Qantas' - senior executives face scrutiny

[pull-up-terrain]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but qantas is receiving 10 a330's from jetstar, and we have a fleet of 21 767's?

So that will leave us will 11 767's. So 10 additional a330's might be possible, but I will only believe it when I see it.

[Stalins ugly Brother]

Keg,

The Qantas sales act would stop any part of the Australian based business being more than 49% foreign owned and 25% owned by one foreign entity. So even with two AOCs and two listed businesses the above would still apply. It also applies to Jetstar Australian ops.
As for shutting down either LH or SH that can happen BUT would have massive ramifications for the group, would destroy the share price, alienate shareholders and also will come under heavy scrutiny from the government of the day and the ACCC.

Surprisingly I'm of the belief this will be about the 787 and growth in the mainline business going forward.
Although he did shut down the airline totally before so nothing would surprise me.

[Keg]

Fleet of 767s is currently 18- but doing the flying of just 15. By the end of the year we're at 15 airframes with no reduction to the flying hours on the fleet.

There are 10 A330s to come back from J*. I vaguely recall that there are two additional A330s coming from somewhere apparently to take us to 12 coming back over the same time as the 767 is retired with additional 737 capacity to make up for the extra three 767s. No net loss of airframes supposedly.

That's how I recall it anyway.

Thanks Stalin. I still can't work out why we're going down the road of two AOCs but I don't think shutting down international is featuring in any of the thinking.... at this stage anyway!

[Stalins ugly Brother]

keg, I think the nutshell of it is if you have a business that say is worth $100 but you can only sell 50% then the most you can make is only $50.
But if you can split your business and make them two independent, profitable operating units then technically you have two business now worth more, may not be double but worth more than the one entity. So say each unit is now valued at $75 each, total $150, now sell 50% to investors and your profit is $75. A 50% increase in profit.

I know this is a very simplistic view but still indicates that it is driven so to be able to attract investors to different units (profit making)in the business rather than an investor having a chunk of the overall package where there could be loss making unit.

So, split the business, have investors invest in the money making unit, use the money made from that investment to restructure and turn around the loss making unit, make that profitable to attract more investors and so on.

Selling or closing one of the units would be detrimental to this scenario.

Maybe there is after all method to the madness. Let's hope

[Jack Ranga]

Years ago a bunch of imbeciles, you might call them the smartest men in the room, split part of the business off. Part of the business was a cash cow, the part they split off and prepared for sale, on it's own, was not profitable but a vital part of the business just the same. Management roles were duplicated (making it even more unprofitable). It was then offered for sale, even the stupidest men in the room figured out it was a dog & laughed at the smartest men in the room.

The separate organisation was disbanded & rolled back into the core business. Yet more millions of their customers money blown. You can do what you like when you're a monopoly the smartest men in the room are still there, wasting millions of their customers money

[Keg]

Maybe you're right. Sell off (say) 40% of Jetstar and QF domestic as two distinct entities. Maintain a controlling stake but get a whole bunch of money. Bonuses all round.

[Shark Patrol]

What about the scenario whereby, after completing the separation of LH and SH that they decide to rename SH. Say something like .... AUSTRALIAN AIRLINES. How then does the Qantas Sales Act apply? It is the "Qantas" Sales Act, not the "Qantas Group" Sales Act, because the "Qantas Group" didn't exist when the legislation was drafted.

[OneDotLow]

I think Keg is along the right track. How would a sale of 30-40% of QF Domestic sound, with the proceeds being invested back into some new metal (plastic) for QF Intl which will have recently completed its "amaaaaazing transformation".

[Derfred]

They aren't separating SH and LH.

They are separating domestic and international.

[mrbigbird]

Join the dots

Something big is up. That seems certain. Too much chatter to be anything less.

I keep hearing repeated references to a restructure focused on two distinct fleets. The comments above about a new A330 base in Perth and 10 new birds only serves to confirm this.

Based on chatter new fleets likely to be:

Long haul/international A380 - (#747)

Short haul/regional/domestic 737 800 - A330 300/200 - (#767)

# NB As we all know the 747 only has a few years left at best and it appears from all indications that the 767 will be disappearing perhaps as early as next year. Or close to it. Lots of talk too about VR packages being 2-3 times recent payouts to encourage 30/40 year veterans to walk - which is where the main cost of being a legacy carrier resides.

At present the 767 and A330 A/C work across both international and domestic networks and consequently are operated by cabin crew from both divisions.

I'm being told from several sources the new fleets will see cabin crew locked onto the aircraft within one fleet only. Meaning they will fly where ever the aircraft flies. As distinct from now where 'short haul' cabin crew will operate an A330 within Australia, but 'international' crew will operate it to Asia.

Perhaps the old legacy terms we have always used for short/long haul - domestic/international are acting like blinkers preventing us from thinking outside the box about how the fleets might be restructured.

If what I suspect eventuates the new fleets might be better thought of as (or labelled) 'Regional' (domestic and Asia) and 'Long Haul' (being LA,Dallas,LHR and Dubai).

The 787 would then fit very neatly into the new Long Haul fleet and allow for retirement of the 747s and growing new routes from Dubai into Europe.

So instead of actually shutting the current long haul division down they might just be shrinking it be just the A380 and an ever decreasing rump of old 747 gristle - crew on legacy conditions.

Who knows they might go nuclear and bone' the whole 747 problem early and operate a purely A380 fleet until the 787 arrives and they can then crew it as cheaply as the A380.

We'll know soon enough -It will probably all be announced the night of the election.

[Capt Kremin]

Lots of talk too about VR packages being 2-3 times recent payouts to encourage 30/40 year veterans to walk - which is where the main cost of being a legacy carrier resides.

That doesn't make much sense.

[neville_nobody]

That doesn't make much sense.

Depends on what you are trying to achieve.

Would make perfect sense to a actuary who will only be around for a few years and will collect on the way through if he could devise a scheme that would make the books look good.

Long term staff are a liability in a accounting sense, lots of sick leave, lots of holidays, massive super all of which is a liability in an accounting sense. If you can get rid of them it makes the bottom line look awesome.....
Then go about hiring a whole bunch of intakes on lower salaries and hope the wheels don't fall off, or there is a massive demand for your labour. Probably from Qantas's perspective they still believe everybody wants to work for them so they will never have that problem.

Airservices Australia is a classic example of all this. And about 10 years after they had some generous redundancy offers out there to get rid of the 'dead wood' they now have a staffing and experience crisis.

It has all been done before and it is all about financial engineering and creating an illusion that you are doing really well when in fact all you are doing are creating major problems for the next guy, but you are not paid to worry about that.

[Keg]

Nev, at the moment excess crew are burning all their leave so that liability won't exist in a couple of years time. Every mainline Captain is on 12 year pay so getting rid of senior 744 captains by paying excess VR doesn't really achieve anything. The captains that go to the 787 will still be on 12 year pay- which would be identical to what those 744 captains demoting to the 787 will be on. Whether they can afford the pay cut from a smaller aeroplane and less overtime with the 787 likely to do some domestic flying as part of it's makeup is another question entirely.

The ONLY reason to offer VR to senior Captains is to avoid multiple training courses that demotion may throw up. Even then, if a 744 Captain displaces someone junior to them on another fleet it's about seven training courses. I'm not sure what the cost of that would be but would find it hard to believe it'd equate to 2-3 times the 'normal' redundancy pay out. Besides, given that redundancy is normally last on, first off and 6 months pay, they're going to need to offer decent packages to get any one else to take it. See my previous point about the 'cost' of retraining courses compared to the VR they're likely to offer as to whether it's worthwhile.

[DirectAnywhere]

Lots of talk too about VR packages being 2-3 times recent payouts to encourage 30/40 year veterans to walk - which is where the main cost of being a legacy carrier resides.

The VR reference could be in relation to Cabin Crew. That would at least make a modicum of sense as there have been no 'recent' payouts to tech crew with which to make this comparison. However, I doubt such a plan would be likely. Chatting with a 30 year veteran CC the other day who is taking redundancy at about 170k, it seems senseless to pay 2-3 times this amount to get rid of a LH F/A.

[Mstr Caution]

I was thinking the "big news" is similar to the tie up with Emirates.

Profit share, or tie up (Emirates style) with LATAM.

LAN.com - Mapa de Rutas LAN

MC