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Old 27th Aug 2011, 03:10
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........And with a little help from one or two informed (read competent) journalists, we might just be able to shine a light on the real motives of this CEO and Board....................



Qantas spends big on self-denigration
August 27, 2011 – 12:44 pm, by Ben Sandilands

The Qantas print media campaign of self-denigration continues at the rate of hundreds of thousands of dollars today.

These are full page ads stating the obvious; that Qantas needs to change, but claiming to be building a ‘stronger Qantas’ while remaining in a state of denial over the management failures that have so badly damaged the carrier.

These failures are painfully obvious in fleet management, network and scheduling, and product and employee engagement. There is seems to be an ideological agenda at the top in Qantas that is not acknowledged in the campaign, yet has led to a restructuring that diminishes the Qantas that it is supposed to strengthen.

Qantas has clearly decided that it cannot afford the costs of past excellence in pilot standards and maintenance. And believes that by basing jets and jobs outside Australia and flying them into and out of this country, and even under some circumstances, within it, with employees paid under Asian terms and conditions, and not attracting Australian superannuation obligations on pay taxed in those countries, it can break what it sees as the unreasonable costs of doing business as an Australian company.

Yet this is a process that will not just de-Australianise the costs, but the product, reducing the very difference Qantas seeks to emphasise in its marketing as the ‘Spirit of Australia.’

One possible rationale for this enormously costly print campaign could be to head off the distinct probability that Senator Nick Xenophon might introduce and gain parliamentary support for a bill banning the rotation of Asia or New Zealand or Pacific Island pilots and flight attendants through services Qantas operates as domestic flights.

Maybe Joyce and his chairman, Leigh Clifford, are looking for a Nauru solution, or maybe a Port Moresby solution, to their Australian pay, superannuation levy and conditions problems. There is after all, more than a hint of ‘barking mad’ in the commentary Qantas has offered on the restructuring, and earlier in the year, to the Senate Inquiry into airline safety and pilot training standards.

The key planks of the Qantas off-shoring agenda are capable of being stopped dead in their tracks by legislation.

Qantas can’t possibly be threatened by a 2.5% pay rise for pilots. But it is threatened by a continuance of some very poor decisions in relation to its full service operations by a management overseen by a board nearly devoid of technical airline operations talent, and drawn from executives better known for their careers in the finance sector.

The only veto on change that has counted, very negatively, in Qantas in recent years has been that exercised by management on the necessary or timely fleet and network and product changes that are needed to keep the company in the hunt against its more relevant competitors.

Those failures have deeply harmed the carrier. Not foreign governments like the wicked Singaporeans who are, surprise, taking their time politely listening to how Qantas wants to finance and control a supposedly majority owned Singaporean based Asian premium brand single aisle operation guaranteed flag carrier rights in its bi-lateral air traffic agreements with other nations.

Ditto the Malaysia and China authorities.

Can we imagine how Qantas would have reacted had Singapore Airlines or China Southern or Malaysia Airlines last week announced that they wanted to finance and control a supposedly 51% owned Australian carrier to exploit the markets between here and say the US?

Oops. We already know the answer to that question. We saw it answered during the Singapore Airlines foray into Air New Zealand/Ansett, and later, when it sought direct access for its carrier.

This morning’s ads even come with a graphic that actually charts the failures of its management. This isn’t about unfair competition, or greedy unproductive workers, but an overpaid underperforming management that wants us to believe they are on about something called the ‘Spirit of Australia’ when they are really on about cutting out the costs of flight and maintenance excellence, the very foundations of the Qantas brand value.

This Qantas campaign, aimed at the very section of its work force that it needs to engage, is like the lunacy of the Australian retailers campaign in the new year against on-line sales. All that campaign against e-Bay and Amazon and other on-line commerce portals did was remind consumers how uncompetitive the major Australian retailers had become, and how easy it was to buy better on-line. The solution so intelligently argued by the likes of Gerry Harvey was to try promote a new tax. What were they thinking?

Qantas has totally lost the plot when it come to its international operations. Fairfax Business Day columnist Ian Verrender has a very pertinent column on this lunacy this morning.

Let’s assume that Qantas really did lose $216 million on its full service international business last year. That loss, while undesirable, was an integral part of the total product offering that made Qantas domestic and Qantas Frequent Flyer the successes that they are.

Reducing the attractiveness of international is never going to make it, or the rest of Qantas, stronger. But maybe Qantas no longer cares, and this is just a charade while it pursues the low cost trans border business model is sees as the big earner of the future. The Jetstar franchise is a great business model at a number of levels, but not when it gets caught flying indentured Asian flight attendants around the Australian domestic network at the end of 20 hour shifts that left them too exhausted to continue.

Not when it tries on dodgy pilot schemes in which heavily indebted cadets were supposed to be paid and taxed in NZ dollars, but live and work in Australia.

The restructuring announced by Joyce is like performing a frontal lobotomy on the carrier. Somehow it thinks that by severing half of its London capacity to gift those passengers to unpopular partner British Airways is going to have no impact on the rest of its operations.

It’s like thinking that punting full service customers onto Jetstar flights is going to stop them trying Virgin Australia, which will sell everything from discount to full service options on all of it flights.

Doesn’t Qantas management understand that when it tries to hand over customers to another carrier, half way around the world, they can still get Qantas points by flying all the way on Cathay Pacific, without changing aircraft, and without back tracking out of Heathrow to get to Paris and other European cities.

Doesn’t Qantas understand that instead of meekly accepting outrageous five hour long connections at Bangkok Airport to then experience the inferior and distinctly un-Australian ambience of a BA flight that they might defect, like so many already have, to the single airline offerings of Emirates and Singapore Airlines?

Qantas has set out to vilify its pilots over a 2.5% pay claim and carries on about so called perks when business class passengers are routinely telling Plane Talking that Jetstar employees in uniform are occupying seats in the same cabin for positioning to other parts of the Jetstar network. Qantas management’s answer to dismal fleet planning is to junk four aged 744s and 1000 jobs that supported half of its capacity on the routes between Australia and London, and enrich the competition.

But it hasn’t announced anything that will recruit new Australian customers, win back the lost legions, nor even keep those who have remained loyal.

This is woefully inadequate. How much longer, and at what cost, will this continue?


(Apologies for the repetition mods, but this article deserves viewing by as many people as possible.)
chockchucker is offline  
Old 27th Aug 2011, 03:25
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Thank you

Thank you Ben Sandilands for so cogently describing the total inadequacies of QF management in the running of an airline.
Maybe the truth will come out about what the management are really trying to achieve.

Thank you again for saying it as it is.
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Old 27th Aug 2011, 05:24
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...a board nearly devoid of technical airline operations talent, and drawn from executives better known for their careers in the finance sector.
Bingo.....
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Old 27th Aug 2011, 05:26
  #484 (permalink)  
 
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On a June trip to Finland, I didn't fly in a Qantas aircraft once, other than to get to Sydney (spent a week there first).

We went (Business Class), BA to Bangkok (necessity), then Finnair direct to Helsinki. On the way back, Finnair from Helsinki to Hong Kong and then Cathay direct to Perth.

Why no QF? Because it wasn't convenient - the waits were either horrendous or the connections just impossible.

The 1st time I went, in Jan, I went QF Perth to Singapore, then QF to Frankfurt, then had to change to Lufthansa to Stockholm. I think on the way back I did Finnair from Helsinki to Frankfurt and then QF to Singapore and then to Perth.

I was naive then and learnt the 2nd time. Would I have preferred to go QF as far as possible? Sure. However, I learn and won't be making the same mistake for the next 2 trips later this year.
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Old 27th Aug 2011, 12:11
  #485 (permalink)  
 
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Hear hear Ben Sandilands - what you say is absolutely spot-on. I do hope that the Members of Parliament and the institutional investors are reading what you have to say.

Bravo!
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Old 31st Aug 2011, 04:11
  #486 (permalink)  
 
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Contact politicians

As LH cabin crew I am supportive of your actions. Can I suggest that as well as watching your union do its thing that all pilots and their family and friends also contact their members of parliament independently. Nick Zenaphon, Adam Brandt at the Greens, and various Labour MPs are supportive of the pilots cause. Regardless of your own personal political beliefs these people hold the real power. Writing to them, ringing them, emailing them. Try the Liberals too, but I am not sure if you will have as much luck with them. Good luck, from an old left winger.
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Old 31st Aug 2011, 11:02
  #487 (permalink)  
 
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To all of you banging on about AIPA providing ties made in China, I just had a look at my Qantas uniform...

Surprisingly the tie is actually made in Oz. (Awesome)
Hat.....Made in New Zealand. (Not so great)
Shirt...Made in Indonesia. (Getting worse)
Jacket...Made in China. (Surprise Surprise)


yes, but we're supposed to be better than this...
Qanchor is offline  
Old 31st Aug 2011, 11:08
  #488 (permalink)  
 
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QANTAS chief executive Alan Joyce will meet senior union and ACTU officials today as industrial tensions at the airline grow.
Well well, seems like maybe some members of the Board are getting somewhat tired of the lttle fella's rhetoric and spin which is merely hot air wrapped in ****e, and pushing him to bargain?
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Old 31st Aug 2011, 11:15
  #489 (permalink)  
 
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Hats are now made in Sri Lanka .
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Old 1st Sep 2011, 00:37
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Those red ties are would be more suited to some of your more camp CSM's
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