afford to be Australian to be competitive. It intends to deal with foreign competition to Europe for example, by basing Australian registered jets in Singapore, where they will fly between Singapore and Europe and Singapore and Australia, thus imitating the advantages it says Singapore Airlines enjoys.
This de-Australianisation of Qantas may reflect a wider view in business that Australia cannot maintain internationally competitive enterprises in its own country. It’s a debate quite a number of business leaders have joined one way or the other in recent decades.
But it is a painful position when it involves a strategy to gut the piloting and engineer excellence of Qantas for the cheapest source of labor available abroad. It even involves under cutting Australian jobs within Jetstar with Asia sourced Jetstar employees being paid according to Asia terms and conditions while flying in Australia.
These strategies, which also included Jetstar flying cadet pilots to NZ to open NZD bank accounts for pay which would avoid Australian superannuation and taxation obligations while working and flying exclusively in Australia, are at the core of union unrest and calls for job security clauses, whether pilots or engineers.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of demanding job security, there is a much bigger issue for the government of taxation security. Will it allow a precedent where anyone can be employed under a foreign contract issued by a foreign entity and evade Australian taxation and super levies while performing duties in Australia?
For Qantas, this off-shore migration of assets and labor is unlikely to lift earnings enough to sustain the profits and dividends shareholders might have expected if Qantas and Jetstar continue to drive customers away because of poor management decisions on fleet and network.
Qantas needs to attract customers more than it needs to destroy its traditions of skills and excellence in flying and engineering. If it fails it will not be in a position of strength when, as most analysts expect, the Asia-Pacific airline industry gets serious about trans border consolidations.
From "Plane Talking" by Ben Sandilands
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Qantas Employee travellers
A lot of Qantas employees are using other carriers for their travel plans.
Other carriers actually treat Qantas employees better than Qantas does.
In many cases they are cheaper than Qantas because there is no fuel levy charged.
A very sad state of affairs
Other carriers actually treat Qantas employees better than Qantas does.
In many cases they are cheaper than Qantas because there is no fuel levy charged.
A very sad state of affairs
This is surely an indication that QF management have no idea of how run an international full service airline.Joyce and his cohorts are the ones trashing the Qantas brand....not the pilots,not the engineers nor any other employee group
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I have long suspected that QF managment agenda is to run down qantas to the point that it is effectively destroyed, bankrupt or unviable, leaving jetstar intact and the only viable entity.After some time QF group management decide to rebrand Jetstar as QANTAS and there we have an entire qantas workforce on Jetstar pay and conditions. A Deliberate and long term plan to remove "Legacy" conditions that have been hard won over the years.!!!
short flights long nights
Yes Collando, I agree, I think that was the plan from the day Jetstar started...I am just waiting for Jetstar to announce A380 orders
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A highly respected figure in Australian aviation earlier this week made the point to me that Qantas had lost sight of its main asset which was, he said, its global network.
And
Although protected (read legal) industrial action is not going to happen at Qantas this side of Anzac Day, what would happen if the pilots, the engineers, the refuellers and the baggage handlers all withdrew their current pay claims?
Also, no mention in the article of the ****ter truck drivers ! Imagine if they went on strike ? There would be nobody available to empty those business class crappers which often overflow due to the high fibre and rich diet that overpaaid QF executives gorge on in between feeds from the money trough
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Sounds to me like AJ is going with what he knows, LCC aka Ryanair and wreaking a full service airline. Or is it just the cut cut cut mantra that has infected Australian business these days? Over in my industry (IT) it's all about cheap cheap & cheaper with no regard for doing a good job which is what keeps customers happy.
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Damaging the Brand everyway possible!
Just heard the ABC report on Qantas' involvement in implementing labour laws in Fiji that break ILO worldwide conventions - banning some employees from joining unions, restricting their ability to take industrial action.
Qantas, through another company and in association with the military government, paid for some US lawyers to draft the laws and ensured that Air Pacific were covered by these new laws. Qantas board members were involved.
The true colours of Clifford, Joyce and the board are on display yet again. It helps to explain why they are refusing to hold "good faith" negotiations with their own employees in Australia.
Qantas, through another company and in association with the military government, paid for some US lawyers to draft the laws and ensured that Air Pacific were covered by these new laws. Qantas board members were involved.
The true colours of Clifford, Joyce and the board are on display yet again. It helps to explain why they are refusing to hold "good faith" negotiations with their own employees in Australia.
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........it just gets better.
The ABC has finally awoken from its journalistic slumber.
First a damning report on PM (radio) tonight....re:FJ
Now..... another gem tonight on ABC -Lateline re: Jetstar and the "F-issue" aka fatigue.
The Brand is resembling a mangy dog at the moment ...and you can put it all down to -incompetence, a corrupt Board and a total Goose as CEO.
Time to:
SELECT ALL.
PRESS:
DELETE
The ABC has finally awoken from its journalistic slumber.
First a damning report on PM (radio) tonight....re:FJ
Now..... another gem tonight on ABC -Lateline re: Jetstar and the "F-issue" aka fatigue.
The Brand is resembling a mangy dog at the moment ...and you can put it all down to -incompetence, a corrupt Board and a total Goose as CEO.
Time to:
SELECT ALL.
PRESS:
DELETE
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Morally Bankrupt
They think they are smart using other entities, (often overseas based), that they control, to do the dirty work. As time passes, AJ and BB, you are being exposed. A board that sits idle while the evidence mounts are just as guilty as the architects.
Let's have a look at the charge sheet,
1. Freight cartel collusion.
2. Guilty of "Adverse Action" against staff.
3. Jetconnect
4. NZ Cadet training contracts
5. Fiji anti labour laws
6. Jetstar fatigue rosters
Not the complete list, I'm sure.
They think they are smart using other entities, (often overseas based), that they control, to do the dirty work. As time passes, AJ and BB, you are being exposed. A board that sits idle while the evidence mounts are just as guilty as the architects.
Let's have a look at the charge sheet,
1. Freight cartel collusion.
2. Guilty of "Adverse Action" against staff.
3. Jetconnect
4. NZ Cadet training contracts
5. Fiji anti labour laws
6. Jetstar fatigue rosters
Not the complete list, I'm sure.
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What's this rumour doing the rounds in upper Legal eschelons that Singapore Airlines is presently doing due diligence on Qantas?????
Any notices lodged with the ASX of late??????
Any notices lodged with the ASX of late??????
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Good rumour but how would we in pleb land know? It isn't showing in the share price at 1.41 and someone in the market would know something. The only SQ/QF news is they've stopped staff travel until further notice.
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Olivia Contributes as Well.
Some of Olivia's lastest efforts are bringing the brand into question. Some journos are starting a collection, included are:-
1) "Qantas is a generous employee".
2) "We have not locked out the TWU, we are not leting them into the workplace to start their rostered shift".
3) "We haven't made a counter offer to the TWU's 15% demand, that's not how negotiation works".
How can the brand be taken seriously when this is an example of an EGM?
1) "Qantas is a generous employee".
2) "We have not locked out the TWU, we are not leting them into the workplace to start their rostered shift".
3) "We haven't made a counter offer to the TWU's 15% demand, that's not how negotiation works".
How can the brand be taken seriously when this is an example of an EGM?
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In all fairness,it is probably about time the the ball was played and not the man(or in this case the woman).If it was not OW it would be somebody else.
It does the cause no good in my opinion to be constantly criticizing the mouth piece and not the real enemy.
It does the cause no good in my opinion to be constantly criticizing the mouth piece and not the real enemy.
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Oh turn it up RATpin! The enemy IS the Board and Exec, round 21 people or so. In case you didn't know, Olivia Worthless is on this list as Group Executive Government and Corporate Affairs. Rumor is she's on round 800k/yr, paid to lie to all that will hear. EVERYTHING that comes out of her mouth is B$llsh$t. Make no mistake, she is the consumate enemy, as are ALL her colleagues on the Board and Exec. Every single one of them is responsible for the demise of Qantas, and every single one of them must go. As Sunfish posted elsewhere, this lot suffer from Management Groupthink. They don't even know they are doing anything wrong! Nothing will be resolved at QF until they are ALL gone....
FYI QF Exec:
Alan Joyce - Chief Executive Officer
Bruce Buchanan - Group Chief Executive Officer Jetstar
Gareth Evans - Chief Financial Officer
Lesley Grant - Group Executive Customer and Marketing
Rob Gurney - Group Executive - Qantas Airlines, Commercial
Olivia Wirth - Group Executive Government and Corporate Affairs
Simon Hickey - Chief Executive Officer Qantas Frequent Flyer
Brett Johnson - General Counsel
Jon Scriven - Group Executive, People and Corporate Services
Lyell Strambi - Group Executive Qantas Airlines Operations
Jayne Hrdlicka - Group Executive Strategy and Technology
The Board:
Leigh Clifford, AO
Alan Joyce
General Peter Cosgrove, AC, MC
Patricia Cross
Richard Goodmanson
Garry Hounsell
Corinne Namblard
Paul Rayner
Dr John Schubert, AO
James Strong, AO
Barbara Ward, AM
FYI QF Exec:
Alan Joyce - Chief Executive Officer
Bruce Buchanan - Group Chief Executive Officer Jetstar
Gareth Evans - Chief Financial Officer
Lesley Grant - Group Executive Customer and Marketing
Rob Gurney - Group Executive - Qantas Airlines, Commercial
Olivia Wirth - Group Executive Government and Corporate Affairs
Simon Hickey - Chief Executive Officer Qantas Frequent Flyer
Brett Johnson - General Counsel
Jon Scriven - Group Executive, People and Corporate Services
Lyell Strambi - Group Executive Qantas Airlines Operations
Jayne Hrdlicka - Group Executive Strategy and Technology
The Board:
Leigh Clifford, AO
Alan Joyce
General Peter Cosgrove, AC, MC
Patricia Cross
Richard Goodmanson
Garry Hounsell
Corinne Namblard
Paul Rayner
Dr John Schubert, AO
James Strong, AO
Barbara Ward, AM
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I agree with Dixons (and Frederic Bastiat):
'When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.'
'When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.'