Oh dear, another shutdown looming to save money. Was radical last time, hard to better that effort.:=

Perhaps he will be recruited by the England cricket team as the new coach to replace Mr Flower. His ideas might even reflect a win:ugh:

Angryrat - you had a crack at Nikki over this whole `pilots et al on the Board; thing, saying she didn't know much about what a Board does?
Errm, I think that'd be you me old four striped, aviator and David Clark wearing friend (or maybe you have one of those really cool telephony type headsets).
Boards govern.
They don't get involved in the operational nitty gritty.
That's the role of management.
So the proper place for your non-union pilot is on the management committee, with big Al and everyone else.
Check out Dave Morgan (or organ with an `M' as he describes himself) over the ditch.
The Exec committee develops the wonderful ideas along with their minions, and some poor pr!ck then writes the Board paper and the preso.
The Board signs off.
And if you think it should be different., then you don't know anything about Corporate Governance.
That's how it works - even at QF.

The federal court legend.......
 

The longer the silence is, the more left of field the announcement will be, I fear.

The following represents the reason for such silence. This hiccup wasn't in the script. This was where the top 100 were to all waltz into federal court crying into there hands, must have been the damn unions again. The judge in this ruled a deal is a deal......Damn right it is......

Toyota would not comment on the vote it wanted to put to workers, having issued a statement this week saying it was ''disappointed'' with the union, and that a vote against changing their workplace agreement could put an end to Toyota building cars in Australia.

Read more: Toyota waits on Federal Court ruling over union pay deal

And then it gets to court, and blow me down, if its not work choices by stealth, and it was coming to a work place near you......

A FEDERAL Court judge has blocked Toyota from seeking employees' votes on a new package which would cut entitlements, ruling the auto giant had breached the Fair Work Act.

:D:=

Waren9

You say that “the genius/idiot argument yet to be resolved” for you, but in the same post you explain alternatives that result in AJ winning either way.

I reckon it would take a really special kind of idiot to be able to maneuver himself into a multi-million dollar ‘win / win’ situation. Either that, or AJ has control of a bunch of even bigger idiots.

I do hope the ‘employee buy out’ plan comes to fruition. Management of the airline would then become the best entertainment around. :ok:

I'd keep your opinions in Salt Lake if I were you.

Tartare, as far as I'm aware a Board of Directors is supposed to overlook a company and what it does, how on earth could you possibly overlook a company in an industry that you've never worked in before?

An excerpt from the Constitution of Qantas Airways:
"The Directors are responsible for managing the business of Qantas and may exercise to the exclusion of the members in general meeting all the powers of Qantas which are not required by the Corporations Act, by the listing Rules or by this Constitution to be exercised by the members in general meeting"

The Business of Qantas is Aviation, who better to Manage the Business of Qantas then than those with real Operational Experience?

I think AngryRat is quite correct, why should we not have a few "Inside Directors" whom have knowledge of the Industry that has been gained after many years of actually working within it and whom holds other degrees/experience that is relevant to their duties as a Director? Is this not what an "Inside Director" is?

An excerpt from the Qantas Corporate Governance Webpage:
"The Board comprises a majority of independent Non-Executive Directors who, together with the Executive Directors, have extensive commercial experience and bring independence, accountability and judgement to the Board's deliberations to ensure maximum benefit to stakeholders including shareholders, customers, suppliers, employees, government regulators and members of the community where Qantas operates."

Infact looking at their Board of Directors it seems that there are only a few with actual Aviation experience:

Richard Goodmanson who was CEO of America West Airlines, an Airline which has apparently spent a reasonable number of years in Bankruptcy, was involved in the 1989 Strikes as they were part owned by Ansett, were involved in a couple of scandals resulting in large fines was apparently on the verge of being grounded back in 2000.

William Meany, who was Managing Director and Chief Commercial Officer of Swiss International Airlines, yet another Airline that spent a fair number of years Bankrupt but which has apparently managed to come good after being part bought out, it is unclear though whether he worked for them before or after they went bankrupt so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and was with South African Airways who seem to do alright, maybe he'll do some good, he hasn't been there long!

Barbara Ward, who was CEO of Ansett Worldwide Aviation Services, a Leasing Company, no more, no less.

As you can see, only 3 people with previous Aviation Experience and they were in those positions with no previous experience, just appointed it would seem. So I ask you Tartare, why would you put a group of people with no actual coal face experience in Aviation be ultimately in charge? Because that is what the Board of Directors is, Ultimately in charge, if the group is taking the wrong path, wasting money, doing poorly, it should be their duty to identify why and force the Management to get it back on track.

Perhaps if this not the way it currently works then perhaps this is how it SHOULD work, why not introduce some kind of Supervisory Board? Why not have a group of actual Workers who understand the day to day running of the company and the challenges that face them with some sort of power so as to not have all the power centered around a group of "Non-executive" Directors?

This in my opinion is the problem with MBAs in general, something you alluded to in an earlier post. For the most part they seem to believe that an education in Business Administration means they are able to run a company with no real understanding of the Industry in which their Business operates and this is their folly. I'm only young but I've personally had to deal with 2 of these creatures and have nothing but contempt for them, they were fools who blinded the Owners with glossy polished bulls**t and effectively took already well run businesses and made them far more complicated and reliant on themselves to secure their position to no real gain for the business and an effective loss in the form of their salaries which should have gone to the people actually doing the job of keeping everything running smoothly despite their disruptive influences.

A question for you, why do companies not take those Employees who show exceptional skills and loyalty to the company and put them through an MBA with the intention of putting their experience within the company and industry to use along with their new skills gained through an MBA? I remember hearing this used to happen once upon a time, take someone with the Industry and Company Experience and then through an MBA course or some such give them the additional skills to become part of Management.

Now we simply have Career Politicians, Career Directors, Career Management, people who are there through no real skill or experience but simply through contacts and sheer luck and most riding on the back of well established companies and businesses that were formed and run by those that came up through the ranks. Mind you, this is not all management, just it would seem the vast majority.

Also, please ignore the confrontational nature of my entire post, I sort of got to the end and realised lack of sleep has added an angry edge but alas I CBF to retype it to sound less so and yes I realise a lot of what I've typed will probably be wrong and I await to be schooled in it, such is the way of life and no one should be above learning a new way of doing or viewing something.

Interesting post Ixixly well thought out and shows the real issues at QF.

In many industries this is the norm. Banking, Mining, Insurance, IT, Supermarkets, Engineering etc

Unfortunately the major problem in aviation is that generally speaking Pilots and Engineers don't really want to quit their line jobs to sit behind a desk. That unfortunately is a unique problem with aviation. As a result the standard of pilot managers is generally poor as the wrong people are promoted.

I would also imagine that for a line captain to quit his flying job and progress through the management ranks would result in a pay cut.

I was told once by a very successful businessman.....Companies have managers and managers have directors. Directors dictate to their managers what to do with the companys.

I guess the hint is in their name... "Directors"....

You all seem to assume I regard you with contempt because you sit in seats 0A and 0B.
I don't at all.
But I think you need to stop viewing the white shirt, tie wearers with contempt.
I'm one of them.
Yet I can argue the operational detail of aviation with you `til the cows come home... from heavys through to fast jets.
For me, one of the most wonderful things I've ever read, is the slogan of the EAA - in the US.
It simply says "When did you know?"
I knew when I first flew in an NAC 737 as a child.
That'll give you all an idea of how old I am.
On corporate Governance - as pilots, you DO have a place in the running of your company.
But in my humble opinion - it is not on the Board of QF.
The Board's role in any business is to represent investors.
It's job is to ask the naive lay-person questions of management that experts would not, for fear of being exposed as fools.
So with genuine respect gentlemen and ladies of the cockpit, the place for the rare beast of a management pilot who knows the operational detail of how to fly long-haul, is not a union hard man, or woman, and is open to learning about the perilous financial complexities of running an airline - is on the Executive Committee.
And - you can still fly line - or you should be able to.
I sat behind Morgan on a descent into AKL in a lovely 777 just before I left.
He was laughing about how he should have been able to remember the company procedures because he wrote them all.
Was also due to meet with the Exec committee on Monday morning.
And then we crossed 10,000 feet - sterile cockpit - and it all went very businesslike.
It can be done.

No offence Tartare, but I'm sure that there are plenty of former fast jet drivers following this, and if they've also seen threads like

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...ought-jsf.html

then there might be a few raised eyebrows. Nothing wrong with asking questions, but if you think you can argue the operational details of fast jets 'til the cows come home, when a couple of weeks ago you'd never even heard of John Boyd and didn't know that the F-14 was the USN alternative to the F-111B, then you're having a bit of a lend of yourself. Where that leaves your credibility on all the other stuff is not for me to say.

Jack of all trades, master of none

In 2010 Nick Xenophon proposed an amendment to the Qantas Sale Act ensuring that a person with Engineering background and Operational/Pilot background be appointed to the board and this would be written into the Act. Ignored of course by the Minister of "do nothing" Mr Albanese. While the corporate structure of Qantas and the Constitution is written to allow for this it has been proved by the last three CEOs (Strong as well) that this system does not work and it has accelerated exponentially in recent times with a certain Chairman who is a self-confessed aviation novice and both him and the CEO are running roughshod over everyone that has a differing opinion(not unlike in Germany in the 1930s and 40s). This will get worse before it gets better because there is nothing wrong with the IR laws/workers in this land but there is a hell of a lot wrong with Management and Corporate Governance and that will take a while to change.
As for PW he is another example of the sycophant culture that exists at Qantas. Personally I encourage debate as it creates a healthier and more resilient culture/business.The Australian dollar will hit 70c or below in the not to distant future and along with massive unemployment Australians will become competitive and Holden closure will be seen as a stupid decision by a Treasurer who is clearly out of his depth.
Germany is a great example of what can be achieved by having workers represented on the board. Lufthansa is still run by Engineers/Pilots and has broadened it revenue base and while not what it used to be is still Investment grade even through it's costs are double that of Qantas. It has broadened its expertise using it's own name not trying to kill it.

Having a pilot and an engineer on the board probably won't accomplish anything. Think Chris Manning and an engineering equivalent.

Business acumen doesn't just grow on trees, and any chump can get daddy to put them through Harvard, so I agree that a pilot or engineer per se, should be on the Board, but it should be the right pilot or engineer.

Fair point itsnotthathard.
Written late at night.
If you read a bit further up the John Boyd post you'll also see I was quite open about the fact that I am not and have never been a fast jet pilot... as I have been in other posts.
In fact I asked to be corrected if I was wrong.
I guess what I should have written is that I have a great interest in the operational details of fast jet flying.
R/e airline flying and corporate governance - the rest of you can be the judge on whether I know what I'm talking about or not.

Boards represent shareholders. That is their role, just as unions represent employees who choose to have this representation.

AJ deserves to be sacked by the board because he has failed to deliver value to shareholders; in fact he has destroyed shareholder wealth. He has also achieved a trifecta by disengaging employees and alienating customers but the board should be representing the shareholders and fire him on the first criteria alone.

Problem is he has LC's backing, and LC is chairman of the board. LC is just as guilty as AJ, if not more so, and he's a lot harder to get rid of than a CEO.

That's why I used the term "equivalent" and the word "Virgin" not Virgin Tech.

Once you build up the model of how Virgin, as a whole, get their engineering done, as a whole, they utilise far fewer FTEs than QF on a scaled basis. QF can't even get the economies of scale for overhead and other costs to work for them.

LC may be backing AJ but the "independent" directors need to take a stand very soon. If, as some are forecasting, QF ends up being sold off to a private equity organisation some of these directors should be very scared about a class action from small shareholders who come after them claiming their interests were not protected.

I bet the annual premium on QAN's Directors and Officers Insurance is about to take a hike.

Aussie Qantas says using butter from Denmark helps the Aussie transport industry. Aussie farmers, not so much. - Michael Smith News

It's possible that Brigitte doesn't realise it, but she has given all Australians a useful template on which to commence further correspondence with Qantas.

Dear Qantas,
Thank you for your advertising campaign about your Australian-ness.
We appreciate your decision to put ads in the paper. While you talk about your greatness, Singapore Airlines has much better service, lower fares and they are not so up themselves.
I can assure you that most Australians would never compromise on ideals like the undesirability of getting involved with Islamists - and Singapore Airlines seems to be able to make its way without compromising its own morality in that regard. We also feel that using Singapore Airlines has a positive impact on other Australian industries dependent on reliable service and getting there on time.

Bull**** ads not backed up by action like yours are always appreciated by an Australian public after a good laugh, so we are dead-set pissing ourselves that you reckon you need handouts while you pay for laugh-a-thons in the paper.

While we have no plans to change our airline travel back to you, we have lined the bottom of the cocky's cage with the newspaper and he's ripped into your red ad with gay abandon.

Thank you again for living the brand values.

Have a nice day.

Michael Smith News

The story and subject matter sums up the Qantas attitude well.

What on earth is keeping Alan Joyce and Leigh Clifford in place? Have the other directors no spines at all? When will one/some of them stand up against Clifford, move a motion of no confidence against the chair, and vote to sack Joyce?

What are we missing here? Is there some secret grand plan being executed with acute precision that sees QF returning to profit, paying shareholder dividends again, and starting to eat its competition? At what point must the ASX be informed about such matters?

Somebody? Anybody? Bueller?

Plan was to run Virgin out of cash, create a monopoly, make big profits. Lots of desperate re-planning taking place now behind closed doors. Many big announcements to come over next 6 months.

VH-Cheerup, why bother making a fuss when you're going to be paid anyway? Probably what LC is telling them in their well catered meetings "Just sit tight everyone, don't bother making a fuss or you'll be gotten rid of, we want 'enthusiastic' members who are 'part of the team' and willing to play ball!" at which point they all go back to feeding from the trough...

At the risk of assigning patterns to randomness, perhaps there are a few clues for the preliminary post-mortem.

Post #1195

• Borghetti "knows" this - he understands the thinking in QF HQ. He knows how they break out the figures on competitors. In short, he knows QF's "know knows".
• Borgehetti probably has a good idea of the QF accounts & can reverse engineer the annual ASX figures to assess the true state of QF internals, again, knowing their thinking.
• Borghetti "knows" that Joyce would hold the 65% line in the sand and fight to the death.
• Borghetti knows that any over-capacity hurts QF more than Virgin (QANTAS Domestic chief executive Lyell Strambi has thrown down the gauntlet to competitor Virgin Australia, warning that he will add two planes for each one the smaller airline adds to protect the flying kangaroo's patch). ie every unit of over-capacity hurts QF twice as much.
• Borghetti probably hypothesises that Joyce wants to see Virgin killed Ansett style. Oldmate nails it:
  Quote:

  ---

  Originally Posted by Oldmate

  Plan was to run Virgin out of cash, create a monopoly, make big profits.

  ---

• Recalling Sun Tzu “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.” he just has to appear like things are grim. Of course, Borghetti has already tapped his shareholders for pre-approval, but not implemented the capital raising.
• Borghetti has set the trap for Joyce, sits back and waits. Joyce keeps punching, burning the cash pile. Just when Virgin appears to be out of cash, it raises capital.
• Joyce realises the trap, spits the dummy & cries foul. He then realised he has been outfoxed by Borghetti.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Lightning doesn't strike twice and VA is a much more viable business model than AN was in its dying days. The big shareholders were always going to support it. If AJ thought otherwise, he is a dill.

Tartare, if the pilots ran their flight decks, like the suits ran the actual airline, then we would have to expect more than one of aircraft shaped smoking black holes, decorating the landscape. You should understand, that the majority of Pilots and Engineers are frustrated, because the sheer nature of their jobs, require discipline, ability to make good decisions at the right time, ability to think quickly and on their feet, to make rational decisions, and to know when to pull back. They expect the CEO and the board to have the same ability, to have the ability they are paid to have, and yet the whole box and dice is forever in trouble, with poor decisions, from the failure to buy the B777, the firing of good experienced staff, causing disunity with staff, Jetstar Asia, and on and on it goes. For people who have to constantly make good, rational decisions, its frustrating to say the least, and even more frustrating, is the fact that their jobs seem to be forever on the line, because of the stupidity of the suits.

Couldn't agree more Ida.
But I'd offer a slightly different perspective.
Someone once said to me airline pilots are by nature cautious, conservative, meticulous.
If they're not, people die.
But the business side of running an airline often counter- intuitively demands different and sometimes opposite skills, which most pilots (not all) find it hard to get their head around.
The person who said that to me was one Robert Ian Fyfe.
Noting that - it's surprising to learn that you do not have a flying management pilot with a formal position at Exco level - as far as I can see.
Very surprising indeed.

You could always try and poach Willie Walsh from IAG, but I suspect you may not enjoy the ruthless sorting out that QF might get as a result.

I suspect QF would emerge, after some pain, to be a better, leaner, financially stronger company.

.....and I believe Walsh was formerly a Pilot, so would satisfy some of your cravings for a Pilot at the top!

Nikki_In_Oz, I think you'd find the Pilot group and Qantas as a whole would be fine with what you're suggesting so long as it wasn't veiled behind great mounds of bulls**t with the company being treated like Mushrooms. That, IMHO, is the biggest issue right now, how the current Management treat everyone like fools, they try to feed us all their crud and just expect us to swallow it. If they were more open and honest I think you'd find the Company far more willing to sacrifice for the greater good.

Personally, I don't really care if there's a pilot on the board or exco or wherever (and considering some of the likely candidates among our management pilots, it might be better if they weren't). I just think it'd be nice to have someone who was interested in actually running the joint properly, rather than carrying on with the pointless and destructive smartarsery we've seen for the last few years.

Heard an interesting angle today.

The JQ franchise steamroller thru Asia has been put on hold.

Hrdlicka was confident the JQ HKG venture would be flying by years end.

Regulatory delays have taken the wind out of those sails.

JQ has had to concentrate on it's current franchises, rather than continue work on planned new ventures.

Poor Alan.

if, by years end she means 2014, she might be closer to the mark.

She meant to say " by worlds end" :rolleyes:

Ixixy has hit the nail on the head.

Remember, there is only one letter difference between running a company and ruining one, maybe when little Al signed on the dotted line he misread or missed pronounced his contract details. :suspect:

Utter rubbish!

It was/is a simple game of who blinks first. QF want (need) the 65% line, they thought they could sustain capacity growth to hold the line until DJ blinked and backed off. Joyce admitted as such that he would be very very happy to keep it that way with zero domestic growth. The problem is that DJ now has more capital backing to crack the 65% line and QF can no longer afford to hold it; as less than 65% causes a lot of problems to QF.

Joyce cannot accept less than 65% because Jetstar makes up a significant part of that 65%. Jetstar has gotten so big that the 65% is necessary to keep frequency of QF against DJ for the business (super profit) market. Joyce is trapped, he wants to grow Jetstar, but he cannot because that would mean giving up more QF market share as DJ adds capacity. He cannot shrink Jetstar as the cost base for domestic then goes up as it has been neglected for too long. It's a lose lose situation for Joyce.

I actually think the whole Dixon v Joyce spat comes down to this. Dixon knew that growing Jetstar too much domestically was a mistake. It is the domestic market that matters, as the international market contains too many unknowns for even Dixon. The idea that the Dixon/Joyce spat was over the Emirates deal is just a smokescreen. It is all about the domestic market and Dixon could see where it was headed. Dixon knows Borghetti very very well and could see how he would lead Joyce into the trap with Joyce believing Jetstar would solve everything.

Virgins interest in Tiger just reinforces the paranoia at QF. There is no way Tiger will ever be but a small player in the Virgin arsenal. Borghetti is way too smart to let Tiger grow the way jetstar did.

Perhaps someone who wants to run Qantas, primarily, as an Airline....not as just a business.

...although they aren't doing too well at that either....

Tartare, I am sure QF do have both pilots and engineers, who are more than suitable, to take up executive positions within the company. Major positions. But they also probably reason, that it would be equivalent to going out and constantly bashing their collective heads against the garage door, and the extra money and stress would not be worth it. As I stated earlier, up until the 80's anything to do with flight WAS run by Pilots and Engineers, and remarkably well, and then the bean counters took over. The results speak for themselves. Ansett, gone, TAA merged, QF in deep ****e. All since the 80's. The reality is until you get rid of this incompetent board, until you put in a CEO, who really knows their stuff, eg:Gail Kelly, et al, who recognises their staff's worth, and who would be willing to put a Senior Pilot and Engineer in a advisory position, along with other people who actually know what they are doing, and are well versed in foresight, insight, and competence, QF will continue to go along like a duck, appear to working on the surface, but paddling like buggery underneath.

Willie Walsh...yes he is a former pilot but another Irishman? Even the Irish admit themselves that the Irish think they are god's gift to aviation but they are not...They are full of it however:ok:

You need a CEO and senior management that are not driven by the bonus culture. Ie. paid salaries and thats it, from the Ceo down.
Should pilots get a bonus for not crashing?
If the board, in their current self induced crisis,had the balls and implemented that for starters, a lot of issues would not occur if there was a collective longer term vision.
And any exec bleating that the bonus structure is there is to attract "the best" can be the first to go.:mad:
"The best" have had their time and well and truly screwed the pooch.