MERGED: Qantas grounded effective immediately.
Prof. Airport Engineer
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POT100,
The Government's position is an irrelevance. They will exercise their powers and use their influence. And then, as I said, irrelevant. They don't own Qantas, and don't control it. The strongest response that they can make is Julia changes her hair style.
This game is being played outside their patch.
The Government's position is an irrelevance. They will exercise their powers and use their influence. And then, as I said, irrelevant. They don't own Qantas, and don't control it. The strongest response that they can make is Julia changes her hair style.
This game is being played outside their patch.
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In what can only be described as controlled fury, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Anthony Albanese, has cast doubts on the maturity, sincerity and behaviour of Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce following his announcement just before 5 pm that he was grounding its entire domestic and international operations until the pilot, licensed engineer and ground staff unions withdraw their legitimate court sanctioned industrial campaigns and pay and condition claims.
Albanese said the government has not learned of the Qantas grounding until after 2 pm this afternoon, less than three hours before the action was announced just before 5 pm eastern time.
“This action is quite extraordinary” the Minister said.
“At no stage in any of the discussions the government has had with Qantas did it indicate that it wanted the government to intervene at Fair Work Australia to resolve the issues, and it did not at any stage mention that it was contemplating these groundings,” he said.
“I have real concerns about these actions, and I have spoken to Mr Joyce since the announcement to make my concerns known, and he has told me that the decision was taken at a board meeting this morning and that it was a fait accompli.
“I find it extraordinary that a board meeting should have suddenly decided on this course of action this morning less than a day after it held an annual general meeting.
“There has to be planning involved in this. I leave it to those who know how aviation operates to ponder the timing of this.”
Minister Albanese said the disputes between Qantas and its pilots, licensed engineers and ground staff were capable of being resolved by mature adults who recognised a shared interest in arriving at solutions that were in the longer term interests of the company and its employees.
“I made it very clear to Mr Joyce that I was very disturbed that we had conducted a number of discussions with Qantas during which no reference had been made to the possibility of such action being taken by the airline,” he said.
Albanese also made it clear that he had been in close consultation with the CEO of Virgin Australia, John Borghetti, following his conversation with Alan Joyce and that Virgin Australia had undertook to make every effort to step into the breach caused by the Qantas groundings with additional capacity.
While the Minister was expressing his lack of confidence in the Qantas board and Alan Joyce, the Vice President of the Qantas pilot union, Richard Woodward, said he knew that Qantas had booked thousands of hotel rooms world wide some weeks ago in advance of its action to ground all of it international and domestic flights and had been negotiating replacement flights with Cathay Pacific up to several months ago.
Woodward said the Qantas action was in his opinion premeditated and well planned, and queried Joyce’s stability, describing his performance this afternoon as ‘bordering on the maniacal.”
Passengers are reporting that they had been on boarded flights ready to depart with no inkling of the grounding decision, saying that the pilots and flight attendants were also completely unaware of the action until they were told to empty the jets.
On returning to the terminals they were handed letters from Qantas management setting out the situation and the arrangements that would allow them to claim hotel expenses, change bookings to other airline or receive refunds.
Fair Work Australia is holding an urgent hearing into the dispute in Melbourne late this evening on the application of the federal government which has asked the tribunal to seek an immediate suspension of all industrial action by all parties.
The Qantas action severely embarrassed the Australian Government at the Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting or CHOGM in Perth, potentially causing delays to many delegates and their entourages and the extension at short notice of the special security arrangements.
Earlier tonight Dick Smith told ABC News that he would have shut down Qantas three years ago. Not a word from such an astute and patriotic businessman about solving the Qantas competitive issues by actually matching the route structure to demand, or attacking the biggest cost impost, fuel, with timely investments in fuel efficient jets, or having competitive product at the premium level where most passengers don’t actually pay for their fare, the company does.
With good management, and a slightly lower exchange rate, Qantas would be highly competitive. This defeatist and inept management has ruined our national carrier, and has been inexcusably incompetent.
Later this evening Tony Sheldon, the national secretary of the TWU added to allegations made earlier by pilot union vice president Richard Woodward that today’s groundings had been planned long in advance.
These are allegations that Qantas needs to address, or risk serious damage to its insistence that it has been negotiating in good faith for many months with the parties.
Just before the late night hearing of the FWA application the Prime Minister Julia Gillard avoided numerous opportunities to add to Minister Alabanese’s commentary on how Qantas notified the government of its actions which she said had drastically escalated the industrial situation and brought it to a stage where it could have an impact on the national economy.
The Prime Minister, speaking at the CHOGM conference in Perth, said 17 heads of state and their parties had been booked to leave on Qantas flights from tomorrow, and were making their own arrangements to book on other airlines with Australian support if required.
Albanese said the government has not learned of the Qantas grounding until after 2 pm this afternoon, less than three hours before the action was announced just before 5 pm eastern time.
“This action is quite extraordinary” the Minister said.
“At no stage in any of the discussions the government has had with Qantas did it indicate that it wanted the government to intervene at Fair Work Australia to resolve the issues, and it did not at any stage mention that it was contemplating these groundings,” he said.
“I have real concerns about these actions, and I have spoken to Mr Joyce since the announcement to make my concerns known, and he has told me that the decision was taken at a board meeting this morning and that it was a fait accompli.
“I find it extraordinary that a board meeting should have suddenly decided on this course of action this morning less than a day after it held an annual general meeting.
“There has to be planning involved in this. I leave it to those who know how aviation operates to ponder the timing of this.”
Minister Albanese said the disputes between Qantas and its pilots, licensed engineers and ground staff were capable of being resolved by mature adults who recognised a shared interest in arriving at solutions that were in the longer term interests of the company and its employees.
“I made it very clear to Mr Joyce that I was very disturbed that we had conducted a number of discussions with Qantas during which no reference had been made to the possibility of such action being taken by the airline,” he said.
Albanese also made it clear that he had been in close consultation with the CEO of Virgin Australia, John Borghetti, following his conversation with Alan Joyce and that Virgin Australia had undertook to make every effort to step into the breach caused by the Qantas groundings with additional capacity.
While the Minister was expressing his lack of confidence in the Qantas board and Alan Joyce, the Vice President of the Qantas pilot union, Richard Woodward, said he knew that Qantas had booked thousands of hotel rooms world wide some weeks ago in advance of its action to ground all of it international and domestic flights and had been negotiating replacement flights with Cathay Pacific up to several months ago.
Woodward said the Qantas action was in his opinion premeditated and well planned, and queried Joyce’s stability, describing his performance this afternoon as ‘bordering on the maniacal.”
Passengers are reporting that they had been on boarded flights ready to depart with no inkling of the grounding decision, saying that the pilots and flight attendants were also completely unaware of the action until they were told to empty the jets.
On returning to the terminals they were handed letters from Qantas management setting out the situation and the arrangements that would allow them to claim hotel expenses, change bookings to other airline or receive refunds.
Fair Work Australia is holding an urgent hearing into the dispute in Melbourne late this evening on the application of the federal government which has asked the tribunal to seek an immediate suspension of all industrial action by all parties.
The Qantas action severely embarrassed the Australian Government at the Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting or CHOGM in Perth, potentially causing delays to many delegates and their entourages and the extension at short notice of the special security arrangements.
Earlier tonight Dick Smith told ABC News that he would have shut down Qantas three years ago. Not a word from such an astute and patriotic businessman about solving the Qantas competitive issues by actually matching the route structure to demand, or attacking the biggest cost impost, fuel, with timely investments in fuel efficient jets, or having competitive product at the premium level where most passengers don’t actually pay for their fare, the company does.
With good management, and a slightly lower exchange rate, Qantas would be highly competitive. This defeatist and inept management has ruined our national carrier, and has been inexcusably incompetent.
Later this evening Tony Sheldon, the national secretary of the TWU added to allegations made earlier by pilot union vice president Richard Woodward that today’s groundings had been planned long in advance.
These are allegations that Qantas needs to address, or risk serious damage to its insistence that it has been negotiating in good faith for many months with the parties.
Just before the late night hearing of the FWA application the Prime Minister Julia Gillard avoided numerous opportunities to add to Minister Alabanese’s commentary on how Qantas notified the government of its actions which she said had drastically escalated the industrial situation and brought it to a stage where it could have an impact on the national economy.
The Prime Minister, speaking at the CHOGM conference in Perth, said 17 heads of state and their parties had been booked to leave on Qantas flights from tomorrow, and were making their own arrangements to book on other airlines with Australian support if required.
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Am I the only one that thinks this is a conspiracy?
Julia was sweating. She knew of this and refused to publicly repeat any of Albanese's comments.
This stinks.
Post FWA hearing will be interesting.
There were threats of lockouts and groundings months ago. Unions did not play into their hands with heavy handed tactics. Our campaigns were slow, moderate and conservative. They hated us for this. Till now.
This was planned months ago.
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Now I know many of you are suffering from shock,given the amount of emotive posts so far. Remember back to the time Ms Gillard announced her backflip on the Carbon Tax and one A.J. was amongst the first to come out in support of this betrayal,take a wild guess as to why!
The coming week will be most interesting.
Before you get on your high horses about me enjoying your suffering,I worked for the Rat for 2 years in the eighties (Some will remember those days) and my father gave 28 yrs to a once great airline.
The coming week will be most interesting.
Before you get on your high horses about me enjoying your suffering,I worked for the Rat for 2 years in the eighties (Some will remember those days) and my father gave 28 yrs to a once great airline.
I'm curious. Perhaps someone with a legal background can answer.
First point: if the CEO (and other responsible officers) knew at the AGM that they were going to ground the airline, but neglected to inform the shareholders, is it either/both a breach of the ASX listing rules (not informing of a significant event) and/or a breach of the corps law, prohibiting a responsible officer from acting against the interests of ALL shareholders equally?
Second point: if Qantas is (and it is) offering tickets on all Qantas flights from Monday morning, is this not a breach of the Trade Practices Act (relating to misleading and deceptive conduct) to offer tickets on a service that you have no realistic expectation of being able to honor?
Much as I prefer Virgin as my airline, I can only feel deep distress at what has happened to Qantas. I feel for the staff and can only hope hope that you can move on to a new job once the inevitable occurs.
First point: if the CEO (and other responsible officers) knew at the AGM that they were going to ground the airline, but neglected to inform the shareholders, is it either/both a breach of the ASX listing rules (not informing of a significant event) and/or a breach of the corps law, prohibiting a responsible officer from acting against the interests of ALL shareholders equally?
Second point: if Qantas is (and it is) offering tickets on all Qantas flights from Monday morning, is this not a breach of the Trade Practices Act (relating to misleading and deceptive conduct) to offer tickets on a service that you have no realistic expectation of being able to honor?
Much as I prefer Virgin as my airline, I can only feel deep distress at what has happened to Qantas. I feel for the staff and can only hope hope that you can move on to a new job once the inevitable occurs.
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about 4 hours ago As a precaution, the Qantas fleet is grounded immediately (Jetstar, QantasLink and Jetconnect operating as normal). http://t.co/yBLuDm5"Precaution" , you idiot AJ. Precaution from what? You think a pilot might do an overspeed, an engineering might slash a tyre, a porter drive his belt loader into the cargo door. You dont know us very well.
Tell ya what, I think if FWA get us flying tonight....the damage is already done!
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Clipped
Yep she was absolutely sweating. She has spend a lot of time in the kitchen lately! I think they'll be flying again tomorrow with instruction to sort it out and I would say AJ and the board think they'll get what they want under FWA ruling.
SN
Yep she was absolutely sweating. She has spend a lot of time in the kitchen lately! I think they'll be flying again tomorrow with instruction to sort it out and I would say AJ and the board think they'll get what they want under FWA ruling.
SN
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joyce should be arrested as an industrial terrorist.
the penultimate case of adverse action ever.
middle of chogm and the melbourne cup
talk about un-australian,
the government should step in, and arrest this thief.
the penultimate case of adverse action ever.
middle of chogm and the melbourne cup
talk about un-australian,
the government should step in, and arrest this thief.
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Here we go again.
Firstly,when Qantas pilots split the AFAP in the 70`s for their own selfish ends.(the labor party was going to let them fly all domestic routes against their union compatriots)they started the downward slide of aviation as a safe and professional career for pilots engineers and others in what had taken years to achieve under the likes of Dick Holt,president of that only aviation union,the AFAP.
In 89 they joined other overseas airlines ,allowed by Hawke to break the Australian pilots by bringing in foreign scabs to fly our routes;including our fine RAAF pilots against their own countrymen.Great people.
Welcome to the real world and unemployment,you deserve it.
Firstly,when Qantas pilots split the AFAP in the 70`s for their own selfish ends.(the labor party was going to let them fly all domestic routes against their union compatriots)they started the downward slide of aviation as a safe and professional career for pilots engineers and others in what had taken years to achieve under the likes of Dick Holt,president of that only aviation union,the AFAP.
In 89 they joined other overseas airlines ,allowed by Hawke to break the Australian pilots by bringing in foreign scabs to fly our routes;including our fine RAAF pilots against their own countrymen.Great people.
Welcome to the real world and unemployment,you deserve it.
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So all those people who came to the happy world of Qantas post 89 deserve it too? The LAMEs, caterers, baggies and CS staff (many of who were still at school in 1989) should be held accountable and "deserve" unemployment for the alleged sins of the 89 pilots? Awesome. That's even more Irish than the CEO's actions.
Let's focus on 2011, shall we? Or sit and tell sad stories of the death of kings...
Let's focus on 2011, shall we? Or sit and tell sad stories of the death of kings...
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Fugitive I was over Kuwait the night the Iraqis invaded. Thats the first Gulf War. Speed Bird ahead of us were on decent into Kuwait. Later on in London I learnt that some of the crew were raped and from memory a few lost their lives. An absolute tragedy for all Kuwaiti citizens and the BA crew. PUT YOUR HEAD BACK IN THE SAND AND BREATHE DEEPLY. Stay where you belong, in the third world.
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joyce should be arrested as an industrial terrorist.
the penultimate case of adverse action ever.
middle of chogm and the melbourne cup
talk about un-australian,
the government should step in, and arrest this thief
the penultimate case of adverse action ever.
middle of chogm and the melbourne cup
talk about un-australian,
the government should step in, and arrest this thief
Old saying, (from an Irishman)
NEVER trust an Irishman who wears a suit.
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This action was clearly planned weeks ago.
Imagine these little pigs at the trough (Qantas Board) trying this move before the AGM? Get voted back in, get a pay rise, then pull this stunt.
Imagine these little pigs at the trough (Qantas Board) trying this move before the AGM? Get voted back in, get a pay rise, then pull this stunt.
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Total Act of Bastadry.
These Clowns are totally out of control. Hang your collective heads in shame Qantas Board.....you're all a total disgrace.
UN-AUSTRALIAN.........nah -not a word to be used here.
CRIMINALS........... yeah -best fit
:m ad:
These Clowns are totally out of control. Hang your collective heads in shame Qantas Board.....you're all a total disgrace.
UN-AUSTRALIAN.........nah -not a word to be used here.
CRIMINALS........... yeah -best fit
:m ad:
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For those who thought Dick Smith made sense and cannot see further than the end of their nose this is what so called intelligent businessmen won't be telling you:
management spin about competing globally means you go down to the lowest common denominator. Reduced wages, reduced tax income for the government which ultimately means reduced social infrastructure, i.e. health care, pensions etc. everything.
Australia cannot and should not compete with countries like China unless ALL Australians are prepared to except a drop in living standards in order to remain competitive.
Of course the drop won't affect management who will still earn their oversized wages.
Australian wages and product pricing takes into account the social infrastructure in place in Australia and every product bought adds to the pot for the benefit of all Australians.
Tickets bought for an Australian led airline based in Asia adds to the pockets of management and possibly the social pots of whichever country the airline is based. It will not add anything significant to the Australian pot.
The real question here is whether one accepts a drop in living standards for ALL Australians or whether one sends out a message of "not with us".
We need to start applying some moral common sense to these issues. Global competitiveness is a one way street. Levi Strauss is an excellent example.
Not one single pair of levi jeans are still produced in America. They are all produced outside the USA to save costs. Yet every single pair of levi jeans are sold for the maximum they can achieve in each individual country meaning that the costs savings have not been passed on to the customer, so where is all that extra cash?
Perhaps someone should take a serious look at management wages for the real answer to these sorts of disputes.
You are a fool if you seriously believe the Qantas line.
management spin about competing globally means you go down to the lowest common denominator. Reduced wages, reduced tax income for the government which ultimately means reduced social infrastructure, i.e. health care, pensions etc. everything.
Australia cannot and should not compete with countries like China unless ALL Australians are prepared to except a drop in living standards in order to remain competitive.
Of course the drop won't affect management who will still earn their oversized wages.
Australian wages and product pricing takes into account the social infrastructure in place in Australia and every product bought adds to the pot for the benefit of all Australians.
Tickets bought for an Australian led airline based in Asia adds to the pockets of management and possibly the social pots of whichever country the airline is based. It will not add anything significant to the Australian pot.
The real question here is whether one accepts a drop in living standards for ALL Australians or whether one sends out a message of "not with us".
We need to start applying some moral common sense to these issues. Global competitiveness is a one way street. Levi Strauss is an excellent example.
Not one single pair of levi jeans are still produced in America. They are all produced outside the USA to save costs. Yet every single pair of levi jeans are sold for the maximum they can achieve in each individual country meaning that the costs savings have not been passed on to the customer, so where is all that extra cash?
Perhaps someone should take a serious look at management wages for the real answer to these sorts of disputes.
You are a fool if you seriously believe the Qantas line.
Don't waist your time bitching to each other on pprune, write a letter to the editor of your local rag, I wouldn't indicate I was a Qantas employee, just offer an opinion on the poisonous leprechauns actions today.
The general public and the media at large follow public opinion, not prune.
I will, read the NT news.
The general public and the media at large follow public opinion, not prune.
I will, read the NT news.