A few thoughts on Qantas

[Sojourner]

[Hondo]

Soj I think inflation in Australia currently is pretty good historically. I think the GFC, rising fuel prices and domestic and international competition are the squeezers on Qantas' profits. I also think these sort of disputes are complicated and involve many issues unique to Qantas, the Unions and the employees rather than issues to do with the Australian Government.

[Psyber]

This is a complex issue that has its roots in Australian free trade and competition policy.
Both these tend to make any business in Australia less competitive with businesses based in low wage, low cost, countries.
We can't really expect to be better technologically to make up for it as was once proposed.

We shareholders are getting nothing from QANTAS, and I'm glad my holding is minimal - I regard it as worthless.
There is no doubt cost cutting has bitten into maintenance standards, and staff are probably being squeezed.
They are losing custom - I don't fly QANTAS myself because they no longer look safe to me.
The only people doing well out of the business are the overpaid executives.

What are the options:
1. Fold up or sell it - if there is a buyer?
2. Squeeze the staff further?
3. Move the airline to a low cost country?
4. Nationalise it and run it at a loss?
5. Help a bit by passing laws to limit CEO salaries to, say, 10x average wages?

The last appeals to me but may hasten the move of Australian businesses to countries without such legislation..
Number 3. might give me something for my shares.

[redandblack]

If there had been any lingering doubts that News Ltd will do anything to paint the PM as bad, regardless of the facts, they've now gone.

Joe Hildebrand and Simon Benson had a story highlighted in the Telegraph (Sydney) today, saying that the PM could have stopped the Qantas action if she hadn't refused to take a phone call from Alan Joyce on Saturday.

False. Totally false, as both the PM and Alan Joyce have said today.

New Ltd. Limited News, **** the facts.

[dedja]

Regardless of that, Qantas have played the government for suckers ...

[BIG SEXY]

only reason i believe joyce grounded the planes was to bring the situation to a head and make fair work aust stop ALL industrial action....basically a big up yours to the unions. he knew what was going to happen and has a plan to build up the goodwill lost in this fiasco.
i think no one is right in this situation, both parties arent giving the full story and never will.

[stan]

only reason i believe joyce grounded the planes was to bring the situation to a head and make fair work aust stop ALL industrial action....basically a big up yours to the unions. he knew what was going to happen and has a plan to build up the goodwill lost in this fiasco.
i think no one is right in this situation, both parties arent giving the full story and never will.

Joyce took away the only weopeon the unions had. And they are only pissed that now it has come to a head and fair work are involved. They know they will get far more from Qantas with industrial action. Joyce did what he had to do in regards to the unions.

[redandblack]

A different point of view from the Sydney Morning Herald


IF BUS or train drivers pull on a snap strike, stranding thousands of people trying to get home from work, there is much outrage. Politicians fume. Radio shock jocks and newspaper editorials thunder about trade union thuggery.

Yet when Qantas grounds its entire fleet without a hint of warning, abandoning hundreds of thousands of its passengers here and around the world, it's somehow very different. Just a clever industrial negotiating tactic, really.

The clear message that emerged from the shambles of the past week is that Qantas doesn't actually give a damn about its passengers. Or customers, as they are now tweely referred to in marketspeak. Alan Joyce blathered fulsome apologies, but they would have been cold comfort to people who missed weddings, business appointments, a visit to the bedside of a dying relative, or a connection on the holiday trip of a lifetime. Betcha a lot of those people will be flying another airline next time.

Qantas has always traded on its image as the national flag carrier, the flying kangaroo, a grand old Australian institution like, say, the ABC or Sir Donald Bradman. And once it was. But no more. High time to recognise that it's just another business gorilla intent on "increasing shareholder value", as the saying goes. If that means exporting Australian jobs to Asia, paying Thai cabin crew $400 a month, then so be it.

For all the low Tory ranting about union militancy, it's actually corporate bullying and rent-seeking that's rampant these days. In coming weeks we'll get truckloads of it again as the smaller mining companies whinge about the government's mineral resource rent tax and their inalienable right to shove a coal seam gas project in your back garden. Naturally, the Abbott opposition will support them.

I applaud the approach of that stalwart independent MP Tony Windsor, who has been pestered up hill and down dale by the likes of the West Australian mining billionaire Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest.

"I'm sick and tired of the mining companies saying one thing and doing another,'' he told me on Thursday.

"I won't speak to them. As far as I'm concerned, they can all get stuffed."

Hallelujah to that.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/more-brok ... z1cmWa6ydb

[Sojourner]

Rumour has it that Xenophon wants to pass laws to stop Qantas offshoring jobs.

[Hondo]

Oh dear

How do you write a law that only applies to one company or is he promoting a new law to apply to all? Banning the taking of jobs offshore sounds like a can of worms to me.

I don't mind Nick and I think sometimes he does very good things. Other times I think he is too idealistic.

[dedja]

Maybe if Qantas stick lots of pokies in their lounges then they won't need to go offshore?

[DOC]

Put em on the planes

[Sky Pilot]

Put aside all the idealogy - QANTAS has to survive doesn't it? It is all down to an acceptable PE ratio and if that ain't happenin' its all over.

[Psyber]

I must say the 70% pay increase for the CEO is a little surprising, yes they have made a profit, yet they seem to most years anyway - what have their returns been like to shareholders, my mail is not great, so I am interested to know why they think its deserved considering 97% of shareholders voted in favour of it.

I suspect that is driven by the fact that the majority of the voting shareholders are officers of major institutional stockholders.
They are themselves company executives who think company executives should all get huge benefits and be able to look forward to the benefits of becoming a CEO.
That is, it is a form of club.

I must admit I didn't bother the attend, or vote against it, because I concluded my few shares carried so little weight it wouldn't be worth my time to bother.

[Psyber]

Put em on the planes

And point out the engines may stop if the Pokies are idle.

[redandblack]

I must say the 70% pay increase for the CEO is a little surprising, yes they have made a profit, yet they seem to most years anyway - what have their returns been like to shareholders, my mail is not great, so I am interested to know why they think its deserved considering 97% of shareholders voted in favour of it.

I suspect that is driven by the fact that the majority of the voting shareholders are officers of major institutional stockholders.
They are themselves company executives who think company executives should all get huge benefits and be able to look forward to the benefits of becoming a CEO.
That is, it is a form of club.

I must admit I didn't bother the attend, or vote against it, because I concluded my few shares carried so little weight it wouldn't be worth my time to bother.

100% correct, Psyber.