Nah ya can't make money on the 380 over ten hours

My mates a 777 captain. Told me

Monopoly helps :D

Steve might have been on to something with regards to the aging frames: https://www.theage.com.au/business/c...30-p535xo.html

Translation: The wing won't fall off.....yet. Safety is our number one priority, after executive remuneration.

Not sure how Steve’s comments to ground the ENTIRE 737 fleet over the pickle fork issue is going to help the engineers and pilots who will sitting around doing nothing with no overtime, bills to pay, etc. Seems a little flippant following his level headed article this thread discusses. The FAA directive allows them 7 months to inspect. But then again the FAA lacks credibility right now so how can you trust them?

But its OK to ground the entire QANTAS fleet because of difficult market conditions?

Poor article by the biggest own goal kicker in Australian industrial relations history.

Agree that no one is really worth $24m/year remuneration. Thats a solid starting point.

However the selective choice of facts damages the credibility of his subsequent arguments.

Fair comparison on fleet age would be British Airways - big legacy airline, full service, covering domestic and international flying, similar tax environment. Their average fleet age is 13.7 years. Bang - that point is lost Mr Purvinas, case dismissed.

Did Senior Management also have a pay freeze. Yes. Bang - point lost again - case dismissed.

Mr Purvinas does not seem to understand the difference between cashflow and accounting or is choosing to mislead the reader. If Qantas was to spend $1bn on new aircraft this year, it would not take $1bn off the bottom line. The new aircraft are depreciated over 20 years so in simple profit and loss figures, the impact would be around $50m increase in depreciation (keeping it simple). This would be partly offset by lower operating costs and lower maintenance costs if its replacing an old aircraft or by increased revenue/margin if its an addition to the fleet. So the exact impact is not obvious but worst case its a $50m cost per year.

The underlying issue is that current accounting/tax rules essentially force an Australian airline to keep aircraft for 20 years otherwise they take a financial hit from retiring the aircraft early.

It could be argued that by not purchasing more new aircraft now, Joyce is doing future management a very big favour by not lumbering them with ongoing depreciation costs for aircraft that may become obsolete/inefficient in less that the required 20 year life of the aircraft. He is allowing future management the flexibility to purchase the most efficient and suitable aircraft at that time.

Lets not start that the "own goal kicker" appears to be advocating that QF should be replacing the current 737 fleet faster? That would have worked out real well if they had gone for the Max.

I have to wonder who the own goal kicker is really representing?. New aircraft = less maintenance whilst older aircraft = more maintenance = more work for the people he represents.

Keep the first two paragraphs and keep the last sentence.

The last sentence is a fair point:
"Even if Qantas was well run, I do not believe any one person deserves a yearly salary package that an average person couldn't spend in a lifetime."

Not quite. Their bonus was still paid as expected. Now if asking the staff to 'agree' to a pay freeze then surely accepting a bonus, in some cases a significantly increased bonus, is a little contradictory and does little for staff engagement.

“I have to wonder who the own goal kicker is really representing?. New aircraft = less maintenance whilst older aircraft = more maintenance = more work for the people he represents.”
It is a pathetic attempted payback for having his a*se well and truly kicked in 2011 and the subsequent loss of in the order of 5000 engineering jobs.

The problem with that argument is that how long is to long? Depending on what happens with the 737, if you wipe out a portion of your fleet with some AD then should have you waited 20 years to find a replacement?

By delaying purchasing new aircraft management also benefit from some supercharged bonuses in the meantime with their resignation occurring just in time for fleet replacement.

$54m of bonuses were paid to non management staff who accepted the pay freeze. Another convenient missing fact!

The other aspect of this is the constant bleating about safety... when something really serious comes along no one will listen because safety has been raised over and over again for industrial reasons.

As for those saying that Joyce grounded the fleet for industrial reasons, yeh, he also grounded the A380 until it was absolutely certain that the engine failure could not happen again... many other airlines - and some that are lauded as the best - did quick inspections and kept flying them... some said at the time they couldn't possibly have completed the inspections in the time. Don't get me wrong, I agree no one is worth $24M.

I think he lost me when he heaped Germany and Hong Kong in with the third world.
Media is also selective. Qantas does some maintenance off shore and as for the A380, the 747 was maintained by UA in SFO for the first 3-4 years Qantas had them as they only had 4 aircraft, yet VA does ALL its maintenance off shore and never a peep about that.

The fact is though that while new aircraft orders make for big headlines... "airline xx commits to $3BN order for new aircraft"... reality is they're not spending $3 billion in one hit, the aircraft are most likely leased, for an amount surely more than the cost of maintaining the older aircraft, at least initially and then the increased costs are offset by reduce maintenance and fuel costs as the lease continues.
Qantas is not going to 'spend' $15 billion or similar replacing aircraft, it will spend an incremental amount to lease the aircraft each year until it either owns them or disposes of them.

The legend tells lies and is a distorter of the facts. From tonight’s news quoting him
” as the FAA says this could cause loss of control and Qantas shouldn’t be flying them” unquote