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-   -   4 Corners this Monday (https://www.pprune.org/australia-new-zealand-pacific/648687-4-corners-monday.html)

Lead Balloon 13th Sep 2022 04:47

And now we're on to recycling. Is it a full moon?

Flying Binghi 13th Sep 2022 07:42


Originally Posted by Lead Balloon (Post 11295829)
I could have sworn last Monday's 4 Corners wasn't about the climate and weather...

If its the ABC it is always about global warming…:hmm:


And from the Qantas web site:

“…The Qantas Group commenced reporting its international emissions for CORSIA compliance from 1 January 2019, complementing the reporting of domestic emissions it has been conducting under the Australian Government’s National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme since 2009…”

https://www.qantas.com/au/en/qantas-...anet%3Aen%3Ann


Lead Balloon, the global warming crap supported by Joyce is one of the biggest threats to Oz aviation going forward. I would have thought you’d be interested to see just what sort of corruption the global warming ‘issue’ is founded on ?




:)

Lead Balloon 13th Sep 2022 08:08

And were those matters the subject of scrutiny during the 4 Corners program the (original) subject of this thread)?

Roller Merlin 13th Sep 2022 08:47

https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/09/13...valuing-staff/

AerialPerspective 13th Sep 2022 23:30


Originally Posted by lucille (Post 11293928)
On the topic of W&B, I’ve often wondered why manufacturers don’t install weight sensors in all the undercarriage bogeys.
You’d get an accurate Ramp weight and CG to compare with load sheet. Hmm… I may have inadvertently just answered my own question.

Qantas leased a Boeing 747-21AC from Martinair (PH-MCF) for a number of years. It was painted in a hybrid livery. It had sensors fitted (presumably on the landing gear) as the Flight Crew would always compare the readings to the Loadsheet, sometimes question it. My impression was that because of variances in passenger actual weight versus standard weights used, it was not that useful for anything but detecting gross errors, which to my recollection, there were not any.

43Inches 14th Sep 2022 00:12

On the point of standard weights, I have heard that audits conducted found them to be acceptable with no real issues. The main thing that has changed in the last 20 years is the charge for baggage issues, so that now everybody is trying to cram as much into overhead bins as they can. Carry on baggage is generally only accounted for an average of 5 kg per passenger. Its quite obvious that is now the minimum people are carting. I've never seen so many flights where cabin bags have to be put in the hold due to absolutely no more space in the cabin, esp on 737s.

Al E. Vator 14th Sep 2022 00:19

The saddest/most telling thing about the 4 Corners story was the last couple of quotes from staff:

”We feel like management hate us”

That sums up the way aviation management has evolved, particularly since the pilots dispute of 1989 and the privatisation of Australian/Qantas.
A similar thing has happened at Cathay Pacific recently, a textbook example of how to stuff up what was once a quality product. Invariably the cause is egotistical CEO’s, hellbent solely on shareholder returns and lining their own pockets.

The direct result is that inevitably the airline product suffers and once great airlines become mediocre at best.

Impractical and unrealistic to re-nationalise airlines (though we should have got a stake in QF after that huge government capital injection) but there’s got to be some circuit breaker to halt this corporate greed.

Al E. Vator 14th Sep 2022 00:22

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....55b2e6bb7.jpeg

Paragraph377 14th Sep 2022 01:01


Originally Posted by Al E. Vator (Post 11296443)

This has become the standard and it’s nothing new. Whoever took the photo is lucky they didn’t shove their hand down between the seat cushions, and whatever you do, never use the feral food tray - even if it ‘looks’ clean, by Christ it isn’t. In the good old days of the Ansett and Qantas duopoly most aircraft would undergo a thorough internal clean after the last flight of the night. First flight of the morning would be in a mostly clean, crisp aircraft. Today, it’s all aboard the ‘Salmonella Express’.

43Inches 14th Sep 2022 02:10

The other thing that you probably don't want to know is how often do the seats even get the slightest attention. QF has gone back to cloth seats so you can guarantee you are surrounded by whatever has gone before and is trapped in those fibers. At least the Leather seats you could wipe down with disinfectant every now and then, not surer they even do that. All you have to do is check out the windows for the grimy hair and face residues from previous passengers to have an idea of what soils the seats your head and backside are rubbing into. I've seen some pretty nasty stuff on seats, from urine, to blood to stuff I can't identify, usually a quick wipe to remove the visible evidence, and sounds like QF were using water wet cloths at best. I remember the days they had the small replaceable head covers on the seats, with velcro so they could be changed. Now your hair just wipes in whatever was before.

laardvark 14th Sep 2022 04:52


Originally Posted by Paragraph377 (Post 11293385)
His handshake would be like grabbing hold of a wet salmon. A little weed of a man feeling all mighty and powerful while sitting upon his protected Mascot throne. But place him in the real world and he would tremble and shiver like a scared little child.

i didn't realise how big his head is till that video .
its huge .

Flying Binghi 14th Sep 2022 05:20


Originally Posted by 43Inches (Post 11296463)
The other thing that you probably don't want to know is how often do the seats even get the slightest attention. QF has gone back to cloth seats so you can guarantee you are surrounded by whatever has gone before and is trapped in those fibers. At least the Leather seats you could wipe down with disinfectant every now and then, not surer they even do that. All you have to do is check out the windows for the grimy hair and face residues from previous passengers to have an idea of what soils the seats your head and backside are rubbing into. I've seen some pretty nasty stuff on seats, from urine, to blood to stuff I can't identify, usually a quick wipe to remove the visible evidence, and sounds like QF were using water wet cloths at best. I remember the days they had the small replaceable head covers on the seats, with velcro so they could be changed. Now your hair just wipes in whatever was before.

…all which partly explains why some have their own aircraft..:cool:

Paragraph377 14th Sep 2022 09:23


Originally Posted by laardvark (Post 11296485)
i didn't realise how big his head is till that video .
its huge .

Ha Ha, that’s funny. Yep, I noticed that also, and the weird thing is that I’ve met him in person and don’t recall his melon looking so big. Perhaps it has grown as he ages? A giant head on tiny shoulders, like an orange sitting on top of a toothpick!

Flying Binghi 18th Sep 2022 21:59


Originally Posted by Al E. Vator (Post 11296441)
The saddest/most telling thing about the 4 Corners story was the last couple of quotes from staff:

”We feel like management hate us”

That sums up the way aviation management has evolved, particularly since the pilots dispute of 1989 and the privatisation of Australian/Qantas.
A similar thing has happened at Cathay Pacific recently, a textbook example of how to stuff up what was once a quality product. Invariably the cause is egotistical CEO’s, hellbent solely on shareholder returns and lining their own pockets.

The direct result is that inevitably the airline product suffers and once great airlines become mediocre at best.

Impractical and unrealistic to re-nationalise airlines (though we should have got a stake in QF after that huge government capital injection) but there’s got to be some circuit breaker to halt this corporate greed.

Management don’t hate the staff, they just don’t care.

The attitude of any business flows from the directors. The directors of Qantas don’t care. They is getting their big pay checks and running Qantas down because they ‘know’ that airlines will be mostly banned under the global warming overlords. The directors, by appeasing the global warming overlords know they will have another cushy directorship to go to once Qantas, and most other airlines, is done. No director cares about somebody who is looking for a long term career in the airlines because they don’t see themselves there in the long term…:hmm:


Apparently, Qantas management has this belief that when the sun goes down and the wind don’t blow that the power just works under some miracle.

Yer just gotta ‘believe’…

“…From this year all Qantas Group buildings will be powered by 100 per cent renewable electricity in Australia…”


https://www.qantas.com/content/dam/q...ction-plan.pdf





:hmm:

73to91 18th Sep 2022 23:50

QANTAS’ ISSUES NOT ‘ALL THE CEO’S FAULT’ ARGUES CHAIRMAN

Qantas chairman Richard Goyder has said Alan Joyce and his executive team have done “exceptionally well” in a strongly-worded riposte to the CEO’s critics.

Writing in the AFR, Goyder hailed his senior staff for steering the airline through a pandemic that “sent other airlines and their creditors packing”.

It comes amid criticism that Joyce’s annual salary increased by 15 per cent to $2.27 million despite a string of problems to plague the business, including record delays and hours-long call wait times.

The 900-word opinion piece argued most aviation companies globally are grappling with the same problems as Qantas.

“This is what happens when you shut down an entire sector for more than two years,” he wrote. “Companies make deep cuts to survive. Skilled people walk away because the uncertainty seems endless.”

He said Qantas is now well on its way to fixing its problems, quipping, “If you haven’t heard this, it may be because the data showing the improvement received far less media attention than stories showing how bad things got.
“In the meantime, the corporate obituary writers have been busy. Their analysis has (mostly) been unencumbered by what’s happening at other airlines, or that Qantas’ performance has turned around.”Goyder then said in order to “set the record straight”, he would give a “quick response” to common criticism.

In a section titled, “It’s all the CEO’s fault”, he said, “People who think Qantas couldn’t have failed or was enriched by government handouts are simply wrong.

“We don’t shy away from the service failures that happened as the airline restarted. But any reasonable assessment has to start with looking around the world and Australia to see how Qantas compares in an industry that is working incredibly hard to get back on its feet.

“We will continue that hard work to meet the high standards all stakeholders expect from us.”

In 2022, Qantas has faced a string of problems, including huge delays at Easter, hours-long call wait times, and even a revelation that the cabin crew of a Qantas A330 were made to sleep across seats in economy.

Last year, the Federal Court ruled the Flying Kangaroo was wrong to outsource 2,000 ground handling roles and subsequently rejected an initial appeal.

The airline last week insisted Joyce’s salary was effectively 77 per cent lower than pre-pandemic levels because of the lack of an annual bonus. Joyce also took no pay for three months in 2020 and for one month in 2021, alongside periods of reduced pay.

In August, Australian Aviation reported how Qantas recorded an underlying loss before tax of $1.86 billion in its full-year financial results.

Joyce said the result takes the before tax impact of COVID-19 on the wider group to $7 billion, which he called “staggering”.

“The past year has been challenging for everyone. We had to ramp down almost all flying once Delta hit and stay that way for several months before ramping back up through multiple Omicron waves as we all learned to live with COVID-19 in the community,” said Joyce.
https://australianaviation.com.au/20...gues-chairman/


Climb150 20th Sep 2022 12:53

Can people please, please, please not post links that are paywall protected???

Chris2303 20th Sep 2022 22:25


Originally Posted by Climb150 (Post 11299429)
Can people please, please, please not post links that are paywall protected???

Through the seething anger of Qantas customers came the resounding endorsement of the airline’s largest – and only substantial – shareholder, Pendal’s Crispin Murray.Murray, unsurprisingly, reckons Qantas’ current $400 million buyback – after the carrier gobbled $870 million of Commonwealth subsidies in financial 2022 – is “both prudent and appropriate capital management” after tapping the market for $1.4 billion of fresh equity in June 2020.
https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0...5664edee16eda9What Alan Joyce is leaving Qantas, as the cost of capital rises dramatically, is a capex mountain like nothing in the airline’s history. Michael Quelch

It is certainly arguable that the best use of $400 million, in the company’s current position and after more than a decade of capital underinvestment, was handing it back to the owners and propping up the share price.

Murray anticipates Qantas shares returning to pre-COVID levels (north of $7) and calculates that one of “the two main sources” of Qantas profits being even higher in 2024 than in 2019 is its international flying (including Jetstar’s).

“When you look at international capacity today, Qantas is back to 60 per cent of where they were pre-COVID, but the other carriers are only back to 50 per cent,” he said.
Murray’s data points seem disobliging to the argument he wants them to support.

Using the latest available data from the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics, the Qantas Group’s international market share fell from 29.5 per cent in June 2019 to 26 per cent in June 2022, despite the near total evaporation of capacity operated by Chinese and other East Asian carriers.

By comparison, Singapore Airlines’ (group) market share has nearly doubled to 20.5 per cent from 10.5 per cent. Emirates, Qatar, Air New Zealand and United – all natural premium competitors – have each grown their share.

Total passengers carried between Australia and the United States has nearly halved from June 2019 simply because Qantas and Jetstar have more than halved theirs. Delta and United are back to where they were.

Qantas is currently so short of international aircraft that its dog-tired mid-range A330s are operating ultra-long haul routes to India and Los Angeles with severe payload restrictions and crew sleeping alongside the passengers.

Yes, that’s mostly due to COVID – as mothballed A380s take many months to reactivate – but it is also a product of strangled fleet investment through the Alan Joyce era.

To be clear, Joyce has done many, many good things at Qantas, particularly effectuating a lower and more flexible cost base. Until recently, these efficiency measures were even legal!

In 2008, Joyce inherited Geoff Dixon’s order for 20 A380s and 65 787s and a fleet whose average age “is forecast to remain between 8.5 and 8.9 years [based on] the existing contractually committed long-term fleet plan…”

Until June 2019, nearly 11 years into the job, Joyce had never ordered a single new aircraft for Qantas mainline.

Joyce might’ve been right to defer and then cancel eight A380s, though those could’ve been cycled in to replace the oldest ones (now 14 years old). Reducing the 787 order to just 25 inarguably killed a great deal of potential growth. The average age of the fleet, meanwhile, has blown out to 14.7 years while Qantas has returned more than $3 billion to shareholders.

The Qantas fleet has never been this old.

The A330s are now, on average, 16 years old (the eldest are 20), yet Qantas has still ordered no replacement for them. Doing so will require capex – not built into forecasts – of approximately $US9 billion ($13.5 billion) at list prices, and then take many years to arrive.

The mainline domestic fleet of 737-800s is now, on average, 15 years old (nearly a third of them are 20), and is worked harder than almost any other 737 fleet in the world. These 74 planes are at the absolute twilight of their usable lives and replacing them will cost approximately $US8.5 billion at list prices. Qantas placed that order, for A320neos, with Airbus in May this year. Airlines have been receiving this aircraft since 2016 but Qantas will get its first just before Christmas of 2023.

Qantas has also ordered 12 A350-1000ULRs, which can fly non-stop from Australia to London and New York, to arrive from 2025. These will cost $US4.2 billion at list prices.

On international routes, Qantas is competing with much younger fleets. Singapore, for example, has retired all 12 of its initial A380s and since 2016 has taken delivery of 62 A350s and 35 787s. Its fleet is just 6.5 years old. What’s more, Singapore has renewed its fleet while maintaining very strong cashflows.

Joyce has preferred to retrofit new seats onto his old planes. While that has reduced his capex, he runs at a major opex disadvantage on fuel burn and maintenance.

And Qantas loves talking up its sustainability credentials but when you willingly fly aircraft that burn 25 per cent more fuel per passenger than your competitors, your environmental credentials are all too easy to see through.

By rough calculations, in the next decade, the Qantas Group will need to spend up to $US28 billion to replace its fleet without even growing it. Bear in mind this is based on list prices, to which airlines command significant discounts, though this estimate also excludes any replacement of its A380s.

Qantas also needs major, urgent technology investment. qantas.com is absurdly unreliable, constantly crashing on users mid-task. Customers have faced hours-long waiting times on the phone mostly for things they should be able to do, but can’t, on the Qantas app or website. It is a far cry from the seamless mobile touchpoints of most major foreign airlines. It is the shoddy amenity of a virtual monopoly.

This is chronic underinvestment in systems, which is extremely expensive and slow to fix (maybe Joyce could poach some engineers from ANZ Plus?). It is almost completely unrelated to COVID, but has probably done the most damage to customer satisfaction.

These are just some of the reasons why many market participants are maddened by the latest Qantas buyback. They reasonably wonder why anyone would be conducting a buyback at this famished point in the company’s capex cycle.

Of course Pendal and others prefer buybacks to capital expenditure, and this is a powerful incentive for Joyce and the board to prefer them too. Institutional investors prefer buybacks because institutional investors are myopic. They will be long gone from the register by the time a company’s looming bills need to be paid.

Joyce should be leaving Qantas just as these new planes start arriving. His timing will be impeccable.

To repeat, Joyce’s doggedness on the cost side is laudable and the market loves him for it. But what Joyce is leaving his ultimate successor, as the cost of capital rises dramatically, is a capex mountain like nothing in the airline’s history, and one almost entirely of his design.

Agreeable to a fault, chairman Richard Goyder is nowadays performing a vigorous and public defence of Joyce’s honour. Let’s see how that scrubs up in a few years’ time.

43Inches 20th Sep 2022 22:55


By rough calculations, in the next decade, the Qantas Group will need to spend up to $US28 billion to replace its fleet without even growing it. Bear in mind this is based on list prices, to which airlines command significant discounts, though this estimate also excludes any replacement of its A380s.
And that is the same hole Ansett dug itself. This is the main issue with the QF group, with no significant capital partner they have to fund that cost themselves. So small reserves of cash and what looks like good profits pale in comparison with the CapEx required in this industry. AJ looks like he has done a great job, by restricting costs, but this has been at the expense of new equipment. IF like Rex they had in house RnD and maintenance shops capable of extending the life of your prime workhorses, fair enough. But QF outsources most of its maintenance now making older aircraft very expensive to operate. The QF success over the last few years before covid were just smoke and mirrors. Now they really have a fight on their hands moving forward. I do remember a quote from many years ago about new aircraft needing less maintenance so less engineers required, well AJ, the fleet ain't new anymore...

Ladloy 21st Sep 2022 10:13


Originally Posted by 43Inches (Post 11299764)
And that is the same hole Ansett dug itself. This is the main issue with the QF group, with no significant capital partner they have to fund that cost themselves. So small reserves of cash and what looks like good profits pale in comparison with the CapEx required in this industry. AJ looks like he has done a great job, by restricting costs, but this has been at the expense of new equipment. IF like Rex they had in house RnD and maintenance shops capable of extending the life of your prime workhorses, fair enough. But QF outsources most of its maintenance now making older aircraft very expensive to operate. The QF success over the last few years before covid were just smoke and mirrors. Now they really have a fight on their hands moving forward. I do remember a quote from many years ago about new aircraft needing less maintenance so less engineers required, well AJ, the fleet ain't new anymore...

Rex will have to replace their Saabs soon enough. They're starting to cannibalise airframes to have serviceable parts.

MickG0105 21st Sep 2022 11:09


Originally Posted by 43Inches (Post 11299764)
And that is the same hole Ansett dug itself. ...

I don't recall fleet replacement being a hole for Ansett. When the AirNZ storm broke in 2001 the domestic fleet's average age was less than 12 years.


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