Australia's Biggest Airline Grounds Its Entire Fleet

An anonymous reader writes "Australia's national airline QANTAS, famous for never having had a fatal crash, has been grounded effective immediately by its management. The grounding is in response to industrial action by union employees and has stranded passengers all over the world, with 108 planes grounded indefinitely. The Australian Government is seeking an urgent industrial relations hearing in a likely bid to suspend the industrial action and halt further damage to the Australian economy."

Comments

"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[couchslug]

Those who object to non-tech stories polluting this site, speak up and don't post AC when you do it.

Enough. We have sufficient ordinary news sites and don't need that distracting bullshit here.

If it's not a relevant TECHNOLOGY or related story, post that shit somewhere else.

You don't need to post it here. We don't need it here.

"Tech or GTFO!"

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Bookbeans2007]

Well said! Someone buy this man a beer!

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[toriver]

The word "technology" is curiously absent from the phrase "News for nerds. Stuff that matters."

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Outlander Engine]

"Tech or GTFO"

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Fished]

I disagree. I see several good reasons for Slashdot to post mainstream news and wish they would do more of it. First, slashdot has a unique format. Second, it has a unique community, whose comments on mainstream news I often find insightful (particularly after they're run through the gauntlet if slashdots unique moderation system.). Third, it raises attention to mainstream stories I might otherwise have missed. If you don't like it, just gointo your preferences and filter your categories appropriately.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[TheRaven64]

Yet the abbreviation tech is strangely present in the URL of this story, posted as it was on tech.slashdot.org, not politics.slashdot.org.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Gadget_Guy]

I count 99 fatalities.

It is funny how access to Wikipedia turns us all into rain men. We may not be able to instantly count matches dropped onto the floor, but we can quickly total up how many people died on an airline located half way around the world!

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[labnet]

Hey bud.
It's News For Nerds, Stuff that matters.

I visit this site everyday, so I must be a nerd.
My wife is stuck in Sydney because of this, so to me it is 'Stuff the Matters'.

This is a grounding of the ENTIRE airline which is unprecedented, with NO notice (We only have 3 domestic carriers). Thus if you were in transit somewhere around the world (or on a codeshare flight) with QANTAS, you are now stuck.
I think this is newsworthy enough.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[rtb61]

Bloody hell, slugo, don't like the story don't read it and don't comment.

Stories here are menat to be stories of any interest to geeks and nerds, that's any interest at all and, politics and unions and economic et al are of interest.

Bugger you and piss off if you think you can choose for me what will be of interest and what will not. If 'I" repeat 'I' have an interest 'I' will open up the story, check out the article and maybe comment.

You disgust me, censorship freak, you offend me, your reasoning that you can choose for me and choose for everyone else what will appear or what will not really truly does suck.

The driver is how many were interested and how many commented, nothing more or less and certainly not some tin pot god deciding for everyone else what is suitable and what is not.

Not happy the go read your shit else where, there are plenty of tech only web sites. I want a diverse spread of articles, that challenge existing thought and drive new ideas and yes unions are a hot topic because you of so limited thought, computer support staff and programmers et al can and do join unions.

Outsourcing

[jbwolfe]

Outsourcing- plain and simple. This strategy is in use here in the US but so far has not succeeded. Everyone spits on labor, but this is what labor can do best for its constituency- protect companies from sending work to the cheapest bidder. Can anyone say that they want budget pilots? How about another Colgan Air in Buffalo. This is where paying for experience pays off, but management focuses on cost and fails to account for the value of quality.

Re:Outsourcing

[walshy007]

Qantas have lost 68million on this already. There are approximately 30,000 workers under their employ, with only 3 of the 11 unions striking and demanding a one dollar an hour increase.

Assuming the _entire_ work force wanted the increase, $68m/30,000/40(hours in a week)/52(weeks in a year)=$1.09 increase per worker per hour

If the increases were going to bankrupt the company, qantas should be looking pretty bankrupt about now.

Qantas domestic is doing just fine, qantas international has been bleeding money for years because of the cheap labour overseas.. Australians just can't compete with people that are willing to work for single digit dollars per hour, the workers just wouldn't stand for it.

There's no good guys here

[drsmithy]

On the one hand, current (and immediately previous) QANTAS management has been woeful, and are now merely reaping what they have sown.

One the other, the employees in question are already on a pretty sweet deal, and asking for more is just raw greed.

Re:There's no good guys here

[HalfFlat]

So, don't the other domestic Australian airlines employ people belonging to these unions? Meanwhile Qantas doubles its profits, spends 10 million dollars on a re-branding exercise, and gives a 1.5 million dollar raise to its CEO. Now this current suspension is estimated to be costing them $20 million per day.

If I had to choose a side based on the available evidence, it would not be Qantas' management.

Re:There's no good guys here

[Cimexus]

Qantas employees generally already have higher pay and better conditions than equivalent positions at other domestic carriers (Virgin, Jetstar, Tiger) - and FAR more than carriers in almost any foreign country that you could name. Also, Alan Joyce, though just given a $1.5M raise, voluntarily took a $7M/year pay cut previously. So he's just regaining some of what he previously lost (not that that justifies anything, just pointing it out).

AJ is a bit of a dick, but Qantas really is between a rock and a hard place. Or more accurately, Qantas International (the domestic arm is doing fine). QF international is losing money hand over fist through no real fault of their own. The problems are:

1. Geography: Australia is a terminus when it comes to air travel. You don't travel 'through' Australia to get to anywhere else. So you don't have the advantages of being based in a hub, like places in the Middle East or Asia, which can attract substantial traffic from within their catchment area and ALSO a lot of transit traffic (people just passing through in transit to other locations). Australia is the 'end of the road' so to speak, which makes their potential market much smaller.

2. Australia has an open skies policy these days, which has allowed the likes of Singapore Airlines, Qatar, Emirates, Malaysian Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Etihad to operate Australian services. These are airlines that already have the inherent advantages of being based in hub locations (thus are not as reliant on origin-and-departure traffic as Qantas is). They are also airlines that, due to being based in locations with much lower wages than Australia, have costs in the order of HALF what Qantas has, to operate the same flights. Qantas tickets are therefore more expensive. And as a result, noone buys them - Qantas now has only 20% market share for international flights to/from Australia (and falling).

So, QF international is losing money. Their successful domestic arm has been subsidising it, but that can only continue for so long. So what's the solution? They can either start basing at least some of their core maintenance and piloting operations from a hub somewhere in Asia (Singapore, HK etc.) ... or go out of business. This is what Alan Joyce announced earlier this year as a plan to save QF International - moving some operations offshore and creating a new premium airline in Asia. The unions oppose it - they obviously don't want jobs to be lost within Australia, nor do they want their members to miss out on pay or entitlements. Fair enough, from their perspective.

But what would you have Qantas do? They have no choice - if QF International is to survive at all, they MUST significantly reduce their cost base. That would be impossible to do while keeping all existing jobs in Australia. And even more impossible to do if the unions force them to pay even more. They are competing against foreign carriers whose costs are half as much, remember. What a sad thing it would be if Qantas - the second oldest continuously operating international airline in the world - was forced to close its doors.

There really are two sides to this story - the vilification in the media of Qantas as being greedy, un-Australian etc etc. is to some extent unjustified, as they are really running out of options, and noone can force them to keep operating their international arm at a loss.

Re:There's no good guys here

[oztiks]

One word ..... Ansett

The same board of directors that ran Ansett sit on the board of Qantas. Read between the lines, cutting cost / slicing up and selling chunks of the business is an attempt for those very same directors to pocket a little extra cash!

Since when did running a business mean you can ruin lives destroy a proud Australian brand? Those parasites sitting on the board are SELLING assets and pocketing commissions in the process, look at what's happening to the frequent flyer program it's going to Jet Star, WTF?

I understand the union strike, it's well placed and frankly if you're a worker whose proud to wear the Qantas uniform and go to work each day then suddenly have his livelihood destroyed and self pride, I'd be there backing you up!

Did you see the eyes on the CEO when he made the announcement, that asswipe is truly butt hurt and so he should be. He didn't expect the unions to bitch slap him for six!

 

Re:There's no good guys here

[syousef]

Qantas employees generally already have higher pay and better conditions than equivalent positions at other domestic carriers (Virgin, Jetstar, Tiger) - and FAR more than carriers in almost any foreign country that you could name. Also, Alan Joyce, though just given a $1.5M raise, voluntarily took a $7M/year pay cut previously. So he's just regaining some of what he previously lost (not that that justifies anything, just pointing it out).

AJ is a bit of a dick

There's an understatement. Does it not even register that he's able to afford to take a $7M/year pay cut? What must he be earning. Also to shut down the airline THE DAY AFTER getting a $1.5M pay rise....I just don't see how anyone can justify that. He should lead by example. If people must sacrifice he shouldn't be taking a pay raise that is equal to the entire salary of 20 of his lesser paid employees. Whether or not any of the union's conditions are met, the man should be sacked. He is incompetent, a hypocrite and a fool and he's single handedly managed to put QANTAS in a position from which it will not recover.

Re:There's no good guys here

[dbIII]

US such moves would be illegal and in violation of WTO requirements

With respect, the USA doesn't give a shit about WTO requirements unless it is to their advantage. The "free trade" agreement between the USA and Australia for instance prohibits the sale of Australian beef in the USA until 2020 but cans containing US beef can be found in any Australian supermarket. It's a similar situation with wheat, sugar and steel. Of course the Australian government of the time were idiots to accept it and probably deserve most of the blame - but it's an example that shows that WTO requirements are "routinely violated" in the USA as well.

Interesting

[DaMattster]

I would wager that the protests beginning with Arab Spring have emboldened the 99%ers world-wide to take action against class oppression and start class warfare. Since Occupy Wall Street has gained steam, people are feeling bolder about speaking out and taking non-violent action to make their demands heard. If this means bringing the 1% to its economic knees, so be it. I am a member of the 99% and I have had it with the 1% not only telling me how to live my life economically but with their power to pass ridiculous criminal/civil laws to ensure that they stay in power. I support the 99%ers everywhere.

Re:Interesting

[inflex]

Except in this case, it's the actions of a 1%'er bringing the 99% to its knees.

The "boss" (Alan Joyce) just had his pay upped to $5m/yr yesterday... now he's grounded the fleet. Either a genius or a mad-man, maybe both.

Re:Interesting

[FritzTheCat1030]

I don't know. Does Quantas NEED 3,300 more employees? Wouldn't offering employees pay rates at the top of the industry attract the best employees available? After all, that's the argument the elites use to justify seven or eight figure incomes for CEOs. I mean, they HAVE to pay that much in order to attract the best candidates.

Re:Interesting

[Maxo-Texas]

What you are leaving out is that with inflation, the middle AND the bottom lost purchasing power... for three decades... and were using credit to make up the difference.

The wealthy can't make money if the middle income and lower income stop using credit.

Re:Interesting

[tgd]

Here's a little fact for you. You ARE a 1%er. The people who are richer than you are not telling you how to live your life economically, they're the ones who are powering the economy that enables you to. And the only reason you're not living in shit-poor poverty working 18 hour days on a farm like people 150 years ago is because there is a literal army of near slaves working around the world.

The Occupy Wallstreet people are massive hypocrites, complaining about the weathy while wearing the clothes that were made in sweatshops filled with workers making $3 a day, sleeping in tents made in the same sweatshops, drinking their coffee brewed from beans picked by people living in crushing poverty.

Here's the cold hard fact that the dimwit protesters don't understand: The average income globally is somewhere in the order of $4000 a year. For every dollar one of those people makes more than that, there's someone making a dollar less than that, in the world. That's how averages work. Either every human being on the planet lives on $4000 a year, or some people will make more. They're just drawing the line in an arbitrary spot that keeps them "okay", nevermind the gap between the people who are making the goods they buy and the protesters themselves is FAR greater in terms of standard of living than between the protesters and the people they're protesting about.

And that is why no amount of protesting by the "middle class" will EVER impact the 1%ers. Because the people protesting are living the high life already -- and they'll learn the VERY hard way when their jeans are $250 and their iPhone costs $2000 what happens when the truely poor people decide they don't want to be poor.

Re:Interesting

[__Paul__]

Bullshit. It's just luck. There's plenty of people who could work the same 6am to 2am hours, get absolutely no-where and then die from exhaustion, wishing they'd spent more time enjoying their lives instead of slaving it away. They could even do exactly the same thing you're doing, but in a different place and time, and could have completely different results.

I wish you well with your business, but if you're successful, it will all be down to blind luck, being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people, and not the hours you put in.

Re:Interesting

[RogerWilco]

I think the 99% is just a moniker. What the Occupy movement really seems to be about* is income and opportunity inequality and the political influence of money.

Their goals are more income equality and democracy. Those usually benefit the ones at the bottom the most, so the Occupy is a good thing for those $4000/year workers you are defending.
It's the low income people in the Western World and elsewhere who buy the products from those sweatshops, millionaires wear designer and tailor made clothing. Even if they're just black turtle necks. If the low income people have more to spend, the people in the sweatshops have more to earn.

* (I don't live in the US, so I only have a distant view of the matter)

Re:Interesting

[niftydude]

Alan Joyce will be remembered as the man who killed QANTAS.

Actually - that's his game plan. He has made no secret of the fact he wants to off-shore everything.
He is purposely trashing the brand so that he can transfer all the planes and other assets to setup a new airline based in asia.
He is not bluffing, IMHO qantas has made it's final flight. The only way he will restart services is if he bullies the current government into making his company exempt from Australia's industrial relations laws. (He might do that by making the usual "too big to fail, massive source of employment and income" argument that politicians these days can't get enough of). Otherwise, this is it for qantas - because Alan Joyce wants it that way.

Re:Interesting

[archont]

Hey,

If I'm the top 1% then I can't imagine how bad it must be for the remaining 99%. In fact I find it kind of odd, because the past year I wasn't able to pay my rent two times and had to change places (calling them apartments would be an overstatement). If I'm the top 1% then where are my 99 homeless peers?

You're not taking perspective into account.

And yes, I do realize that foreign workers are toiling away for meagre scraps so that big business elsewhere can make a buck off it. Trust me, I know that very well as I do outsourced java/python/flash myself. Out of curiosity I actually added up all the money I have actually received (unlike the money I was promised) and guess what, I make less than 4k USD a year. 3874 to be precise - but I guess according to your logic I should be thankful for the millions of people who earn even less?

I have the luxury of being able to move to any other country with high GDP and earn what amounts to considerable savings here by washing dishes abroad - probably a more pleasant job than refactoring a broken indecipherable mess left by some crackjob coder anyway - but the people who call those wealthy countries their home don't have anywhere to run.

I'm perfectly fine with earning even one dollar monthly, if I can buy a flat for ten. With all your insight you seem to be forgetting that living costs are, if for nothing else then by the forces of supply and demand alone, inevitably tied to local wages. Sure, Chinese factory workers may not be able to afford an iPhone as easily - or designer brand jeans. But they do have phones and they're certainly not walking naked.

Besides, iPhones are overhyped anyway.

And hello from eastern Europe.

Re:Interesting

[Tom]

Nonsense, all of it. I'll pick out just some common points:

a) Economy doesn't work on a "fixed average" principle. The thought that for every $ that I make above some arbitrary average (which one, arithmetic, geometric, median? why?) someone else makes a $ less is just bonkers. Apparently, there's somewhere an assumption in there that the total amount of global wages is coming out of one fixed source, i.e. the same bank account pays all wages on the globe, so whenever I take something out, there's less in it.
But the economy doesn't work that way. Economy is not the product of money storage, it is the process of money flow. The $ I make is not vanishing from anywhere, it is going to go somewhere else, i.e. I will be spending it again. Possibly on some sweatshop product. In other word, some poor working is going to get his $ exactly because I got mine first and could spend it. Yes, I realize he's going to get maybe a cent of the $ I spend. But if I hadn't had that $, he wouldn't even have gotten that cent. I didn't take a $ from him, and frankly, if I hadn't gotten the raise and had not gotten my $, do you really think some poor people somewhere else would have gotten it instead?

b) Being well-off does not disallow you to protest against the injustice you see. Having some justice does not preclude you from demanding real justice. That's a stupid argument. Basically, you could tell anyone who protests against anything today that he should up because somewhere someone else is certainly worse off.
It's a trap. It's a "shup up" strategy. Fortunately, the 99% have finally avoided that trap, which has stopped movements for decades. "Think globally, act locally" was a good principle, but not thought through. If you beat me with a stick, that is not ok just because someone somewhere is getting beaten with a bigger stick. I can still demand you stop beating me, and take action to stop you. The argument "someone else is getting beaten worse" is stupid at best.

c) Protests by the middle class are, historically speaking, a ton more effective than protests by the poor. If you look at revolutions throughout history, the ruling class was overthrown way, way more often by the middle class than by the poor. And most often when the middle class and the poor were united against the ruling class. That is when the rulers become afraid, because usually, they position the middle class as a defensive system against the poor - with arguments like yours. That they should be happy with what they have, because others have less. With the addendum that if they want to keep it, they should defend it against the poor. But when the middle class turns around and says "hey, wait. Why fight the poor? You have more than we do, we could take it and split it up between the poor and us, and a lot of people would be very happy" - that's when palaces get stormed and regimes toppled.

d) Sweatshops have a bad rep, but I dare say it is overrated. Oh, I certainly wouldn't want to work there - but a lot of the poor voluntarily do. There are many who leave their farms and go to the cities in order to work in factories. It's a miserable lot, but it beats the alternatives. And that's what so many of us forget when we compare it to our own lives. Sure it would suck to be a factory worker in China today. But China is lifting several millions of its people out of even worse poverty every year. Sweatshops are how it works. Maybe the alternative would be $250 jeans - but it would also mean more poor people, because if the wages are the same in Europe and China, you'd probably buy the jeans from some European company, and the hypothetical chinese factory worker would not end up having the same wage - he would end up having none.
Yes, our desire to buy stuff cheaply is contributing to low wages elsewhere. However, it is also contributing to there being wages for this stuff at all. And those wages would be higher if we would be paying more, yes. They would also be higher if the 1% had a yearly income of, say, 20 ti

Re:Interesting

[sjames]

You chose to hang on two words of a post I made to call all of this out, NOW you claim it doesn't chap your hide?

Considering the news reports, the only people pissing in the streets and crapping on cars are sycodon's straw occupy.

The only 1%ers I actually hate are the crooks in finance that crashed the economy, then financed their bonus checks on the backs of the 99% and now act as if WE owe THEM. As for the rest, I just believe it's time for them to pay their share. Their tax rate is lower that of the people they hire. Beyond that, it's time that the government act in the best interests of all, not just the 1%.

Fire them all...fire them

[bogaboga]

The folks at Qantas or the government should employ Reagan solution: Fire all those striking employees, then immediately advertise their positions at even lower compensation.

With the strike having the potential of affecting the Australian economy, decisive intervention is necessary. I am quite sure these positions once advertised, will get serious responses, even though the unemployment rate of Australia is at about 5%.

Not relevant here

[OzPeter]

I'm an aussie and even I don't think this story deserves to be here. Combined with the prominent slashtervizing and other poor quality stories this place is slowly becoming a news ghetto (and apologies to all who live in ghettos)

FYI:US Labor law...

[jbwolfe]

...prevents this type of wildcat strike. Airlines are governed under the RLA (Railway Labor Act) which makes wildcatting illegal. The parties must negotiate in good faith before being released to self-help. This is why consumers (travelers) get a 30 day heads-up before a shutdown, and why contract negotiations take 4 to 5 years. It's also why airlines will drag out the process doing only just enough to please the NLRB, resulting in lengthy and drawn out process. Management plays games too.

Re:FYI:US Labor law...

[drsmithy]

...prevents this type of wildcat strike. Airlines are governed under the RLA (Railway Labor Act) which makes wildcatting illegal. The parties must negotiate in good faith before being released to self-help.

Just a point that "negotiations" on this issue have been ongoing for a year, if not longer, and there have been several previous strikes (all with the appropriate notice periods).

This is an apparently spontaneous action by QANTAS _management_. The Unions have been quite responsible about their actions.

Re:No advanced warning?

[Sponge Bath]

...Qantas is playing politics with its customers and screwing its employees.

Quantas is trying to screw the employees. The unions are trying to screw Quantas. The results screw the customers. If the customers are smart, they will vote with their wallets to screw Quantas and the unions.

That is called a cluster fuck.

Re:How it should be

[cyber-vandal]

I hope it happens to you and then you'll see exactly how easy and cheap it is to completely change your career path.

Re:Suspend the industrial action?

[toriver]

1) A "private company" only exists as a fiat of Government: Without laws defining the rights and responsibilities of companies, the term would be meaningless.
2) Planes do not fly themselves. So they own the planes, but you do not "own" people. They are doing what they want with "theirs" by grounding the planes.
3) The third thing they have is a responsibility to their customers. And that is what is being broken hardest here.

Strange term for a strike

[damn_registrars]

The summary is calling it "Industrial action by union employees". Most news outlets are just calling it a "strike". The needlessly long and obtuse description used here on the front page could be read to mean intentional equipment sabotage instead...

Found this joke about why QANTAS jets do not crash

[Registered Coward v2]

Apparently, after every flight, Qantas pilots fill out a form, called a ‘gripe sheet’, which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems; document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight. Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humour. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by Qantas’ Pilots and the solutions recorded by maintenance engineers.

Pilots: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.

Engineers: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

Pilots: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.

Engineers: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

Pilots: Something loose in cockpit.

Engineers: Something tightened in cockpit.

Pilots: Dead bugs on windshield.

Engineers: Live bugs on back-order. Pilots: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.

Engineers: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

Pilots: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.

Engineers: Evidence removed.

Pilots: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.

Engineers: That’s what they’re for.

Pilots: Suspected crack in windshield.

Engineers: Suspect you’re right.

Pilots: Number 3 engine missing.

Engineers: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

Pilots: Aircraft handles funny.

Engineers: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

Pilots: Target radar hums

Engineers: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

Pilots: Mouse in cockpit.

Engineers: Cat installed. And perhaps, the best Qantas joke Qantas

Pilot: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.

Engineers: Took hammer away from midget

You've got to be kidding me...

[Maxo-Texas]

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/210079/20110908/joyce-s-record-pay-rise-rubs-salt-in-qantas-pilots-wounds.htm

Mr Joyce has increased his annual take home pay to $5 million, with other key executives have increased their multimillion dollar packages by similar ratios.

âoeThe 71 per cent increase comes despite the Qantas share price dipping 16 per cent in the last financial year,â AIPA said.

It also comes at a time when Qantas has announced it will be sacking 1000 Australian workers and shifting local operations to Asia to avoid employing Australians.

---
Take a huge raise,
Lay off 1000 employees.
Then shut the airline down when they protest.

Mr. Joyce must be learning how to run a company from Reed Hastings (Netflix).

Re:Some things have changed. Others have not.

[realityimpaired]

A 747 overshot a runway in 1999 due to hydroplaning. That can be considered a "crash" by some standards, but it wasn't a flight into terrain situation, and nobody was injured. Other airlines have lost planes and had fatalities in similar situations, which is why you could consider it a crash, though in large part it depends on the airport: that was in Bangkok, which has a large overshot area. A more recent incident of losing a plane, for example, was when Air France lost an A340 in 2005 in Toronto, Canada, in a very similar incident, because Toronto has a very short overshot area, followed by a ravine. Nobody was hurt in the Air France incident either, but because the plane fell into the ravine and caught fire, it was lost.

Actually, the only injuries Quantas has had since 1988 were caused by an autopilot failure in October 2008, which caused the plane to suddenly descend twice (losing about 1000 feet altitude total), in which 13 people were injured. The plane was still able to land safely, and had minor damage.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/operator/airline.php?var=4842

Re:No advanced warning?

[realityimpaired]

Rolling strike and work stoppages, at unannounced locations and times. According to QANTAS' news releases, it's costing the airline about 2 million AUD per day.

Then the US and EU are obsolute too.....

[RobinEggs]

Unions may have been necessary once, but now the produce nothing but trouble.

So do you want unions abolished? Also, your condemnation doesn't properly apply to unions any more than it does to governments, trade associations, affirmative action groups, militaries, universities, etc. Do you want every one of those organizations abolished, as well? Once people have some power they become deluded enough to invent reasons they should continue holding that level of influence even when many of their aims have been met. They become complacent and guide their attention to unworthy targets. It almost never happens any other way; there's a reason Cincinnatus is a legend to this day, and became a major role model in the forming of the United States.

The solution to greed and complacency is checks and balances, such that an unstable equilibrium can be maintained between competing claimants - including the public - to political and economic influence. Just because that system is no longer tuned correctly doesn't mean it's fundamentally wrong. The total destruction of any organization retaining more power than it currently needs will just leave a nation spending more effort on destroying than on building.

Re:Some things have changed. Others have not.

[MichaelSmith]

Its mainly because Australia is a pretty safe place to fly. Traffic density is low. The air is dry. Ice on the ground is almost unknown. Civil aviation bureaucrats are justifiably psycho about safety.

At $5M QANTAS CEO Joyce is vastly overpaid

[CuteSteveJobs]

The CEOs of Singapore and Cathay, better airlines, earn much less than Joyce. Joyce and his executive mates just awarded themselves big fat payrises, but are crying poor to the employees. QANTAS is much owned my institutional investors. It is the executives that have all the power and the big fat paychecks. You might want to check this out: http://www.smh.com.au/business/tough-times-in-the-executive-suites-20110907-1jxpo.html 'The former chief executive of Singapore Airlines, C S Chew, for example, managed to get only between $S1.25 million ($982,000) and $S1.5 million ($1.18 million) in his last nine months at the airline. Cathay Pacific's former chief executive (now International Air Transport Association director general) Tony Tyler was paid $HK11.48 ($1.4 million) in his final full year at the airline. Joyce's $5 million pay packet dwarfed that of the head of Asia's largest airline in terms of fleet size and passenger movements, China Southern. The president of the Guangzhou-based airline, Tan Wangeng , was paid a relatively paltry 1.03 million yuan ($153,000) last year. The entire board of China Southern's supervisors, executive directors and non-executive directors (including Tan) was paid about $855,000 during the same period.'