Qantas' entire fleet grounded

[Brucetiki]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/qantas-fl ... 6180309932

Qantas has grounded its entire fleet, and will lock union employees out from 7:30pm Monday night. Qantas also willing to shut the airline down piece by piece if the unions continue their antics.

[Dirko]

Alan Joyce is such a Queen.

Qantas is losing $15m a week from strike action – a continuous debt we can’t afford.

Yet they wish to ground every Aircraft in Australia/Overseas which would cost them way more then strike action.

Qantas made the bed now they can lie in it.

[dedja]

Brilliant move by Joyce ... some unions have the habit of attracting the dumbest dropkicks out there, who are hell bent on destabilising, trashing and wrecking the companies of the employees they purport to serve.

Qantas need to restructure their company and services before they disappear off the face of the Earth but these dumbarsed union hacks have NFI.

[Dirko]

If Qantas weren't such a mob of pricks to deal with there'd be no need for unions.....

[Gozu]

From Crikey's excellent 'Plane Talking' blog and aviation expert Ben Sandilands:

Whatever happens in the labor dispute between Qantas and its pilots, licensed engineers and ground handling staff this coming week, the political context is about to fire up.

On Friday 4 November a Senate inquiry into two proposed bills will begin. They contain provisions that would frustrate the Qantas off shoring strategies, and prevent the rotation of Asia based labor in pilots and flight attendants through domestic operations.

The implications for all the parties to the Qantas dispute should be obvious.

The unions will not win many if any of their job security claims either in negotiations with the company, nor in any compulsory arbitration before Fair Work Australia, as these lie outside the scope of industrial law.

But those difficult political issues can be addressed by legislation to variously strengthen or compel compliance with the original intentions of the Qantas Sale Act 1992.

Qantas then faces the likelihood that its claims to be making its full service brands stronger by cutting them back to fund an investment in an Asia based single aisle operation in either Malaysia or Singapore will be argued and questioned in a place much more difficult to orchestrate than press conferences held in airport terminals.

And that is despite all those gifted bottles of Grange, iPads and family upgrades provided to political, judicial and investment figures through the Chairmans Lounges.

A Senate Committee room is no place for 20 second sound grabs or patsy answers. It is a place where questions of national and sectional interest, such as those of the tourism industry, can be turned over for as long as it takes, session by session, and answers can be revisited if the numbers or other facts are called into question.

The risks for Qantas are obvious. It has already made itself of marginal relevance to inbound tourism by shrinking its network and making bad calls on fleet and scheduling. Yet it wants to somehow use a system of shareholder agreements in nominally minority owned Asia based entities to exercise the control that international law prohibits in traffic agreements, while presumably arguing against allowing the same opportunities to Asia carriers, like Singapore Airlines, to set up similar entities here, and directly serve non-stop services to London in the longer term and the existing Australia-US market in the near term.

The business plans made by Qantas could never be effectively discussed in the context of a labor dispute. But all of the stakeholders, the public, the employees, the investors, and government, and in particular its trade and treasury arms, can pursue these matters as they see fit in this inquiry.

Starting this Friday, whether the industrial relations matters are settled or not.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking ... political/

[Gozu]

I don't think this Alan Joyce character will last much longer:

In an astonishing dummy spit, Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce has grounded the Qantas domestic and international fleet until such time as the pilots, the licensed engineers and the ground handlers withdraw their lawful industrial claims and campaigns.

However everyone will be paid until 8 pm Monday eastern time, after which the members of those three unions will be locked out. Those employees who belong to other unions or are otherwise employed by the airline will apparently continue to be paid and will be required to report for work.

Assistance including hotels and bookings on alternative airlines will be given to passengers stranded mid flight, although all domestic flights currently in the air will complete their scheduled journeys.

Qantaslink, Jetstar and faux Qantas trans Tasman services flown by NZ subsidiry Jetconnect will continue to fly.

Total chaos and self-inflicted losses that will run to millions of dollars a day have now set in at Qantas.

The numbers of domestic passengers stranded in various cities around Australia would exceed 100,000 just based on typical passenger uplift by the carrier, without reference to those who would have been booked to leave their home cities in the next few days.

A large number of international visitors to Australia who are booked to leave the country in the next week will have to find alternative flights, and take some days longer to complete their itineraries.

The legal consequences of Joyce’s actions are unclear at this stage. All three unions concerned were granted the right to conduct court approved protected industrial action after passing the various tests concerning the pursuit of their long running claims in good faith, and securing member support in secret ballots.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking ... wn-qantas/

[dedja]

I don't think this Alan Joyce character will last much longer:

Disagree ... he's forced the hand of the government, who have blinked and will step into the dispute and order a halt to all industrial action, which is all Joyce wants.

Joyce will probably then reinitiate flights with this 'no strike' guarantee.

Still looks like a smart move to me ...

[Bully]

fantastic news. Good on them. Stick it up the greedy unions!!! They cant get there way all the time. Im sure there are plenty of out of work aussies that would step in and cover it.

Time also for our lame duck PM to show her colours!!!!

[dedja]

... and funny how this action happened after the AGM yesterday

Oh, and the REAL winner is .... Virgin Australia

[Bully]

im not saying CEO of Qantas is not greedy either as getting 5million a year is greedy, but im sure if all of us were seeing this happening to our company over the strikes then we would do the same. If our companies were going out of business in a few months and this was the only way...we would do it too.

[Gozu]

I don't think this Alan Joyce character will last much longer:

Disagree ... he's forced the hand of the government, who have blinked and will step into the dispute and order a halt to all industrial action, which is all Joyce wants.

Joyce will probably then reinitiate flights with this 'no strike' guarantee.

Still looks like a smart move to me ...

What did he just get 70% pay rise and now wants to run the company into the ground costing tens of millions a day?

Too smart by half.

[Gozu]

... and funny how this action happened after the AGM yesterday

Oh, and the REAL winner is .... Virgin Australia

That we can agree on

[dedja]

I don't think this Alan Joyce character will last much longer:

Disagree ... he's forced the hand of the government, who have blinked and will step into the dispute and order a halt to all industrial action, which is all Joyce wants.

Joyce will probably then reinitiate flights with this 'no strike' guarantee.

Still looks like a smart move to me ...

What did he just get 70% pay rise and now wants to run the company into the ground costing tens of millions a day?

Too smart by half.

Can't disagree with that point ...

[Bully]

and its 20 million A DAY loss for Qantas...not 15 million a week

[Gozu]

Based on its performance over the last financial year when Qantas earned revenues of $218 million per week (not including $50 million weekly sales by Jetstar in the same year) the airline is losing around $30 million in business each day and carrying additional millions per day in wages to other workers, lease or finance charges on jets that are no longer operating, and other fixed costs.

It is difficult to estimate these total daily charges, but given financing obligations, Qantas may now be losing more than $40 million a day.

Joyce said that the airline could not afford to lose $15 million a week in sales, which he described as unsustainable, but conceded in answer to questions that his actions would costs the airline at least $20 million a day. Using the revenue figures in its past financial year as a guide, Joyce is understating the daily revenue loss while not mentioning the additional fixed costs incurred by an inactive fleet.

Qantas has cash reserves of more than $3 billion.

At 6 pm the federal government said it was making an urgent application to Fair Work Australia to order an immediate cessation of industrial action by all parties on the ground of the national interest.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking ... wn-qantas/

[Sky Pilot]

Alan Joyce's remuneration package is irrelevant. Qantas could save 5 or 6 million a year by firing him and hiring a Woolies check-out chick for $500 a week to do the job. She wouldn't have a clue. So if you want someone who could do the job you pay market rates FFS. Plumbers $250 and hour, dentists $1000 and hour, Lawyers $5000 and hour and international corporation CEO's entry level $5million PA. Baggage handlers are worth what? I don't know I've never done it.
Bottom line GO Qantas.

[Chuck Wepner]

fantastic news. Good on them. Stick it up the greedy unions!!! They cant get there way all the time. Im sure there are plenty of out of work aussies that would step in and cover it.

Time also for our lame duck PM to show her colours!!!!

Yeah and Joyce is happy to pay himself handsomely but his workers peanuts... So he will attract monkeys....good luck flying with his airline in future.... I'm on the unions side, they are at least trying to represent Qantas workers and show some compassion - Joyce clearly has none for either his staff or his passengers He is an arrogant prick that only looks at one thing.... $$$$$$$

[Brucetiki]

Alan Joyce's remuneration package is irrelevant. Qantas could save 5 or 6 million a year by firing him and hiring a Woolies check-out chick for $500 a week to do the job. She wouldn't have a clue. So if you want someone who could do the job you pay market rates FFS. Plumbers $250 and hour, dentists $1000 and hour, Lawyers $5000 and hour and international corporation CEO's entry level $5million PA. Baggage handlers are worth what? I don't know I've never done it.
Bottom line GO Qantas.

And to do what, wreck luggage...

[Gozu]

Alan Joyce's remuneration package is irrelevant. Qantas could save 5 or 6 million a year by firing him and hiring a Woolies check-out chick for $500 a week to do the job. She wouldn't have a clue. So if you want someone who could do the job you pay market rates FFS. Plumbers $250 and hour, dentists $1000 and hour, Lawyers $5000 and hour and international corporation CEO's entry level $5million PA. Baggage handlers are worth what? I don't know I've never done it.
Bottom line GO Qantas.

The Woolies check out chick could probably do a better job than this guy, she's save the company millions too.

[Sky Pilot]

Alan Joyce's remuneration package is irrelevant. Qantas could save 5 or 6 million a year by firing him and hiring a Woolies check-out chick for $500 a week to do the job. She wouldn't have a clue. So if you want someone who could do the job you pay market rates FFS. Plumbers $250 and hour, dentists $1000 and hour, Lawyers $5000 and hour and international corporation CEO's entry level $5million PA. Baggage handlers are worth what? I don't know I've never done it.
Bottom line GO Qantas.

And to do what, wreck luggage...

well the route many conveyer belts take often means bags can be intentionally tumbled from belt to belt - a drop of up to two metres I believe. Thats what they told me when they completely stuffed one of my rigid suitcases a few years ago. I also suspect that baggage handlers probably do toss the stuff around a bit carelessly out of sight.