Any chance QF would rejig their bid and just go after Bravo Airlines?

Leaves the FIFO competition as it is and QF pick up another cut price jet operation.

GN,

that makes a WHOLE LOT of sense to me . . . . watch this space.

Oz2

I may have been hiding under a rock, but why would QF go after a Spanish airline?

I can't see them just buying Bravo. The core FIFO op is a goldmine of solid, guaranteed revenues, a Fokker fleet of scale (with the path towards replacing them with E190s), plus buying a much larger range of contracts, fleet and bases that Network couldn't replicate on its own. It's not just about access to another cheap set of drivers for the RPT operation.

Might be interesting to see if Qantas try to allay the ACCC's concerns by offering cheap E190 leases or sales to Cobham/Rex and Airnorth to allow them to scale up and bid for more FIFO contracts. Only issue is that Rio have just gone through a major procurement of their air services, so there isn't immediate opportunity for those guys to pick up a big chunk of work from the top end of town.

I doubt that would cut the mustard. It is very hard to see how QF can restructure the deal to overcome the existing concerns. There is no way the government/ACCC want to wave through a deal that results in a single player have 75% of the market.
The market currently has Alliance's share price around $1.30 under Qantas' offer price which suggests the market has decided it won't happen. There is no way the market would walk away from such an obvious arbitrage if it thought there was any chance of it happening.

What is Bravo anyway? What assets do they have?

Bravo is all the E190's innit?

I don’t think they own them? Or an AOC? Aren’t they just a bunch of pilot contracts featuring non-monetary incentives?

Even if the ACCC allows this the big miners won't. They will start their own airline if need be. They hate supplier monopolies whether be unions or businesses noone gets to have one.
So if QF do get this through just watch for a new charter business start up in BNE or PER and suddenly pick up a few lucrative contracts out of nowhere.

Where is the monopoly?

There are the Qantas owned companies. There is VA and VARA. There is REX and the NJE FIFO/Freight unit.

Three companies, made up of different business units.

Has the AFAP or TWU made a submission to the ACCC regarding this hostile takeover?

I can see very little benefit to the overall pilot community if yet another pilot group is controlled by Qantas. Imagine getting sacked from a QF group company. Without Alliance as an independent company it would make finding future employment in Australia that much more difficult. It would make moving to other entities (including mainline) significantly more difficult as well.

Qantas's proposed acquisition of Alliance is most assuredly not a 'hostile takeover'. The Scheme of Implementation Deed that would give effect to the acquisition was approved by the Alliance board.

So someone who gets sacked from one airline in the group (with good cause I’d take it), which denies them employment in the rest of the group. But then they’ll just waltz over to Alliance or VA or another carrier and expect them to hire them without that airline conducting the most basic reference check? Or will they tell their new employer the truth why they were terminated and expect them to not see it as an issue?

What percentage of the market will be owned by QF though and what sort of market power will they have? Sure it’s technically not a monopoly but I reckon none of the big miners will be a fan. They want maximum competition in their supply chain.

Townsville Mayor knows what’s best for the aviation industry
 

Sorry, the link is behind a paywall and I’m not going to take out a subscription to a two-bit regional rag, but apparently Townsville’s bogan Mayor, Jenny Hill, aka ‘The Mullet’, reckons such a deal will be devastating to the regions. It’s not the first time she has poked the Roo in the eye. She has either a big set or nuts or she is brain damaged. Love Qantas or hate them, if you piss them off enough, you will feel the brunt of them. My money is on her being a complete moron.

https://www.townsvillebulletin.com.a...30a-1662031385

The only Pilot group wanting this takeover to happen are the alliance Pilots. The improvements to staff travel makes people blind to the reality.

Staff travel isn't as great as outsiders think it is. If the airline paid us an extra $x I'd happily give it up.

What x is depends on your staff travel experience. Ruin a few family holidays and x becomes pretty low.

Ask the NJS crew what their welcome to Qxxxxx experience was like..

Not at all correct!

I always ask my friends and colleagues how many times a year they avail themselves of staff travel, the answer is always a very low number.

you couldn't be more incorrect. I know a lot of crew there and none of them want anything to do with Qantas