QANTAS grounded

[PINT of Stella. mate!]

I don't understand, wasn't Joyces' pay rise accepted by a majority of the shareholders? Something like 70% or so, from what I read. So, they must believe that he is doing something right, right?

As mattydv said the vote was largely sayed by those who would have Alan Joyce personally whispering in their ears. Just because he's receive strong backing from the board, it doesn't mean that they are entirely happy with it. Many may have voted for it in the hope that he will fall on his sword opening up his position as CEO whilst the company itself WILL be saved by a government bailout also at the risk of getting all Godwin on everyone's arse, Alan Joyce has managed to get where he is by no small amount of wheeling, dealing, backstabbing and possible charisma (not that it's evident.)

At the risk of invoking a massive cry of "Godwins!", history is littered with examples of pint-sized megalomaniacs who've used their position and charisma to persuade their followers/underlings/staff etc to perform incredibly rash and questionable acts.

 

[cleeshoy]

It has been discussed already in that the majority of shareholders are other business CEO's, which will see reciprocity, rather than the public, that made the call.

The majority of shareholders are institutional, not sure if that really counts as "other business CEO's"

 

[scuba05]

Looks like Julia Gillard is going to weight in (and I think she already has).

Herel is an up to date, minute by minute summary of things going on.

Note at 11:28am:

The federal government is livid at the Qantas grounding, with the Prime Minister and several of her cabinet colleagues hitting out at the snap decision by management over the past 24 hours.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel...-air-travel-20111030-1mq0o.html#ixzz1cDoBkuiK

Has also been reported that many of the governmental people over in Perth for the Commonwealth Heads of State thingy have been adversly affected.

Ms Gilalrd had to kick all of her staff of the plane to allow them to get transport.here:

International leaders and delegates in Perth for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) are among those whose travel plans have been thrown into disarray by the Qantas grounding.

A Greens staff member, Tim Hollo, was on board a Qantas aircraft when the grounding happened.

There are more stories I've read, but can't seem to find them again.


Talk about kicking the hornets nest!

 

[Drizz]

This is slightly off topic. All of Qantas competitors like Emirates, Etihad, Singapore, Virgin Australia operate the Boeing 777. The Boeing 777 carries the same amount of passengers as a 747 but it has 2 engines (instead of 4, saving engine maintenance costs etc), and saves an absolute shit load on fuel.
For example a 777 uses about 9 tonnes of fuel per flight hour, where a 747 uses 14 tonnes a flight hour. saving 5 tonnes of fuel per hour is a massive saving in cost. A tonne of fuel costs $1011 a tonne at the moment. Save $5000 per hour is a massive saving. On a 14 hour Sydney to LA flight Virgin Australia's 777 is saving $70,000 in fuel compared to a Qantas 747 flight.
Qantas in 2000 had the opportunity to replace its 747 fleet with the 777 fleet but Geoff Dixon (the last CEO) said no for some stupid reason. It wouldnt surprise me if Qantas had bought the 777 11 years ago they wouldnt be in the situation they are currently in.

Spot on.

If you looked at the annual report that fuel cost was $892 Mill in 2000 and its $3.6 billion in 2011. What Qantas management decided 10 years ago was relied on fuel hedging to keep cost down and leap-frogged fleet renewal by holding out for planes like the 787. Fast forward 10 years oil went from $40USD to $100+ USD per barrel and the 787 stayed on the drawing board and now they are paying for that decision.

TBH the pilots/engineers/ground handling unions are way more reasonable than say the MUA. They generally negotiate pay rise more or less in line with inflation and considering how much salary in other fields and living cost went up this is hardly over the top. AS POSM said Joyce wanted Qantas to become an "Asian" airline; to do that the government needed to change the Qantas Sales act so this salvo IMO wasn't just aimed at the union but also the Labor government as well. On the note of CEO taking a swipe at the government anyone remember this guy? :biggrin:

It felt a touch machiavellian for Joyce to killed off Qantas via the backdoor and replaced it with an Asia-based Jetstar; but than again Qantas fate was sealed when John Borghetti (the man who has the most experience managing full service airline in the country) left and Joyce (than CEO of Jetstar) took over as the Qantas CEO.

 

[tc2233]

Alan Joyce has managed to get where he is by no small amount of wheeling, dealing, backstabbing and possible charisma (not that it's evident.)

After stuffing Air Lingus and then jumping ships to Ansett, where he screwed up Ansett then moving onto Jetstar, then Qantas.

 

[harmonix1234]

Funny. I was just looking at yahoo news and clicked on the story 'qantas grounded for another day', and when it went to the next page a pop up ad filled the screen that said 'Book your adventure to the NT with qantas now!'.

 

[dunndog]

Haha, the adventure is getting there..

 

[scuba05]

Bit Off Topic, but more News from the PM, but not yet regarding the Qantas strike.

We had 3 diggers killed by friendly fire (if you consider Afghan's friendly) last night. That is just sickening.

Back OT, a Fair Work hearing is scheduled for this afternoon. This outcome will be crucial in seeing what happens about this absolute shitfight.

Also, a flight from london was grounded in Bangkok yest arvo. Talk about shit luck.....

Anyone else looking forward to 'The Hamster Wheel' on Wednesday night? I think this debacle is going to feature very heavily.

 

[Adrian]

This : http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-30/pilots-say-email-proves-qantas-made-calculated-move/3609006 Not a last minute decision?

And This: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/new...of-anger-but-qantas-pay-approved/2339546.aspx

Walkout of shareholders at Alan's payrise party, including pilots and engineers, and 96% of the guys left behind approved the rise ..

 

[Spike-X]

Im not sure what you do for a job Spike X. But what would you be doing if your Boss's plans was to offshore his company and you had no other qualifications to do another job outside that industry and you had to be able to pay for a mortage and to put food on the table for your wife and kids?

Perhaps you have me confused with somebody else? I'm not sure what I've posted that makes you think I'm not on the side of the QANTAS employees.

 

[Registered Nutcase]

I don't understand, wasn't Joyces' pay rise accepted by a majority of the shareholders? Something like 70% or so, from what I read. So, they must believe that he is doing something right, right?

The vote was 98% in favour. Now that sounds like they support them? Well there are 2companies that own qantas and they are investment companies and they voted yes.

 

[Burrito_Boy]

Qantas is a listed company listed on the stock exchange, owned by various shareholders and is a corporation OBLIGATED to earn a profit for its SHAREHOLDERS.

Nail on the head. They want bottom line outcome, as opposed to quality and the likes.
Even before this grounding shit storm, a lot of people in my line of work have had little to no good to say about the big red kangaroo.
Notable quote from an Design Engineer I know whom worked for them for quite a while. "Qantas don't really care about you as the employee, not since the bean counters came into power. Now all they care about is making money for the shareholders. Everything else is expendable."

TC2233 and pint of stella know the score, and personally i think Qantas are selling themselves short with their reluctance to license for newer types, and all this outsourcing nonsense.
They have millions of dollars tied up in heavy maintenance, yet seem to be squandering it for a small amount of profit, and great quality, safety and practicality expenses.

Somewhat i do believe they have dug themselves into a bit of a grave with their aging fleet as mentioned, and then the expenses to bring in new types (training etc), and the amount of engineers they have currently to service these aging platforms. As the newer planes come into service and the old ones go out, there will always be a lapse in profits\employment as you phase out old planes, and skill up etc, for the new. Yet in the corporate world this is not really acceptable to said previous bean counters.
(there's many sides to this debate though, and i don't wish to expand on my responses due to certain backgrounds etc... but my 2c)

I'll be sticking with rotary wing, and as far away from commercial airlines as possible for the foreseeable future.

 

[PINT of Stella. mate!]

Interesting to note after the government stepped in and ordered Qantas to resume operations that SKY News had 'Qantas win!' emblazoned across the top of their ticker bar this morning.

Somehow I don't think this battle is done yet particularly giIven the amount of ill-feeling toward Qantas at the moment amongst the public and the looming negotions/posible forced arbitration. Earlier I'd have thought the government would take a cautious approach toward this to avoid the usual allegations off being union puppets but Alan Joyce seems to have seriously pissed off Julia Gillard and we all know hell hath no fury like a ginger-woman scorned!

I am gold with cathay and used that promo also to get gold status with virgin. With the way qantas is going, virgin might be the only way to go, although I do have a large chunk of FF points to use with the one world conglomerate-i recall anset account holders losing all their points when anset went under, hope that didn't happen here....

I'm just cashing mine in for vouchers. 72,000 points will get you $500 bucks at Myer, Rebel Sport or Dan Murphy's to name but a few whilst bizarrely 64,000 will get you the same at Big W.

It beats buggering around trying to get seats for your FF points (although I dare say there will be a lot more availability over the next few months)

 

[dunndog]

I'm just cashing mine in for vouchers.

I'll be using mine to take the family somewhere on Jetstar.

 

[scuba05]

[video=youtube;6WSJop5sG2c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WSJop5sG2c&feature=related[/video]

Thought this was appropriate.

Forgot about it until now....

 

[scblack]

Oh well, the market has spoken. The share price of Qantas ROSE yesterday.:single_eye:

Seems investors applaud the actions of Qantas management.






I think the funniest thing to come out of this, is Gillard's statements yesterday. She is saying that SHE and her government solved the "crisis" and got the company running. But she did NOTHING - Fair Work Australia made a ruling and Qantas started flying planes again. Maybe one of the lefties could enlighten me as to what Gillard supposedly did to solve the "crisis". Its laughable that she actually expects people to believe what she spouts - a comedy hour.

 

[g-fish]

I think the funniest thing to come out of this, is Gillard's statements yesterday. She is saying that SHE and her government solved the "crisis" and got the company running. But she did NOTHING - Fair Work Australia made a ruling and Qantas started flying planes again. Maybe one of the lefties could enlighten me as to what Gillard supposedly did to solve the "crisis". Its laughable that she actually expects people to believe what she spouts - a comedy hour.

Compared to Abbott who claims Gillard did a shit job but doesn't propose how he would have done it any differently.

Gillard claims that she had her hands tied, only finding out about the closure of QANTAS at the final hour. She then asked for Fair Work Australia to step in.

Abbott is FAR more laughable than Gillard, but thats a debate for another day.

 

[Minlak]

When this was all escalating Gillard claimed she was well aware of the issues and would only step in if it was in the best interests of Australia.... didnt realise 17000 jobs on an Australian Airline was such a trivial matter ... Whilst i dont love the man grounding qantas forced the government to act and fair trade australia to act at least allowing the airline to trade. Polotics is polotics sadly and not one of em can lie straight in bed.

 

[PINT of Stella. mate!]

Oh well, the market has spoken. The share price of Qantas ROSE yesterday.:single_eye:

Seems investors applaud the actions of Qantas management.

A whopping 6 cents up from pitiful state they were at last week! Hallelujah, Praise the Lord! We is all going to be millyanairs! Now that the investors have given the thumbs up, the 70,000 people who were stranded over the weekend and the hundreds of thousands more who are either disgusted by Qantas' actions and/or sick of the steadily decreasing standards of service are going to completely forget about this debacle and all go book special Qantas A380s to Allan Joyce's house to give him a back rub!

Incidentally Virgin are doubling their Status Credits for flights through to the end of January. Qantas only ever seem to be reducing them...

 

[scblack]

A whopping 6 cents up from pitiful state they were at last week! Hallelujah, Praise the Lord! We is all going to be millyanairs! Now that the investors have given the thumbs up, the 70,000 people who were stranded over the weekend and the hundreds of thousands more who are either disgusted by Qantas' actions and/or sick of the steadily decreasing standards of service are going to completely forget about this debacle and all go book special Qantas A380s to Allan Joyce's house to give him a back rub!

Incidentally Virgin are doubling their Status Credits for flights through to the end of January. Qantas only ever seem to be reducing them...

Let me put that share price rise in perspective for you POSM:

• Qantas has 2,265,123,620 ordinary shares on issue.
• The price last week on Wednesday 26th October was $1.47 - price as per Commsec.
• The price today has sold up $1.68 - as per Commsec.
• Mathematics tells me thats a share price rise of 21cents in a week.
• That equates to an increase in capitalisation of $475,675,960 - Qantas value has increased by almost HALF A BILLION DOLLARS in a week.

Not a bad week's work in my eyes.:clap2:


The Qantas frequent flyer program is a VERY valuable part of their business. Not just from flights, but from the umpteen other companies who link their sales to the Qantas program. And customers Australia over for Qantas and other retailers value that too.

Qantas has no need to discount its program and as you say is actively reducing it - that tells me its an attractive enticement for people.