Why did Ansett collapse?

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rormad

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As this forum has gone deathly quiet in the past few weeks I thought I'd liven up things. Is no one flying? Are we all waiting to go on Jet*?

Anyway my question: now that over 2 years of dust has settled does anyone know the real reason Ansett collapsed?
These are the 'reasons' I hear:
1. Air NZ stripped it and stuffed it up.
2. News Corp stuffed it.
3. Unions stuffed it.
4. Impulse/Virgin/Qantas sent it broke with discounting (but why did QF succeed?)
5. Incompetence of management
Plenty more I guess but this should get things going.
 
All of the above and some. Whilst some may blame individual events for the airlines demise (such as Air NZ not letting SQ take an extra 50%), there are a huge number of contributing factors. IMHO, it was a classic case of the ramifications of numerous decisions made or other factors effecting the airline over the last 20 years of its life that contributed to the final blow. Any of these factors individually probably would not have caused the airline into its final position, but the sum of them did.

Also, timing (just after 9-11) could not have been worse - at any other time perhaps SQ or EK might have been interested in the airline, but not at a time where airliners suddenly began to be used as weapons and numerous US carriers were also suddenly catapaulted towards Chapter 11. Let's not forget the plight of US , AA, UA etc (who all had Chapter 11 protection soon after) & the plight of Swiss & Sabena in Europe, and of course the NZ parent itself (which was saved in the national interest). Something had to give in Australian domestic aviation, if not then, then maybe by now - I very much doubt that anyone (apart from ex employees & disgruntled GR members) think that the travelling public is suffering for the demise. Time will tell.
 
Ansett , Boeing, Boeing,Gone

Hi all sorry for the pun.

I worked for AN in the Mid 90's and even then I could see the writing on the wall. Left in 1996. The union I was forced to be in was all for screwing the last $ out of AN. The most profitable aircraft back then was the old 727 on the Bne-Drw run as they owed the old girl out right and freigt and Pax loads were great. Much of the rest of the fleet were on lease.

I fully agree that it was a combination of mistakes etc that all together bought AN down. But the cost in human terms was grave. My wife still worked with AN when it went down. A suden loss on one income, with kids, bills and the like almost distroyed us.

Some payed an even high price, took there own life. The number is unknowen not 100's but not single digits either. With 16,000 people unemployed all at once some things got to give.

If there is any where more % of the down fall could be pointed to it is perhaps Air NZ to be so foolish to pay over a billion $ for an airline larger than its self that was in such a bad way. They wanted AN at all costs to stop SQ.

A lot of the rest is history. No one company, person or Gov. was fully to blame, however none were totaly clean of causing some of the factors in the finial dead of AN.

Just my two cents worth.
 
I would go for management incompetence more than anything, along with intransigent unions (although the two go hand in hand). (I will only be talking about operational issues here).

Ansett was the ONLY carrier to operate the 767 with a three-position flight deck. Due to intransigent unions, and the incompetent management who lacked the dangly things to stand up to them.

Ansett also operated 737-300's as well as A320's - aircraft which were so close to each other in terms of capacity that it really should have been one or the other, not both. Settling on one or the other allows them to reduce the parts inventory held, as well as reducing the number of pilot and LAME pools which have to exist.

Ansett also held onto the 727 for far longer than they should have (as much as I LOVED flying on them). These outdated aircraft greatly added to running costs.

Sure, none of these would have brought Ansett down, but it is certainly indicative of the mindset of management and unions, and THAT is why Ansett failed.

The staff were great too, by the way, Australia has always had GREAT airline staff IMNSHO.

Dave
 
In the past i have so much support with ansett, yeah why would air NZ steal ansett cause ansett always has been sucessful for years it has alway war with qantas for many years as i can see it was huge drama going on here, once i remember that brickhead CEO who were used to work for qantas as i read from somewhere, and i was surprise and knew he would stuff this up on ansett, so why would government get profit against ansett i felt bad for member of ansett for their loss of job and plus their life, 60 min last year it tell us how member were suffering from this, as my father was member of RAAF as a friend of mine who in same unit as my dad as he left RAAF and join the ansett and he find how shocking because lack of amount of money and plus too many problem with aircraft as they find because he was gravely concern about aircraft years. why would management would take money and get away with it. where has billion dollars goes ?????? that was unanswer ansett memeber need to know where has these money gone to. the mangement should tell what is going on. everytime i see the picture of ansett it was awful and it heartbreaking for not see the ansett again, if i were billionaire i would get ansett back on track and get good management, anway i think that all i can say.
 
What did he say?????

Could not undersand a bit of it, was he actually able to type all of that without taking a breath?

Dave
 
docta says Could not undersand a bit of it, was he actually able to type all of that without taking a breath?

who he, are u trying unwelcome me here
 
Tag4Victoria said:
docta says Could not undersand a bit of it, was he actually able to type all of that without taking a breath?

who he, are u trying unwelcome me here

Tag4, you're getting a bit sensitive here. I would've thought with all the travelling you're doing with your sport and the subsequent security checks, sensitivity would be all but dulled out of the system.

Seriously though, I'd appreciate taking a breath while I'm reading and comma after comma doesn't work for me. Unless your posting your message by phone and the lack of punctuation would then make sense.

Did the RAAF really let you write reports like your posts?
 
Tag4Victoria said:
docta says Could not undersand a bit of it, was he actually able to type all of that without taking a breath?

who he, are u trying unwelcome me here

Wots dat da man, sounds like pidgeon english here da man.

Seriously though, if you want us to read your posts, you could - at the very least - use normal English standards, such as punctuation, paragraphs, and so on. Running your words all together - as you have done - merely makes what you wish to say appear intelligible.

Dave
 
Tag4Victoria said:
docta says Could not undersand a bit of it, was he actually able to type all of that without taking a breath?

who he, are u trying unwelcome me here

Tag4Victoria,

Please have a look at some of the previous posts from thadocta. He has,
over a period of time made a lot of valuable contributions to these forums. I don't for a minute believe that he is trying to make you "unwelcome here." :eek:

He is however expressing (I believe) the feelings of quite a few of the other members. :(

As a result of your concerns about being "unwelcome" I have gone back and reread your post. Put politely, it is extremely difficult to to understand what you said and the points that you were trying to make. (I'm still not sure that I understand it all) The use of normally accepted punctuation and setting out would change all of that so that we are able to get back to the topic at hand rather than squabbling amongst ourselves. :cry:

Good luck with your future posts, however I implore you to try to make your posts a little more understandable :!:

:oops: :)
 
Air New Zealand, Good,bad or indifferent?

Just to put a little life into the board. :D See my Prev. post re Air NZ. Still, today, almost 3 years since AN and Air New Zealand parted, my wife will not buy, support or even consider flying/visting NZ. Ok, she now has an other job paying 1,000 less than before, but it is the past. God help me if I buy an NZ product :oops:

I think that this could be just how other ex AN staff feel about NZ? Any thoughts? :?:
 
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Re: Air New Zealand, Good,bad or indifferent?

toetoes said:
Just to put a little life into the board. :D See my Prev. post re Air NZ. Still, today, almost 3 years since AN and Air New Zealand parted, my wife will not buy, support or even consider flying/visting NZ. Ok, she now has an other job paying 1,000 less than before, but it is the past. God help me if I buy an NZ product :oops:

I think that this could be just how other ex AN staff feel about NZ? Any thoughts? :?:

toetoes,

I agree that we need to get some life in the board. :D :mrgreen:

I don't quite agree with your sentiments re New Zealand. I watched how Air NZ milked the life out of Ansett by swapping parts and taking all the low time parts back to NZ for Air NZ etc. This was a business decision by a greed and dare I say incompetent few and for that reason I agree and will not have any dealings with Air NZ. :twisted:

I can't agree though that we should boycott all of NZ and all NZ products. I have many friends who worked for Ansett (pointy end through to blunt end) who completely agree that it was not the fault of the average Kiwi and consequently hold no grudge with "normal" Kiwi's.

--- Is there such a thing as a "normal" Kiwi :?: Oops, thats another topic :!: :oops:

Maybe as time goes by --- and they get another PM --- we can move forward. :D
 
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