Qantas Suspends All International And Domestics Flights

[bubbles]

Alan Joyce has just suspended all international and domestic Flights as of now around the world, it will be a lot of problems for already overseas and departing passengers.

[BobHelm]

Qantas responds to industrial action

Sydney, 29 October 2011

Qantas today announced that, from 8pm AEDT on Monday 31 October 2011, it will lock out all employees who will be covered by the industrial agreements currently being negotiated with the Australian Licenced Engineers Union (ALAEA), the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the Australian and International Pilots Union (AIPA).

http://www.qantas.com.au/regions/dyn/au ... oct11/5218

[noddy]

Absolutely amazing that Alan Joyce can ask for and recieve a 71% pay increase, which he got just this week at the Qantas AGM, when they refuse to even negotiate with employees. Wasn't his almost 60k AUD per week enough for him.
Mind you, I would go stark raving mad if someone paid me almost 100k per week I guess.

[Bandung_Dero]

Great move and a great time to purge the airline of their rude, overweight, lazy, old 'trolly dollies'.

Then there is Gillard, sitting on the fence. I bet she falls to the left and takes sides with the unions! Let's get rid of her as well!

[trekkertony]

No disrespect to your judgement Bandung Dero, however l can speak from first hand experience via my nephew who was to be employed by Jetstar being a subsidiary of Qantas as a pilot. After self funding all his pilot training to enable him to apply for a position with Jetstar, he was offered a position working in Australia being paid on New Zealand currency the princely sum of $65.000 per annum which converted to AUD was $49,835 per annum. Because Jetstar is registered in New Zealand they are able to do this. Suffice to say that he refused to accept this princely sum and gained employment with Strategic Air in Australia at $120,000 AUD per annum.

There is more to this whole saga then is reflected in the media. Perhaps Alan Joyce's move is a precursor to Qantas, our national carrier, being moved off shore which will enable the board to unload australian employees in favour of cheaper employment options overseas thus returning a higher dividend to the shareholders and the capacity to continue the upward trend of rewarding senior management beyond their capabilities and entitlement. When you listen to Alan Joyce you get a disjointed, poorly structured conversation which of late is more inflammatory and hell bent on confrontation. This attitude may well substantiate the sliding value of Qantas shares on the stock exchange. It will interesting to see which way the shares go when the exchange opens tomorrow.

Sadly, the pursuit of corporate profit whilst demanding the staff accept wage growth in line with inflation will see the death of this airline as we know it. At no point in the media releases by Qantas has productivity been mentioned. Early voluntary retirements of the rude, overweight, lazy, old 'trolly dollies' as described by you may have seen a win /win for the company and its employees rather than arbitrary job shedding.

[jackspratt]

Tony, every industry analyst I have heard/read has said that Qantas cannot exist much further into the future based on the current structure (wages, overheads etc), let alone the demands of the 3 unions, whose members already are paid, and have conditions, well above international industry standards.

Qantas does not operate in a vacuum - if it can't compete (and it can't) with what its opposition is doing, it will be shutting up shop sooner rather than later.

[grozza]

Great move and a great time to purge the airline of their rude, overweight, lazy, old 'trolly dollies'.

Then there is Gillard, sitting on the fence. I bet she falls to the left and takes sides with the unions! Let's get rid of her as well!

dero the only reason politics has been brought into this is because mr joyce has decided to shut down the company and not negotiate the working conditions of employees,would you prefer that people just do as there told and not be able to have a say in the conditions that they work in,and i want to stay on topic but the comment regarding,their rude overweight, lazy, old 'trolly dollies',come on thats a bit harsh we dont need to get into name calling do we,i recall you taking offence to someone recently for name calling.

[fatbob]

A sad day for Qantas, Alan Joyce gives himself a 71% pay rise, the AGM shareholders meeting expresses dissapointment in the board of directors. Seems to be they are anxious to move there base into Asia to cut costs and increase profits, did they not have a record profit last financial year!? All that experience and procedure they had in place to maintain a safety record second to none will be gone. Now the lower to middle income workers and familys will suffer trying to survive on what savings they have in the bank untill this is resolved as always.
Most countries around the world have there national carriers, BA, Lufthansa, Swissair, etc, a sad day for Australia and a radical way to get your point across with no consideration for the public.

[Bandung_Dero]

Absolutely amazing that Alan Joyce can ask for and recieve a 71% pay increase, which he got just this week at the Qantas AGM, when they refuse to even negotiate with employees. Wasn't his almost 60k AUD per week enough for him.
Mind you, I would go stark raving mad if someone paid me almost 100k per week I guess.

A CEO of any major business is appointed to make the hard decisions and most contracts are performance based. If, over the past contract period, he/she has met the criteria or out performed they are fully entitled to claim reward as per their conditions of appointment.

Joyce has now placed his head on the chopping block and if this ploy does not work he'll be finished. In current times trying to run an airline the likes of QANTAS profitably would be a nightmare. Continual rolling strikes and the threat of industrial actions by several unions are said to be costing the company $15 Million AUD a week. This is intollerable and not sustainable.

IMHO he has done the right thing and it's not the first time this sort of action has been taken. For the record I have not flown QANTAS for many years mainly because of the service or lack of, hence my comments about their cabin staff. I believe things have not improved in that department.

[jacob6]

Alan Joyce gets 71% increase. The unions, as far as i know, are asking for 2.5% in line with inflation and to keep jobs in Australia, not unreasonable. QANTAS won't budge hence the rolling stoppages costing $15m/w as opposed to grounding the fleet at a cost of $20m/day. I think more negotiations and compromise would have been a better option. This seems more about moving the Company offshore. This grounding appears pre-planned, regardless of what Joyce is saying.

[lepidoptra]

IMHO he has done the right thing and it's not the first time this sort of action has been taken

Couldn't agree more

[bubbles]

It has now come to light that an email was send to heads of Jetstar dated the 26th October saying they will shutdown on the saturday 29th October, so they had planned this for some time and did not tell the shareholders at the AGM on friday the 28th, what are they lying they want restart Qantas in Asia employing asia staff at low wages so the likes of Alan the RAT will get even bigger salaries,

[jackspratt]

You have a different interpretation of that email than me, bubbles.

The date on the memo was Wednesday October 26 and is addressed to team leaders saying: "By now you may be aware Qantas has announced a precautionary grounding of its fleet from 5pm Saturday", and warned of the Monday lockout.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-30/p ... ve/3609006

The email talks of past events, not anticipated (ie future) events.

[Banjo]

The Flying Kangaroo has turned into the Boxing Kangaroo



One does feel for the over 68,000, domestic and international, stranded paying customers and the knock-on effect that this causes on the Australian economy and, in particular, tourism and the Spring Racing Carnival in Melbourne.

QANTAS Board and Management members are playing high stakes poker with this strategy. I fear the QANTAS shares will be decimated with the backlash the organisation is currently receiving. Time will tell. Sir Richard Branson is happy ..... Virgin are booming

[Sport]

Joyce and his immediate exec's should not have the power to shut down the Aussie national carrier just like that. Did they confer with the red head in the captain's seat first or just did it alone, what an embarrasment for Australia.

On the eve of the Melbourne cup, the end of CHOGM and the thousands upon thousands of stranded passengers and would be passengers around the glove putting up with this crap. The raving red head has no guts to take on the unions.
Joyce, his co-horts and the red head should be dragged out of their offices, tarred and feathered, f......n aresoles the lot of them, and maybe some of the union bosses could join their ranks, some of them do not have the halo above their heads. May they all rot in hell.

[bubbles]

Hi Sport, good answer to this asshole joyce but thats they want for the Qantas to go down and resurrect in Asia with low class wages more for there pockets, forget about the workers back in Ozzie, and the national Icon they should have never sold the Airline from the government, put an aussie Icon back in charge of the Airline but I am afraid that may be to late as all travellers will abandon the airline, thats what Joyce the unnaturalised aussie will want for his own pocket. all our ICONS are going.

[grozza]

You have a different interpretation of that email than me, bubbles.

The date on the memo was Wednesday October 26 and is addressed to team leaders saying: "By now you may be aware Qantas has announced a precautionary grounding of its fleet from 5pm Saturday", and warned of the Monday lockout.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-30/p ... ve/3609006

The email talks of past events, not anticipated (ie future) events.

jack if you think that this is a snap decision by qantas i think you are wrong,this company would have had this planned for a long time since they decided that they were stopping negotiations with the unions,they would have had a plan (a ) and plan (b) plan b being if worst came to worst we would shut down the company and force the goverments hand to step in and take action because it is now an issue regarding the australian public,not a 100% sure but i think you will find it will be sorted out by 8pm monday when the shut down begins,just my thoughts

[rick]

Many 'flag carrier' airlines have run into trouble in the last 10 years. Historically with little or no competition they tended to be complacent and unable to modernise in the more challenging market. Sabena, Swissair folded under the strain; others like Alitalia and Air India are in deep trouble and without government support would soon be bankrupt.

It is amazing that Quantas can still boast a profit, but it is certainly clear that over the last few years as an international airline there once excellent record is a thing of the past; and the prices are not competitive, they depend on customer loyalty which is on the decline. The current management actions do seem OTT but some shakeup is surely needed. Half the fleet is obsolete and due to be replaced in the next 2 years, can they afford it?

[JimboPSM]

While I don’t know enough about the background to the decision to comment in detail on the rights or wrongs, my observation on the manner (so far) of its implementation is that it looks like a real customer relations disaster.

Aviation is a service industry where, particularly on international routes, there is a lot of competition just ready, willing and able to capitalise when another airline shoots itself in the foot.

While there may have been quite a build up to the decision to ground the whole operation, the way the decision was delivered comes across as a rather petulant kneejerk decision giving no consideration to the people who actually pay the wages, the customers who, at the drop of a hat, have been left in the lurch.

If the airline is uncompetitive it certainly did not get that way overnight; if the airline is uncompetitive, it demonstrated mind bending managerial stupidity, incompetence and ineptness to have raised the remuneration package of the CEO by 71% only a matter of hours before grounding the operation

It’s too late now the opportunity is gone, but if the CEO had immediately declined the increase he might have gained some of the moral high ground and some degree of credibility, instead he has made himself part of the problem and not part of the solution (in some ways analagous to BP and Tony Hayward).

Although (as I said above) I don’t know the background, the impression that I have gained from the frequency of bad news over the last year or so (even though all the bad news would appear not to have been self inflicted) indicates that there may be something wrong at the top; although difficult to prove the correlation, bad managements tend to attract bad luck and good managements tend to attract good luck.

Customer loyalty, even with frequent traveller schemes, is hard to get and much easier to lose.

[jackspratt]

Hi Sport, good answer to this asshole joyce but thats they want for the Qantas to go down and resurrect in Asia with low class wages more for there pockets, forget about the workers back in Ozzie, and the national Icon they should have never sold the Airline from the government, put an aussie Icon back in charge of the Airline but I am afraid that may be to late as all travellers will abandon the airline, thats what Joyce the unnaturalised aussie will want for his own pocket. all our ICONS are going.

bubbles you seem to be confusing icons with businesses.

Don Bradman and Phar Lap are icons (although not strictly within the definition). They can afford to be complacent, because they have little or no competition.

Qantas is a business with lots and lots of competition, and businesses (particularly international ones) do not survive if they are complacent, and pretend they are icons.