Never before in the History of the world have economists had so much data, yet economies are going backwards.
At least Abbott Point coal and more Gladstone port expansion has just been approved, so now coastal professional fishing and amateur fishing tourism coastal community economies will add to local and national economic collapse.

Be sure there will be consequences for incoming international tourism.
Travelers hear word of mouth about damage, especially to the World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef that has now already lost over 80 percent of it's coral.
Yet if damage was acknowledged and acknowledged as in need of solutions and if solutions could be seen to be happening, tourists would probably take interest and actually be drawn to the the region.

It is clear however there is need for a lot of new management.

Typo error there. Should read "lost over 50 percent of it's coral".

Did Alan Joyce really “screech”, or was it just his Irish accent?

It’s funny how we all talk normally when we are making a point, but those with whom we disagree or dislike always “screech”, yell, shout, holler, whine and “panhandle”.

The trade of economics gets less convincing all the time.

However, it should not be the business of politicians to spend our money to prop up inefficient or badly managed private enterprises or to get sentimental about the flying kangaroo. If private enterprise – Australian or foreign – cannot make a go of it, then they go under; just like the small business enterprises that employ most Australian workers. They get nothing; neither should enterprises absurdly called ‘icons’. Jetstar was recently reported as doing well; and people wanting to go overseas can fly cheaper and with better service on Malaysia or Singapore.

Holden has gone; their over paid workers (who contributed to its departure in 2017) will get other jobs with more realistic (in relation the rest of the work force) wages, and Holden will be forgotten.

Qantas will probably go too, and 23 million Australians – most of whom don’t travel by air - will not give a toss.

This article was written as though QANTAS was the only airline up
against the wall.
I note that QANTAS's fuel bill has risen 456% since 2000 and yet
seat/kms has only risen 71% in that time.

http://crudeoilpeak.info/qantas-fuel-cost-increased-three-times-more-than-seat-kms

Note that TAPIS oil is $126 a barrel today and that is what Australia
pays,well above US and Bent prices.
Airlines have a systemic problem that will never go away.
At some point in the future fuel costs will force airlines other than
perhaps QANTAS to stop servicing Australia.

That day is probably less than 15 years away, perhaps as soon as 2020.
However as the Australian governments have dismissed their own reports
on fuel security I see no action that will retain an Australian air
service for more than one decade.

Would you like a job as a stoker on a coal fired 747

Qantas is failing because it is a bad company which doesn't care about its customers.

Instead, it only cares for the government that saves it time and again: that is why it harasses the ordinary traveller with its fanatic obsession with "security" and dry procedures by-the-book, lacking any common sense and ingenuity.

This is why Australians leave Qantas in droves.

the éntertainment' qantas offers is equivelant to the ABC. It is usually politically based garbage. Bring in real people. I would much rather a nicely dressed polite girl from Asia serve my coffee. People vote with their wallets.

I am not a regular passenger by any means, but I have traveled many
times with QANTAS both domestically and internationally and I never
had to complain about the service by the crew.
In fact in London after a mistake by me they went far beyond what
could reasonably be expected to get me on a flight.
Before you ask I was flying economy !

I just wonder how come the complainers have so much trouble.

I have flown at different times with Virgin and found service the
same as QANTAS, friendly and efficient.
Certainly it is better than US airlines where they even let 8 year old children
travel on the floor at the parent's feet.

I just wonder if the complainants' attitude is the cause of their experience.

@ runner, so true.

" I would much rather a nicely dressed polite girl from Asia serve my Coffee"
Dear! oh Dear!! Runner, you a "Rice Queen", what would your wife say :)

The airline industry is extremely competitive. They work on 8-12 cents per km per passenger to make a profit. How much does a taxi cost you per km.

The feeling amongst many within Qantas is that it will eventually be bought by a larger airline and everything outsourced OS.

Qantas service is as good as any airline's. Qantas isn't doing anythig wrong. the problem is the huge excessive pays that are sending the airline to the wall. Just like Ansett did. It's a union thing.

Individual, you live in Australia that's why you receive a living wage, you may not have noticed, Australias domestic products are more expensive than Europe.
Now what per cent of your salary will you give up, to bring down this high cost of living in Australia.

Kipp,
Just think if everyone dropped 10% for argument's sake, how much money there'd be for infrastructure & other realistic services such as a national service which would be instrumental in reducing crime i.e. more money available for other, better schemes. The Bradfield scheme, ring rail etc.
Prices will have to drop perhaps 8% to help economic stimulus. Just one CEO or head honcho dropping a million dollars would employ 12 working people. Movie & sporting stars earning millions could afford a 10% drop. All those Chairman like in Telstra, BHP etc.would not be any worse off with a 10% drop. So much competitiveness on the world market with more disciplined & with a bit of luck smarter Australians & bingo, we're over the Labor pains.
I'm sure a Qantas captain could still fly after a 10% drop & the leprechaun would not be starving either. No need to clip the wings of the flying Roo at all.

Individual, there is no reason to drop any wage levels. We can once again create our own credit as in the past with 4 state banks and the Commonwealth.

Currently our money supply grows by $90 billion pa to = your toil + inflation. Guess what, you don't even own your own toil since private banks create it as debt. Unless we sell off Govt assets, resources and energy cheaply, the contrived debt by our financial masters can never be repaid.

The reality is that we are debt slaves to banks who own us by counterfeiting our currencies.

we are debt slaves to banks who own us by counterfeiting our currencies.
Arjay,
Yes, due to perpetual pushing for higher wages by the unions without a thought of the outcome. Btw. how many union reps will be losing their jobs in 2017 when Holden shuts down ? Will those 1000 in Qantas who lose their jobs include union reps ? Where is that economic growth from those illegal migrants so many insist we should take in ? Does the pro boat people brigade's compassion extend to those Australians who lose their jobs ?

Kipp said;
Australias domestic products are more expensive than Europe.

I have an interesting comparison on this;
My son and his wife came to Australia to live.
They bought a house and when they moved in they went to the supermarket
to buy everything & I mean EVERYTHING !

His wife was amazed at how much food & household goods they were able
to buy for so little money.
Now I grant that it was some years back and there may well have been
some change but I think the principal still holds.

This might point out that too many people are being paid too much in
some industries. Whether this applies to the aviation industry I don't know.
Whatever, we are in for a major shakeup in our standard of living.

That's a bit simplistic, individual.

>>Qantas service is as good as any airline's. Qantas isn't doing anythig wrong. the problem is the huge excessive pays that are sending the airline to the wall. Just like Ansett did. It's a union thing.<<

If you travelled a bit more, you'd know that your first assessment is very out of date. Qantas service has been going downhill steadily for over a decade, when compared to its competitors. Internationally, it has become a "last resort" pick, where twenty years ago it used to be the automatic first choice. And when Virgin arrived on the domestic scene, they immediately set a new standard for short-haul that Qantas hasn't yet been able to match.

One of Qantas' current practices on the Sydney-Melbourne commuter route is to cancel flights when they are below a profitable payload level, and say to the abandoned passengers "hey, it's only an hour different, what's your problem?" That kind of contempt to those who deliver your revenue stream is not easily forgiven.

Qantas management has been living in a time-warp, and their reliance on government support, both direct and indirect, has cushioned them from reality for far too long. It is a great shame for Qantas employees - especially their flight staff, who have suffered even more than their passengers through all this - that they have been so abysmally managed for so long. Qantas' Board is entirely to blame, they have hired successive incompetents in senior management, and believed themselves somehow invulnerable.

Pericles, I also experienced that "flight has been cancelled" shift
to the next flight. However as the flights to Melbourne are every 1/2
hour it was no real inconvenience. I nearly always go in the middle of
the day between 11 and 1 pm to get the cheapest flights and if that
slight inconvenience happens I am happy if it enables them to keep the fare down.

It's still a very poor business practice, Bazz.

>>Pericles, I also experienced that "flight has been cancelled" shift
to the next flight. However as the flights to Melbourne are every 1/2
hour it was no real inconvenience. I nearly always go in the middle of
the day between 11 and 1 pm<<

There is also a big difference in terms of convenience when they perform the same trick in the early morning. Because that's when people tend to be travelling on business, so a half-hour is actually a serious inconvenience. Especially when you are gambling on the traffic on the Tullamarine Freeway as well. Also, they do not necessarily book you on the next flight out, because that is already full, or so close to full so that not everyone is accommodated. Result: three-quarters of an hour or an hour delay, which royally screws up the entire day's appointments. Trust me, it happens.

It is also the mentality that riles me. That they can actually advertise flight times in the certain knowledge that not all of them will take off.

Underneath it all, there is this well-aired notion that Qantas needs to maintain a two-third share of the domestic market in order for the airline as a whole to stay afloat. In practice, this means that every time Virgin adds a flight to a route, Qantas has to add two. This is an impossible business model to maintain, simply because it gives rise to the sort of behaviour described above: they have an over-supply of seats on that sector, so have to resort to load-balancing - at the customer's expense.

Shameful. And - it has to be said - ultimately self-defeating. By annoying their customer base in this fashion, their load factors will decline anyway, putting more pressure on prices, which will annoy even more customers.

Death spiral. The only way out that they can see is to beg the government to somehow shackle their competition. Sad failure of management.

Yes Pericles, I can understand how annoying that would be at the morning
times when going to a business meeting.

There is no solution, either put up with it or pay higher fares.
It is all part of the great slow wind down of the airline business.
As I said in another post fuel costs have increased about 400% and
seat kms increased 71%, something has to give.

It's still a very poor business practice,
Pericles,
No, it's a poor attitude of travellers who can't understand that common sense has to overide whimsical demands.
I don't fly Qantas very often but I do fly 3-4 times a week with small commuter planes & we are a little more patient & tolerant when a business has some difficulty especially when it's technical.
Qantas is being mismanaged by it's share holders who expect ever more. Qantas personnel are overpaid due to union demands & now they're feeling the repercussions. Didn't see them cry when they sent other airlines to the scrap heap though.

Are you perhaps a manager at Qantas, individual? A middle manager, with an office and a PA, who spends the day in meetings with other managers?

>>No, it's a poor attitude of travellers who can't understand that common sense has to overide whimsical demands.<<

When in doubt, blame the customer, and their "whimsical" desire for the planes to operate against a published schedule. How dare they be so incredibly selfish.

Or hey! Let's blame the shareholders...

>>Qantas is being mismanaged by it's share holders who expect ever more<<

That's a new one. Fancy someone having the temerity to invest in Qantas shares, and then expect the company to value that investment. What cheek.

Sure signs of a company in its death throes.

Are you perhaps a manager at Qantas, individual?
Pericles,
I wish I was, I'd have the Leprechaun earn his keep as well as all others who are on way too much pay. I think Qantas's problem is that it is being run like an ALP Government, no accountablity, no idea, no vision, no nothing, just believing they're just so great & wonderful.

No use blaming customers when it was management that ordered so many new aircraft at a time when competition was increasing and business was in a downturn

Pericles and Individual;
If airlines are to survive there will have to be a rethink by unions,
customers and shareholders.

I have just read that world conventional oil production is declining at
4.5% a year according to the International Energy Agency.
For conventional oil read cheap oil.
As the world mix of cheap and expensive changes all airlines are being
screwed.
I can see a time when aircraft will not leave until they are filled.
There will not be a timetable, you just roll up and when there is a
planefull waiting you board and off you go.

I note that QANTAS's fuel bill has risen 456% since 2000 and yet
seat/kms has only risen 71% in that time.

They can expect a similar fuel price rise in the next five years but
I doubt they will get a 71% rise in seat/kms.

How do you propose they should deal with this ?

The govemant needs to require quantas take it a way from its profitearing managers. How is it expected to compeat moss affectively with the likes of Emilyrates Air, Singapoor airlines, Malasha Airliens all them govemant owned and funded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Government-owned_airlines

You are right of course Karlx, if the government owned airlines are
being subsidised then perhaps the government can put a tariff under WTO
anti dumping rules, onto those airlines fares.

Perhaps not as I assume that QANTAS would already have thought of that.

Whatever, where do our priorities lie ?
Please rearrange in priority order;

Airlines
Railways
Roads
Schools
Hospitals
Disability Services
Defence
Agricultural science
etc etc etc

How do you fancy Joe Hockey's job ?

all them govemant owned and funded.
KarlX,
You forgot the people there because they're Govt funded & kept also, many under not so flash conditions.

You know what the real problem is ?

YOU DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY !