How Air New Zealand become Australia's most profitable Airline

[cambriamarsh]

Also agreed! There's a big difference between profit (or loss) and cash flow. It's quite possible to make a loss (or losses) and still generate positive cash flow.

But over the long term profit and cash flow are the same. You can't keep making losses and generating positive cashflow because you run out of things to sell / banks stop lending / you've run out of debtors to collect / suppliers stop extending credit etc.

The Aus car industry is stopping making cars because the consumer doesn't like the price / quality equation and QF is suffering because of rigidities that its competition don't have (and yes, I'm including rigidities in the board and management in that category, bot just the unions etc).

Btw, the Aus car industry sufferings are at least partly caused by the Euro keeping the German currency undervalued and making BMs etc much cheaper thsan they would be if Germany had its own currency. So not only is the rest of Europe suffering from the Euro but so is Aus! Everything is interlinked, in ways that aren't always obvious.

cheers.

 

[BAM1748]

It's easier to run a small airline than it is to run a large airline. (not to say either cannot go broke quickly, but Govt backing helps with the bankers.)

 

[TomVexille]

Agreed!



Also agreed! There's a big difference between profit (or loss) and cash flow. It's quite possible to make a loss (or losses) and still generate positive cash flow. If I was to play devil's advocate, I'd say that the huge loss is all to do with making things looks worse than they are, to push the agenda of QF (or AJ), so as to force change to legislation (QF sale act and foreign ownership) and provide further excuses/reasons to: move more services to JQ, potentially shut QFi, break unions. A similar thing happened with the car industry in Australia - huge losses from accounting write-offs to provide an excuse to shut it down, despite positive cash flow.

This does seem like part of what management are aiming for. Shut and sell as much as they can and then they can walk away into a different job.

Having flown NZ recently, I was not impressed! Extremely cramped seat pitch! Worse than JQ and TT!

Trans-Tasman on the A320? It's not great if you don't have status, but it's not worse than JQ.

 

[harvyk]

I think the only reason QF is set to report such a monumental loss is the way they do their accounting... there's definitely some funny books going on, but I'm not sure what the end game is. If you remove QFi, they do pretty good.

[pure speculation]

I suspect if you remove JQ from the equation, QFi does pretty good too...

[/pure speculation]

 

[AdMEL]

But over the long term profit and cash flow are the same. You can't keep making losses and generating positive cashflow because you run out of things to sell / banks stop lending / you've run out of debtors to collect / suppliers stop extending credit etc.

The Aus car industry is stopping making cars because the consumer doesn't like the price / quality equation and QF is suffering because of rigidities that its competition don't have (and yes, I'm including rigidities in the board and management in that category, bot just the unions etc).

Btw, the Aus car industry sufferings are at least partly caused by the Euro keeping the German currency undervalued and making BMs etc much cheaper thsan they would be if Germany had its own currency. So not only is the rest of Europe suffering from the Euro but so is Aus! Everything is interlinked, in ways that aren't always obvious.

cheers.

Meant to add that using accounting rules to make a huge loss only works in the short term.

Interesting comment about Germany - hadn't thought of that.

Trans-Tasman on the A320? It's not great if you don't have status, but it's not worse than JQ.

Yes. I don't have status, but not sure how that makes a difference to seat pitch in an all economy plane? Is their greater pitch up front? In any event, I should have clarified I was referring to pitch in the emergency exit row - my knees were touching the seat in in front (I'm 205cm/6'9"), which I've never experienced before, even on JQ or TT. The rest of the NZ service was good though!

[pure speculation]

I suspect if you remove JQ from the equation, QFi does pretty good too...

[/pure speculation]

As has been discussed on here many times, it appears JQ is deliberately made to look good (new planes, as one example), at the expense of QF mainline (old planes).

I think NZ went the right way abou changing the culture - mgmt pay cut as well as staff, etc, in stark contrast to the way QF have done things.

 

[TomVexille]

Yes. I don't have status, but not sure how that makes a difference to seat pitch in an all economy plane? Is their greater pitch up front? In any event, I should have clarified I was referring to pitch in the emergency exit row - my knees were touching the seat in in front (I'm 205cm/6'9"), which I've never experienced before, even on JQ or TT. The rest of the NZ service was good though!

Yeah. Extra legroom seats up the front. As generous as 34in pitch, although at 6'9" that may not be enough :shock:. And you are right, the exit rows are not great.

 

[Sprucegoose]

They can have Gary Toomey back

 

[cambriamarsh]

They can have Gary Toomey back

What's he doing now?

 

[BAM1748]

What's he doing now?

I think he lost his airline job in PNG and is now 'retired'.

 

[cambriamarsh]

Ok thanks .....

I think he lost his airline job in PNG and is now 'retired'.