why this airline has crashed., page-6

More common sense comment fron Ben Sandilands
GLTA @ QF!

Qantas finishes at $1.06 in volume trading
June 7, 2012 – 5:01 pm, by Ben Sandilands

What does the devastating drop in Qantas shares really tell us about the calibre and candour of its management and board?

The most immediate thing it tells us is the those charged with leading this company neglected their duty of continuous disclosure, and expect us to go on believing fairy tales.

Every other major airline affected by the common issues of soaring fuel charges and adverse effects of eurozone instability, and yield erosion, reported those consequences in relation to their profit outlook in a timely manner.

Not 25 days before the end of the financial year. And not accompanied by lame excuses about how the management only become aware of how serious the situation had become in recent days.

It is obvious that investors have lost confidence in this management, and their late disclosure excuses either mean management wasn’t actually paying any attention to the fundamentals, or for some undisclosed reason, decided not to share them with its owners.

As mentioned here several times before, extending to investors the contempt shown to passengers by grounding the airline without warning to remedy a chronic inability to manage labor relations with a shock like that experienced in the last three days is seriously poor form.

This mad dog approach to customers and shareholders was also evident in the announcement of Asia business initiatives in which the essential protocols of doing business in Asia were also disregarded.

It is a shallow, and seriously ineffective tactic, to play up to local headlines about new directions for Qantas, while leaving the relevant authorities in Singapore and Malaysia and Hong Kong to read about them in the English language press of a foreign state before the expected courtesies and protocols are followed.

Not to mention awesomely silly comments directed at the likes of Cathay Pacific, or Singapore Airlines, that Qantas was coming to get them and take away their business with a new offshore based minority owned single aisle carrier.

Qantas has been extended considerably leniency in the Australian media over these antics, no doubt in part because of the clear need to reform its operations further, and to gain whatever access it can to the growth opportunities of Asia.

Qantas has to pursue such goals. But it has to pursue them patiently, learnedly , respectfully and astutely, under leadership that knows what it is doing, enlists rather than alienates its people, and informs rather than confronts those who will approve or block its way.

It needs better leadership, yesterday.

More of the same is ruinously costly and intolerable.