Qantas stand down 20,000 employees till end of May
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Except Australia, or should I say Australians, are only taking half measures at isolation. The economy is suffering and for what? Either we all take this seriously (which a lot of people are still not doing, why I have no idea) and take the necessary measures, or we don't and let the economy recover.
I did think it would come to this, I was surprised to find it was ‘ops normal’ at network last I asked.
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All states are about to put border restrictions on, domestic flights will basically cease except for some skeleton flights circa a few percent of current capacity. This won’t last a few months it will go into early next year at best. International? meh! Won’t be happening until mid next year in any real form.
And if you look at the finances QF can probably survive until end of this year at best then it’s bailout or collapse.
And if you look at the finances QF can probably survive until end of this year at best then it’s bailout or collapse.
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On a positive note, all places of worship are closed as of midday 23 March. About time! Maybe Scomo will also take their untaxed wealth and use that money to help prop up the country? Then when the crisis has passed, don’t let them reopen their doors! Imagine that, Scomo the modern day Robin Hood. He would get more votes next election than one thought possible.
I think your timeline is a bit exaggerated. Maybe a few months at worst
short flights long nights
It seems to be 3 months from early cases back to few cases based on China, Korea and even Iran is seeing a drop /slow down. THE question is the one of a second wave - if it doesn't happen we should be opening up from June/July - a second wave and all bets are off until there is either a jab or everyone has had it.
We just cancelled two business class returns to Europe, train in germany, car hire for six weeks, accomodation in Italy, Sicily and Sardinia, four overnight ferries, yacht charter for two weeks in Croatia, a week in venice, sicily and elsewhere, two Vietnam domestic flights and a week in Nha Trang. Now multiply by tens of thousands of similar vacations and you get a picture of the impact of this bug.
Even if a miracle cure was found tomorrow, it’s going to take a year to get back to “normal”. If there is such a thing.....
Even if a miracle cure was found tomorrow, it’s going to take a year to get back to “normal”. If there is such a thing.....
Nunc est bibendum
On a positive note, all places of worship are closed as of midday 23 March. About time! Maybe Scomo will also take their untaxed wealth and use that money to help prop up the country? Then when the crisis has passed, don’t let them reopen their doors! Imagine that, Scomo the modern day Robin Hood. He would get more votes next election than one thought possible.
Most churches closed for worship before 23 March- certainly Sydney Anglicans didn’t hold face to face services yesterday. Majority of churches had video links up and going. That will be unchanged moving forward.
A number of churches have volunteers and paid workers in the community assisting those who are required to self-isolate. That workload will only increase now with restrictions on other businesses. This is on top of the ‘normal’ workload assisting a number of vulnerable people in our community.
‘Untaxed wealth’. Lol. You obviously don’t know a whole lot about how most church finances are set up.
tens of thousands of similar vacations
We just cancelled two business class returns to Europe, train in germany, car hire for six weeks, accomodation in Italy, Sicily and Sardinia, four overnight ferries, yacht charter for two weeks in Croatia, a week in venice, sicily and elsewhere, two Vietnam domestic flights and a week in Nha Trang. Now multiply by tens of thousands of similar vacations and you get a picture of the impact of this bug.
Even if a miracle cure was found tomorrow, it’s going to take a year to get back to “normal”. If there is such a thing.....
Even if a miracle cure was found tomorrow, it’s going to take a year to get back to “normal”. If there is such a thing.....
The shape of tourism and leisure flying has changed for a l-o-n-g time
I did wonder when sitting in a 100 seat jet flying to a mine site would be deemed as undesireable
BHP is putting on 1500 casual employees for the next 6 months to preserve the integrity of their operations. It looks like China is conducting an infrastructure stimulus to restart their economy, so Iron Ore at least should be in demand.
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It looks like China is conducting an infrastructure stimulus to restart their economy, so Iron Ore at least should be in demand.
I don't think there would be 10 of thousands of similar vacations to that.
I'm yet to cancel my flight to Europe in July, but it is looking more like a no-go. Rather than take a refund I've decided I will roll the dates into next year and hope for the best.
When all this is over we should send China the bill.
When all this over Sunny we'd all like a copy of that awesome itinerary.
I'm yet to cancel my flight to Europe in July, but it is looking more like a no-go. Rather than take a refund I've decided I will roll the dates into next year and hope for the best.
When all this over Sunny we'd all like a copy of that awesome itinerary.
I'm yet to cancel my flight to Europe in July, but it is looking more like a no-go. Rather than take a refund I've decided I will roll the dates into next year and hope for the best.
as for July 2020 trip to Europe. No hope. Rebook for either May/ June or late August/ September next year. July is horrendous in Europe. It is absolute peak period. Unbelievable crowded and twice as expensive. Huge queues for tourist attractions. Even with probably reduced numbers next year.
Alan Joyce's bloodthirst for Virgin collapse - Joe Aston Columnist
Financial Review - 23/03/2020
Six years since he asked the federal government to save him, Joyce now reckons that “when good companies have managed their position very well, the government should let them manage their way through this”.
Some quotes above from the Financial Review columnist Joe Aston in a scathing assessment of Alan Joyce portraying him as avaricious, rapacious and possessing selective memory.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has never been one to waste a crisis. And since the novel coronavirus completely shuttered the travel industry, you’d expect an airline boss to feel a little jumpy.
Nevertheless, Joyce’s performance on Friday morning television – in which he warned the Morrison government against bailing out “the badly managed companies which have been badly managed for 10 years”, i.e. Virgin Australia – was exceptionally inelegant.
He was overreacting to a comment piece in that day’s The Australian which imagined that “some companies may end up having to be nationalised, if even only temporarily” and that “Virgin could be one example” because “there is no way [the government] will allow Australia to return to a virtual single-carrier environment in a post-virus world”.
Joyce’s initial comments on Sky – that Canberra “can’t pick winners and losers; whatever aid is given to one particular company … has to be given to everybody in that sector” – would’ve sufficed perfectly. But Joyce’s shortcoming has always been in craving a needless fight.
Nevertheless, Joyce’s performance on Friday morning television – in which he warned the Morrison government against bailing out “the badly managed companies which have been badly managed for 10 years”, i.e. Virgin Australia – was exceptionally inelegant.
He was overreacting to a comment piece in that day’s The Australian which imagined that “some companies may end up having to be nationalised, if even only temporarily” and that “Virgin could be one example” because “there is no way [the government] will allow Australia to return to a virtual single-carrier environment in a post-virus world”.
Joyce’s initial comments on Sky – that Canberra “can’t pick winners and losers; whatever aid is given to one particular company … has to be given to everybody in that sector” – would’ve sufficed perfectly. But Joyce’s shortcoming has always been in craving a needless fight.
Short memory
By Joyce’s seventh year, he’d delivered $2.6 billion of accumulated losses and was begging Tony Abbott to pick winners and losers by extending him a $3 billion loan guarantee. And after 11 years, Joyce has accumulated net profits of only $1.75 billion – a factoid easy to forget when you see his remuneration ($92 million and counting), but crucial to remember when he critiques other companies “which have been badly managed for 10 years”.Six years since he asked the federal government to save him, Joyce now reckons that “when good companies have managed their position very well, the government should let them manage their way through this”.
His sudden aversion to any Commonwealth assistance is astonishing but welcome. Qantas could scarcely accept public cash only five months since his chairman Richard Goyder boasted that “at the end of this latest buyback, we’ll have bought back almost one-third of our shares since 2015 – the most of any company in the ASX All Ordinaries”.
Yep, that’s $3.2 billion of excess cash (on top of dividends) it returned to shareholders, or almost how much passenger revenue Qantas will suddenly forgo this March, April and May. Handing it over (while reducing its own share count) massively juiced the airline’s share price and total shareholder returns, upon which Joyce’s bonuses are explicitly calculated. Thus management is incentivised not to save cash for a rainy day – nor, indeed, to reinvest profits productively, as Treasurer Josh Frydenberg pleaded in August.
Yep, that’s $3.2 billion of excess cash (on top of dividends) it returned to shareholders, or almost how much passenger revenue Qantas will suddenly forgo this March, April and May. Handing it over (while reducing its own share count) massively juiced the airline’s share price and total shareholder returns, upon which Joyce’s bonuses are explicitly calculated. Thus management is incentivised not to save cash for a rainy day – nor, indeed, to reinvest profits productively, as Treasurer Josh Frydenberg pleaded in August.
Some quotes above from the Financial Review columnist Joe Aston in a scathing assessment of Alan Joyce portraying him as avaricious, rapacious and possessing selective memory.
Hopefully the world has learnt a lesson about putting all your eggs in one basket (Chinese manufacturing) in a globalized marketplace. It's all well and good using cheap overseas labour to pad the profit margins of the one percent even further, but when everything goes wheels up, there has to be a Plan B.
When the dust finally settles, I hope that some first world countries consider re-establishing their own internal manufacturing base so that we are not all totally reliant on China. At the very least, the world has to pressure the Chinese government to close live animal markets (and keep them closed) FOREVER. They had a warning when SARS emerged in 2005 and didn't heed it. After all of this disruption, suffering and grief, it simply has to happen this time.
PS The descriptions of Joyce left out "sociopath" from the list.
When the dust finally settles, I hope that some first world countries consider re-establishing their own internal manufacturing base so that we are not all totally reliant on China. At the very least, the world has to pressure the Chinese government to close live animal markets (and keep them closed) FOREVER. They had a warning when SARS emerged in 2005 and didn't heed it. After all of this disruption, suffering and grief, it simply has to happen this time.
PS The descriptions of Joyce left out "sociopath" from the list.
