AUGUST 24th - QANTAS

[fatbus]

Out of the 1000 employees how many pilots will be made redundant ?

[SOPS]

You COULD NOT make this stuff up!!! What a complete farce.

I was just thinking of this...lets say I am in Melbourne and want to go to, lets say Geneva under the new QF plan....

I could go on QF to SYD then SIN then LHR (the nightmare that that place is) and then on BA to Geneva......or.................

I could go on EK direct to DXB then EK direct to Geneva, now which is the better option????

Morons

[Keg]

SOPs, you can still go QF from MEL direct to SIN. Sadly you're probably not going to avoid LHR.

Fatbus, excess as at mid next year is supposed to be 180. Redundancies will depend on who takes LWOP.

[Worrals in the wilds]

Stubby's story is very similar to one I heard from a QF rampie who had asked a middle manager about the long term viability of some crappy new system they were being subjected to. The answer was 'What's it matter, you'll all be gone in a few years anyway.' Complete with smirk

You get the feeling that Qantas gets people applying for managerial positions to sit the same psych and personality tests other companies use, but takes the candidates who flunk rather than pass...

[SHRAGS]

A question that should be asked at the road shows is how the comparison of 777 on QF compared to starting 2 new airlines in a competitive Asian market.

Leslie Grant would surely have looked at this scenario as that was her brief wasn't it??

Who would be surprised if no QF growth was even considered. Misleading??

[victor two]

Change of tune?

Fed Sec Steve,
Gone a bit quiet? I seem to recall you starting a thread recently on this very topic by offering a long list of your plans and ideas to fix up qantas. What happened?

Did you have any success with the "hold a barbie for the workers" strategy?

Maybe now the reality of it all is upon you.....you dont want to play anymore!

[Sunfish]

Alan Joyce:

"We're a great employer. We're one of the best employers in this country and we've always looked after our employees," he said.

Politicians turn up heat on Qantas plans - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Like the Captain and his son abandoned in Hong Kong? Like the LAMES stood down in Queensland for reporting defects? Like the entire International workforce left dangling for Six weeks until August 24th?

There is a SEVERE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE at work here!

[flying lid]

Just a pommie SLF view on the situation. Family & I fly MAN (UK) to BKK for holiday & visit family & friends every 2 years or so, since 1993. We have used many airlines, including Qantas, via both Frankfurt & Heathrow. (Alas, never yet got to Ozz !). Qantas WAS one of, if not THE the best, "Would you like champagne with your breakfast, Sir", and that was in economy. Allways friendly service. (last flew Qantas in 2006).

However last few years, BA, Qantas and the other (non middle east) airlines got expensive. To expensive for me, wife & 3 kids. Etihad and Emirates have become the only affordable option to us, and we can fly halfway there MAN-DBX, (8 hrs), have a break, walk round & do a bit of shopping before the DBX - BKK (6.5 hr flight). Comfortable, convenient, reliable. We also cut out that miserable sh*t hole, Heathrow.

And that is the point. EK & EY fly Dubai to several UK airports. Qantas doesn't get a look in, too expensive & no longer convenient. EK / EY have the commercial advantage due to the locations of their hubs, and their multitude of interconnecting, affordable flights to virtually everywhere.

I hope Qantas survives, and the proposals I have read about here do not happen, but in todays indebted world, everything regarding money is bloody difficult.

One last point, why do many major airlines have offensive little Irishmen in Charge? - BA, RyanAir, Qantas, etc. I worked with Irish Labourers many years ago, great lads, hard workers, but one thing I never forget being told by one was "NEVER trust an Irishman who wears a suit".

Good luck and and best wishes to you all - hope I can (afford) to fly with you again one day.

Lid

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

Fed Sec Steve,
Gone a bit quiet? I seem to recall you starting a thread recently on this very topic by offering a long list of your plans and ideas to fix up qantas. What happened?

Did you have any success with the "hold a barbie for the workers" strategy?

Maybe now the reality of it all is upon you.....you dont want to play anymore!

It is barbies for workers, not managers, that's why you weren't there last Saturday night.

Plans to fix Qantas? You think they would listen? The plans have been drawn up for the new management team.

Play? You think this is a game do you. Maybe you can get some of your mates to answer these questions -

Qantas engineers serve carrier with Jetstar cost questions | Plane Talking

[Worrals in the wilds]

I hope Qantas survives, and the proposals I have read about here do not happen, but in todays indebted world, everything regarding money is bloody difficult.

Qantas are surviving. In fact Qantas are doing very well and predicting a $500m profit. They'd like everyone to believe otherwise and that's the PR spin they're pushing, but they're far from being on the bones of their wing struts. The word on the ramp is that this is an IR war disguised as globalisation rhetoric, because they think the pollies and the public are stupid enough to buy the 'Qantas is going broke and needs foreign serfs to survive' propaganda. They aren't going broke and if Air New Zealand can run a decent international airline from the Antarctic Circle, Qantas should be able to figure out a strategy that doesn't include backpacking through Asia shouting 'Australia sucks'.

They must know their product is substandard (it's gone downhill badly since 2006) because even people living in Arnhem Land caves have figured that out. It's been openly said across Australia for the last few years that EK etc are better and cheaper. If you can't flog an Aussie product to Aussies and you're losing market share to Ay-rabs (you'd know from JetBlast that we're massively parochial) then there's something wrong with it. They claim it's costs, but the $500m profit says otherwise.

If they were genuinely interested in the product they would have advertised it, improved it, made sure it was great...again, even the cave people have noticed the lack of QF advertising over the last 12 months. They're just not trying.

Nothing they have said about the Great Overhaul is about the product. No new seats, no new menu, no smiling hosties, none of the stuff that is usually spearheads airline PR announcements across the globe. You get the feeling that they hate their product and the people that deliver it.

Joyce flags overhaul after Qantas profit forecast - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

One last point, why do many major airlines have offensive little Irishmen in Charge?

Not a lot of business opportunities back home at the moment. It's long been said that the only thing Ireland exports is people. Maybe their Meat Inspectors need to sharpen up on the quality control before their export industry gets a bad name...

[mmciau]

SOPS

You COULD NOT make this stuff up!!! What a complete farce.

I was just thinking of this...lets say I am in Melbourne and want to go to, lets say Geneva under the new QF plan....

I could go on QF to SYD then SIN then LHR (the nightmare that that place is) and then on BA to Geneva......or.................

I could go on EK direct to DXB then EK direct to Geneva, now which is the better option????

Morons

My wife and I flew Etihad ADL(Virgin)-MEL-AUH-DUB and return May-June 2011.

Noticed in Abu Dhabi that Etihad flew nearly all major European, African and Asian points.

AUH to DUB was 8 hours and Etihad was picked because Etihad did not fly to DUB via any London Airports and in particular Heathrow.


Mike

[B772]

Interesting to read that 255,280 Performance Rights to Shares for the benefit of Alan Joyce expired worthless on 8 July 2011 due to performance hurdles not being met.

There are still 371,070 Performance Rights in play for Joyce.

[ohallen]

The gamble goes on.....all eggs in the one basket with A380 to LHR and now another engine problem with that aircraft in LA. Sure it is a one off, but it is another one off.

What happens if these problems continue?

Shows the gambling mentality of this management.

[fdr]

Out of the 1000 employees how many pilots will be made redundant ?

If your question is how this affects other parties that are not going to be needed in the overseas programs that pornstar are suggesting... then I guess the outcome will be that any personnel other than pilots and engineers will be seriously disadvantaged by this action.

Any program starting up in asia right now is going to have issues getting crew and engineering staff. If you look at China, the cost of manpower is now substantial, and there still is a large shortage, particularly in the...A320/737 (Korea is a special case; the revolving door of the airline is legendary, at any price. Korea competes with the sandpit in losing staff, and the associated cost of churn). Japan? yep, AJX/V still having issues getting staff.

Engineers? already entering the country on special visa's, so I guess that will open up the spectre of cancelling the visa's as the purported shortage used to get the engineers into the country is apparently non existent.

Everyone else probably gets outsourced. Guess the existing wait time for call center response will just get better and better as a result (at least for the competitions case).

Condolences for all those that considered the iconic status of the company would give some stability to their lives, mostly for those that believed that in a time of globalisation that loyalty had any merit.

QF needs to compete, and management needs to ensure that it does; I, like many other observers am concerned that the facts presented surrounding the decisions of the management are rather economical with the truth and that the proposed plan by the management is incomprehensible in the light of the known facts of performance of the LCC's that have been started already in this experiment (An assertion by JAL management that J* adds competency is hardly something to be proud of... no offence to my friends at JAL, but damn.... Group Think methinks.... ).

Removing all the emotion (which is hard, people are going to get hurt...) and coldly looking at the maths, the stated performance of the international division does not sit comfortably, nor does the emphatic position that the new LCC's in asia act in any way to change any fundamental condition of the group. (excluding bonuses to the management, or income to Orangestar leasing... where AJ is a director...).

For the engineers and pilots about to be cast into the diaspora, do ask around before choosing any of the contract agencies out there... there are some competent agencies, but that is not the norm, it is the exception. (web presence is hardly evidence of performance).

Alternatively, show some collective backbone and conduct an LBO. probably the last chance for QF to be a respected industry player.

[low_earth_orbit]

Exactly Worrals - Qantas should get on with it's core business of running a successful end-of-line carrier much as Air New Zealand have been doing since they almost went to the wall in 2001.

Too much of Alan Joyce's time in the last two years has been spent trying to find merger partners and other such deals and before him Geoff Dixon dropped his eyes off the ball to set up the near-disastrous APA bid. All this time Qantas has been allowed to wither on the vine. The staff know it and the public know it - only the public have voted with their feet.

In going to Asia with a greenfields operation we have another chapter in what is considered a smart business move by management and by some in the market. However in reality it's just another iteration of the same diversion from what should be the main game and that's running the existing airline with all it's valuable human capital and other capital to best level that it can be run at.

It's easier for AJ to set up a greenfields operation and to start with a clean sheet than to deal with the existing business in an imaginative and productive manner. That is the mark of a man with no ideas who is just re-running his Jetstar playbook line by line. JB is arguably doing the same at Virgin, but engagement of staff and investment in product works in the longer term!

Management argue that they can't afford to invest any longer in the international Qantas business until it improves it's return on the existing cost of capital - the death spiral has begun then because mainline needs investment now to compete. Reducing the size of the network will reduce market share which will in turn lead to lower revenue for the operation over and above what costs can be reduced in that time.

My prediction is that Jetstar Japan may survive on a marginal basis, but the Asian premium carrier will not be successful in the longer term. By then AJ will have parachuted away with his pot of gold and some of the Qantas employees here today will still have a job (...just). At that time someone new will have to come in and truly rebuild the brand. They might have to do it with an amendment of the Qantas sale act though that allows a major foreign partner to make an investment, because by then Qantas will have no funds left to work with. Of course the capital is there now to fix mainline but they won't do it.

[breakfastburrito]

Good post fdr, I have been saying it for quite some time, Qantas is being destroyed by management to justify its destruction.

Management have systematically & deliberately destroyed the longhaul business, in order to justify it moving the capital offshore to become the "Ryanair of Asia". This strategy appears to go back at least a decade. Note, managers are chasing growth, not profitability. They see somewhere near a 20% CAGR, which would see a doubling in size of the Asia operations every 3.5~ 4 years. The "paper profits" won't be returned to shareholders as dividends, rather re-invested in the business. This is an attempt to make it a growth story, straight out of the dot com playbook. They never have to actually payout the cash, the illusory profits are paper. In this way things can be hidden until the expansion stops. By that stage, the managers will have been long gone with their billions.

[TIMA9X]

Any program starting up in asia right now is going to have issues getting crew and engineering staff. If you look at China, the cost of manpower is now substantial, and there still is a large shortage, particularly in the...A320/737 (Korea is a special case; the revolving door of the airline is legendary, at any price. Korea competes with the sandpit in losing staff, and the associated cost of churn). Japan? yep, AJX/V still having issues getting staff.

and

QF needs to compete, and management needs to ensure that it does; I, like many other observers am concerned that the facts presented surrounding the decisions of the management are rather economical with the truth and that the proposed plan by the management is incomprehensible in the light of the known facts of performance of the LCC's that have been started already in this experiment (An assertion by JAL management that J* adds competency is hardly something to be proud of... no offence to my friends at JAL, but damn.... Group Think methinks.... ).

Yeah, great post FDR, as usual

In 2008, oil was $100 Aus a barrel. 2011 fin year average $75. but Joyce today continues to add fuel surcharges which is another one of his ways in damaging the Qantas brand.. but J* is always referred to by management as "the growth part of the group" funded by, you know who....Qantas.

[hotnhigh]

Anyone know the dates for qantas pulling out of the bkk and hkg-lhr routes? I'm sure it will coincide with a date a few weeks out from the olympics.

[Keg]

Bit earlier than that. Start of northern summer schedule so about April next year.

[Jack Ranga]

The Kangaroo Route

The Kangaroo Route was first flown by Qantas on 1 December 1947. A Lockheed Constellation ferried 29 passengers and 11 crew from Sydney to London, with stopovers in Darwin, Singapore, Calcutta (Kolkata), Karachi, Cairo and Tripoli (passengers would stay overnight in Singapore and Cairo). A return fare was £585, equivalent to 130 weeks average pay. Qantas changed the routing to variably include other interline stops, including Frankfurt, Zürich, Athens, Belgrade, Rome, Beirut, Tehran, Bombay and Colombo.

64 years of tradition wiped out by an innarticulate, bogan, Low Cost Card Carrying, non-Australian.

The Qantas Board, are you happy with the destruction of a once great airline? A pioneer of long haul flying? Now to be an off-shored employer of slave labour, a head office of convenience in Sydney administered by 'people' unable to innovate, adapt and to grow a product. The only answers you have are to slash and burn, cost cut and to destroy an iconic brand. A brand that most companies would kill for.

You are a disgrace the lot of you, no ethics, no values, no morals.

Greedy thieves, feathering your own nests at the expense of good hard working people. The caretakers of a brand, passed on from generation to generation.

I trusted you to deliver my child, an un-accompanied minor from the other side of the world. (And I might add, I was happy to pay a premium) It meant a lot to me to have my girl looked after by Australians, very experienced Australians, the best in the world.

Now..............? You can stick you 'vision.' The way of the future is it? Anybody can cost cut you fools. I have real empathy for the people & industry you are about to destroy.