We can blame the governmentS, we can blame the CEO, we can even blame the unions, and rightly so because they all have a role to play in the fall of our national icon, but, at the end of the day, we, the consumer at large are to blame for the failings of Qantas.

I say this because how many of us, myself included, are guilty of flushing out the cheapest flights.

As I have said for years, for every action there is a reaction, and this is the reaction of supporting a foreign owned competitor.

Just like the car industry, we have made our bed, now we have to sleep in it.

rehctub,
How much does Qantas pay ? The CEO, a Senior Captain, Purser etc, how much for doing jobs that say Virgin doesn't pay as much for ?
How many monoplies has Qantas got all over the country ? How many other airlines have gone to the wall because of Qantas. i don't have the answers but I'm sure some OLO'ers would have them.
My friend is a senior FO with the other Airline & he is on 115 grand/year for a 777. I'm sure Qantas jet jockeys get way more than that. Having said that the other airline doesn't offer any lower fares either but I suppose it might just get them over the finacial line.

Twice in my life I have traveled with QANTAS, the first time through ignorance and the second through necessity at all other times I have avoided our "Icon" like the plague.

So many other airlines give much better service and courtesy to passengers than does "our very own".

Come on Rechtub! take a breath.
The Irish fool has done great damage to the brand name.
And more creating too much service in some areas to try to kill a competitor.
Too you must not ignore the high Australian dollar.
Above all Australians no longer trust the safety of this fleet as you can see by only one in four using them to leave this country cheap but throwing cash to flog an opponent is silly.
Quantas is not Qantas any more its brand killed by an over paid idiot.

A mate was recently in Perth for 6 days. A bunch of them had flown their Jetstar, on individual tickets. He discovered he needed to be in Brisbane the night of the day he left Perth.

As he has done before, he contacted the airline to change the ticket to Brisbane, rather than Sydney. He expected a surcharge, $50, perhaps $100, but not what they wanted.

The surcharge to merely change the destination from Sydney to Brisbane was $490, sixty dollars MORE than the fare if he bought a new ticket from Perth to Brisbane. He did query this, but was assured that was the price.

Of course he flew to Sydney, walked across to virgin, & flew to Brisbane for $79.

He has flown quite a bit with Qantas, but this was definitely the last time he will ever fly with Jetstar, or Qantas. He assured anyone who would listen he would "bloodily well walk" before he would use the company again.

I don't know how much of such foolishness comes from the CEO, bean counters, or staff attitude, but avoid Qantas is the advice I hear everywhere.

rehctub,
I have absolutely no idea how the leprechaun manages but whichever way it's done he's getting paid way too much. I think the real problem with Qantas are the shareholders, their demands are pushing for more profits even though the airline business has reached its peak so far as making profits goes. The real fault lies with the mum'n dads investors & the frequent flyer nonsense & the over-the-top wages & fringe benefits pushed up by Union demands.

It's nothing to do with money: if I were to describe the Qantas' quality of service on these pages, then the system would ask me to "Remove the profanity".

Well, I can't disagree with any post here as they are all true. But, regardless of that, we are still likely to loose them, and their jobs.

Ome thing that does amaze me is the CEO bashing that goes on in this country.

The damage he caused was in reaction to that idiot Skeldon from the union, who has a vendeda to squash Qantas at any cost. Funny, given that that same union caused most of the problems in the first place with their continual push for more and more. The car industry has suffered from the same fait.

As for the CEO of any local company being over paid, what about sporting stars, or movie stars. Why don't we pick on them?

Finally, as for Jetsar, you get exactly what you pay for, nothing!

as for Jetsar, you get exactly what you pay for, nothing!
rehctub,
No, we don't, they're a rip-off outfit too.

how to fix Qantas
Get rid or Joyce and his board
Get someone in there that can talk to people and unions
Stop paying any shareholders
Get competitive with services In flight and ground
Wage reform starting from the top CEO 200k then start down
Sell Jetstar

how to fix Qantas
Aussieboy,
Spot-on and, while we're at it include the public service too. I fail to see any moral justification for CEO's & EO's costing us 60% plus of the funding allocation. Have their Qantas frequent Flyer points pooled for the organisation's use rather than their personal.

One thing that the QANTAS issue personifies and Alan Joyce is a leading example of, is the poor management skills reflected in Australian industry. Literally "anyone" can step in and run what is a super profitable business, but the real measure of the metal of a manager/CEO is how well they perform when things are tough. Sadly in Australia, management ability is indeed poor on the score of performance, and this has been the case for a very long time, and many an industry survey has born this out. Coincidentally the general performance of the average Australian worker is just the opposite, a person of above average ability who performs well by world standards.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/executive-lounge/bosses-to-blame-for-poor-productivity/story-fng3e17m-1226526941097

You are so right, Paul1405

>>One thing that the QANTAS issue personifies and Alan Joyce is a leading example of, is the poor management skills reflected in Australian industry.<<

And very much related to this, is the fact that when we do "go overseas" for executive talent, we tend to get it most horribly wrong, Joyce being only the most recent example. Sol Trujillo at Telstra springs to mind as a classic "corporate cringe" choice, with his brand of macho-man posturing being taken as an indication of talent.

Which inevitably brings us to the quality of Board membership, where people notable only for their ability to squirm up the greasy pole of corporate life make one stupid decision after another. And these talent-free (and frequently ethics-free, it turns out) individuals are welcomed with open arms on multiple Boards, perpetuating the process of toxic inbreeding.

As for the topic here, blaming the customer for a company's poor performance is to get the entire problem arse-about-face. We are the victims of their disasters, not the cause.

Pericles, while I'm happy to be corrected on seveal fronts here, no one can deny that a large part of any struggling locally owned business is the consumers quest for an ever cheaper product/service.

So the consumers do have to accept at least some of the blame.

How about I rephrase this a little for you, rehctub.

Instead of:

>>the consumers quest for an ever cheaper product/service...<<

...will you accept:

"the consumers quest for good value for their hard-earned dollars."

If Qantas cannot provide a service comparable with its competitors, why should I encourage them, and penalize myself, by paying more and getting less?

A lot of the criticism is aimed at Joyce. Well what the airline expects
when they interview an applicant is a CV of success and an a program
to build the airline and improve the bottom line.
What airlines need but just cannot conceive is a CEO that will downsize
the airline while maintaining a profit.
This what ALL airlines face and it is quite a different skill to what
CEOs normally work towards.
It is no secret that airline numbers are decreasing and mergers have
happened everywhere. Projected passenger/km is still increasing but not
at the projected rate. Yet they buy aircraft and advocate that the
taxpayer poor money into airports.

They have no future except increasing costs especially fuel which is
their largest cost. In an era of zero growth it is no longer
Up Up & Away !

Pericles, even you must agree that when one can pay more for a cab to the airport, than to fly Bris to Sydney, thats a result of consumer pressure at work. It is also unsustainable.

An interesting figure I have seen is that you would use more fuel
driving to Brisbane that you would use flying there on a full aircraft !

Joyce got his job on his record on getting Ryanair out of a hole.
However that is not the skills that QANTAS needs.

But surely, that is exactly as it should be rehctub?

>>...when one can pay more for a cab to the airport, than to fly Bris to Sydney, thats a result of consumer pressure at work.<<

One of the outcomes could well be that someone sets up a private bus system that undercuts taxis. That has certainly happened here in Sydney - they come from all over the place, and even have their own pickup/setdown areas.

And while this may be true...

>>It is also unsustainable.<<

...the only result will be that prices go back up again. We, the public, will have had a nice ride at low cost for a while, and will have to be philosophical when reality catches up with us.

There's no such thing as a free lunch, as we all know. And by the same token, companies do not stay in business by either selling below cost for extended periods, or by milking excess profits from customers. And we customers have an absolute right to pay as little as we can for the services we need.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say we have a duty to do so.

It is starting to look to me as this Qantas fiasco may just turn out to be the forerunner of things in the pipeline of economics.
I think we're approaching a point where non-brick & mortar type of investment is head-on with business profits. It looks as though the investment bandwagon's windows are slowly opening & letting all the hot air escape & investors realise their smoke screen stint's coming to a halt.
I say Good!

One thing that is becoming abundantly clear from these business fiascoes facing Australia, the car industry, QANTAS, the tin fruit people, etc etc, these are just the highly publicised ones, there are many others, is that the Abbott government has no clear policy or direction as to which way to head on these very sensitive issues/problems. The best they can do is wheel out that old thorny chestnut of, "blame the workers". That is all well and good in the short term world of negative conservative politics, but what is the Abbott Governments long term strategic plan for Australian industry? Such a plan would embrace economic well being, job creation etc etc. Possibly any notion of forward planning might be seen as some kind of dreaded socialism which must be avoided at all cost, due to the total philosophical commitment to the free market by the conservatives. On this very issue, ordinary Australians may come to rue the day they elected this economically incompetent government.

Paul1405,
I think this is way beyond Abbott & Rudd My suspicion is with the shareholder & tax writing off system. The high wages structure is definitely a cause as are the excessive salaries. Private companies can not handle that forever & Qantas has reached that point. It is simply a case of too many snouts in the trough. There are too many loopholes to exploit & when exploitation reaches saturation point the company employees cop it & the EO's go & have a good time.

Indi,

How does Rudd fit into the equation? He's not going to do a Lazarus is he. My concern with the Abbott Government is they seem to be flying by the seat of their pants on so many issues, including this one. The governments on again, off again, approach is rather foreboding. When Australia slips into a worse economic state, at the moment we are in fairly good shape, but the signs are there for deteriorating conditions ahead. Australians will be looking to the government for leadership and sound policy to direct the country through tough economic times. My thoughts are that through a lack of initiative and good government policy, a recession could be needlessly longer and deeper that it otherwise should be.

How does Rudd fit into the equation?
Paul1405,
Are you having me on ? This is the moron who got us into a mess on par with the Goaf. To make a good future you have to have a good basis from the past to build on. Well, Rudd continued this ALP tradition of denying us a good future.
How can you say the present outfit is lacking initiative & leadership after a few months of juggling the ALP mess ? We're still copping the crap from the Goaf years & now you expect the added Rudd mess to be overcome in just a few months ? Get some realism into you for crying out loud.

Indiv said:
I think this is way beyond Abbott & Rudd My suspicion is with the
shareholder & tax writing off system

Certainly neither the Rudd, Gillard or Abbott governments are to blame
for QANTAS's troubles, the shareholders and board should understand
what cost situations they face and adjust the company to fit. Certainly
the carbon tax at $106,000,000 is a very large slice of their costs.
Both Virgin and QANTAS should have added the tax onto every fare and
mark it as the tax.

The problem is both airlines are aiming for increased passengers and
their outstanding aircraft orders was an indications of what they
thought the future held for them. Of course reality has now hit them
and they have been cancelling orders.

Downsizing is a new experience for them and it has to include all employees.
It is also a new experience for the unions and the politicians.

Brent Oil price $115, TAPIS oil price $126.
Welcome to the post peak oil world !

...How does Rudd fit into the equation

Simple Paul, because he, along with Gillard were the ones who took a well oiled machine (Australia) and set the wheels in motion for where we are headed today.

Further proof of this is in the revelation that the jobs labor claimed to have created, were in fact, bought. Either that, or they were imported.

Now that there is no money left to continue buying jobs, Abbott is left to sought out the mess. I know you can't see this, but it's fact.

You see the labor/greens model is to protect wages and conditions, regardless of the circumstances and regardless of the needs of the employer.

As for the carbon tax, despite the fact that I am opposed to it, it should have been paid by the consumer on every front, with the exception of exporters.

exception of exporters
rehctub,
Why an exception ? What is it with some people who can not accept a level playing field i.e. the same tax rate for everyone full stop.
You make a Dollar you pay so much tax. What is unfair about that ? No wonder we can never find a solution if there's always one lot who wants to be treated differently.

For how long will the conservatives keep blaming Labor. The fact is the economy is in worse shape today than when Abbott took over, and it looks like we are in for a nose dive very shortly. What is your Messiah's plan, fall over, and blame it all on Labor? Cold comfort for the masses that would be. They must have something better in mind, or do they? I'm just asking the questions, those who voted for the Wombles should have the answers. Otherwise you wouldn't have voted for them, or would you?

Paul1405 after reading all these posts and reading the news i've come to conclusion its all a game. What do all the big industries have in common. they are unionized. So Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey must be killing themselves laughing atm. How do we take down the Labour Party base. WE DO NOTHING.To bad it kills the country and WE have 1000's unemployed. Liberal wins next 20 years unopposed . By then all our children should all know Chinese so they can beg for our bowl of rice the employer throws them before back down the coal mine.

Aussieboy,
Yep, all thanks to Labor.

Indi,
You can stop blaming Gough, it was all caused by that Watson bloke! He was Labor Prime Minister from April 1904 to August 1904, yep Watson caused it all, give Tony 20 years and he'll make a start on fixing up Watsom's mistakes. He should get around to the Gough goofs in about 3000 years. LOL
The problems are ahead of us, no good dwelling on the past, that wont fix nothing.

Paul1405,
wrong again because Goaf was the first ALP PM, all the previous were real Labor, you the ones who had some sense & who ran the country without actors & defence lawyers & pseudo intellectuals.