Qantas group to cut all International routes and stand down two thirds of its staff

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The press release mentions cancelled flights will be automatically converted into a travel credit, with Qantas notifying customers from Monday.

Does not mention at this stage whether cash refund is available ...

If they cant provide service they have to refund, thats the law.

This situation sucks for Qantas staff but its highly likely the government will bail them out and pick up the tab for the staff to sit at home. Shame they wont do the same for the mom and pop corner store.
 
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If they cant provide service they have to refund, thats the law.

This situation sucks for Qantas staff but its highly likely the government will bail them out and pick up the tab for the staff to sit at home. Shame they wont do the same for the mom and pop corner store.
So how do you get the refund Is the question on my lips.
 
Rather different this time. The first was an engineered attempt at breaking contracts...

Yes very different circumstances. Extreme times call for extreme measures. Although reading between the lines there are elements of the same tactics to extract some subsidies from the federal government:

As the national carrier, Qantas is in ongoing discussions with the Federal Government about continuation of some strategic links.
 
The 747s will be the first to go and they were already due for retirement in 2021.
Also two things with the 747s,
They are bought and paid for.
They are actually worth something... Freighters are still be used, even with this situation in place...

The 380s.. That will be a hard one... Going to be a glut of them on the market, and cannot see the leasing companies being nice...
 
I do not have much love of public companies that manipulate their accounting and public image and blatantly pay their senior management obscene amounts of shareholder funds. I have been in business for more than 40 years and can always hold my head high knowing that I have treated my customers with the respect they deserve and paid my tax without cheating the Australian purse.

I was interested to read the following article by a learned professor which our government should take note of.

By Tim Wu The New York Times. 16/3/2020

Don’t Feel Sorry for the Airlines

Before providing them any assistance, we must demand that they change how they treat their customers and employees.

For American Airlines, the nation’s largest airline, the mid to late 2010s were what the Bible calls “years of plenty.”

In 2014, having reduced competition through mergers and raised billions of dollars in new baggage-fee revenue, American began reaching stunning levels of financial success. In 2015, it posted a $7.6 billion profit — compared, for example, to profits of about $500 million in 2007 and less than $250 million in 2006. It would continue to earn billions in profit annually for the rest of the decade. “I don’t think we’re ever going to lose money again,” the company’s chief executive, Doug Parker, said in 2017."

Now screaming for help.
 
I do not have much love of public companies that manipulate their accounting and public image and blatantly pay their senior management obscene amounts of shareholder funds. I have been in business for more than 40 years and can always hold my head high knowing that I have treated my customers with the respect they deserve and paid my tax without cheating the Australian purse.


From QF Announcement

Senior Group Management Executives and the Board have increased their salary reductions from 30 per cent to 100 per cent until at least the end of this financial year, joining the Chairman and Group CEO in taking no pay. Annual management bonuses have also been cancelled.
 
No mention of how Qantas is using the hundreds of millions the government just gave them.
If their annual wages bill is $4 billion then $400 million would pay that for more than a month.
But there is no mention of paying employees a month's pay in excess of entitlements.
 
No mention of how Qantas is using the hundreds of millions the government just gave them.
If their annual wages bill is $4 billion then $400 million would pay that for more than a month.

I don't think the government has "given" them $400m. They are waiving a range of fees, and from what I've read the whole industry is getting reimbursement of $159m of fees paid since Feb 1, and waiving of fees going forward. This is directly proportional to the amount of flying they do, so now that there's been huge cuts to flying, the level of assistance will be much lower than originally quoted, AFAIK.
 
I don't think the government has "given" them $400m. They are waiving a range of fees, and from what I've read the whole industry is getting reimbursement of $159m of fees paid since Feb 1, and waiving of fees going forward. This is directly proportional to the amount of flying they do, so now that there's been huge cuts to flying, the level of assistance will be much lower than originally quoted, AFAIK.
Waiving fees is giving them money. The total figure was quoted as $715 million so $400 million is not an unreasonable guess at Qantas' share.
I am sure there will be more assistance, my point is it should not be "no strings". It should come with guarantees.
The point of assistance is not to preserve value for shareholders but to keep people employed which keeps the economy going.
 
Waiving fees is giving them money. The total figure was quoted as $715 million so $400 million is not an unreasonable guess at Qantas' share.

The cash they are giving is the re-imbursement of current fees (~$160m). So that leaves $555m for future waivers. But if capacity has been cut by 60%, that's really only $222m across the industry. If QF shut down all flights today, they would get no assistance other than their share of the fee reimbursement since 1 Feb.

But I agree, that assistance should not be "no strings". It seems that QF are negotiating for assistance to keep certain international services running, this should come with strict "strings".
 
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Picked up a friend today from airport and a group of QF and VA staff were standing together, clearly devastated and all in tears. Was awful to see, felt deeply for them.

Lets nail this stupid virus, work together to flatten the curve, develop faster tests, treatments and eventually a vaccine and take a fast hard hit and bounce back as quickly as we can, for everyone.

I also personally think some of these union mobsters need to calm down Karen and pull everything together, get their priorities straight and work with management rather than issuing provocative media statements with technicalities. Seriously.
 
Worth a read.
By Tim Wu The New York Times. 16/3/2020

Don’t Feel Sorry for the Airlines

Before providing them any assistance, we must demand that they change how they treat their customers and employees.

For American Airlines, the nation’s largest airline, the mid to late 2010s were what the Bible calls “years of plenty.”

In 2014, having reduced competition through mergers and raised billions of dollars in new baggage-fee revenue, American began reaching stunning levels of financial success. In 2015, it posted a $7.6 billion profit — compared, for example, to profits of about $500 million in 2007 and less than $250 million in 2006. It would continue to earn billions in profit annually for the rest of the decade. “I don’t think we’re ever going to lose money again,” the company’s chief executive, Doug Parker, said in 2017.

There are plenty of things American could have done with all that money. It could have stored up its cash reserves for a future crisis, knowing that airlines regularly cycle through booms and busts. It might have tried to decisively settle its continuing contract disputes with pilots, flight attendants and mechanics. It might have invested heavily in better service quality to try to repair its longstanding reputation as the worst of the major carriers.

Instead, American blew most of its cash on a stock buyback spree. From 2014 to 2020, in an attempt to increase its earnings per share, American spent more than $15 billion buying back its own stock. It managed, despite the risk of the proverbial rainy day, to shrink its cash reserves. At the same time it was blowing cash on buybacks, American also began to borrow heavily to finance the purchase of new planes and the retrofitting of old planes to pack in more seats. As early as 2017 analysts warned of a risk of default should the economy deteriorate, but American kept borrowing. It has now accumulated a debt of nearly $30 billion, nearly five times the company’s current market value.

At no time during its years of plenty did American improve how it treats its customers. Change fees went up to $200 for domestic flights and to $750 for international. Its widely despised baggage fees were hiked to $30 and $40 for first and second bags. These higher fees yielded billions of dollars, yet did not help the airline improve its on-time arrivals, reduce tarmac delays or prevent involuntary bumping. Instead, American’s main “innovations” were the removal of screens from its planes, the reduction of bathroom and seat sizes and the introduction of a “basic economy” class that initially included a ban on carry-on luggage.

In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, which is wreaking havoc on the airline industry, American Airlines has not yet asked for a bailout — at least not in so many words. Yet after a recent meeting with airline leadership, Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, said that “certain sectors of the economy, airlines coming to mind” might require assistance. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday that the airlines, including American, would be “on the top of the list” for federal loan relief.



As the government considers what we, the public, should do for the airlines, we should ask, Just what have they done for us?

The United States economy needs an airline industry to function. The industry is in that sense not a “normal” industry, but rather what was once called a common carrier or a public utility: a critical infrastructure on which the rest of the economy relies. The major airlines know that unlike a local restaurant, they will never be allowed, collectively, to fail completely. In practice, the public has subsidized the industry by providing de facto insurance against hard times in the form of bailouts or merger approvals. And now here we go again.
 
Feel sorry for all staff. I would not want to be in a position where I was forced to use up my accrued leave. I have 40 days long service leave and 30 days annual leave that is there when I retire or leave this job to assist in transition.

I also think all this panic leading to drastic measures is a little over the top. And yes I do understand that people are losing their lives but the flu kills between 290,000-650,000 people worldwide a year.

This is already looking worse than GFC.
 
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Feel desperately sorry for the staff - anything the government does to help with unemployment benefits etc is not likely to go far towards mortgages - must be a lot of stress for them at the moment :(

If this goes on for any length of time surely there will be many with no leave entitlements left to use :(
 
Worth a read.
By Tim Wu The New York Times. 16/3/2020

Don’t Feel Sorry for the Airlines

Before providing them any assistance, we must demand that they change how they treat their customers and employees.

For American Airlines, the nation’s largest airline, the mid to late 2010s were what the Bible calls “years of plenty.”


This is the bedrock of capitalism. Capitalise the gains, socialise the losses. 😁

The latter just has to be as there are thousands of livelihoods at stake, particularly with large employers like AA.
 
I do not disagree dajop but the point is that we should demand better customer treatment. Hav a look at the posts pointing at some very angry customer that should never be. The money should not be given lightly without a quid pro quo.
 
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