qantas versus virgin

A perusal of one of Richard Branson's books throws up some interesting facts.

1. Virgin is headquartered in Queensland because the then labor premier Peter Beattie offered the best deal.

2. Early on Virgin's booking were coming 60% from the internet, soon rising to 92%. Qantas at the time was taking only 2 to 3% of its bookings over the net. A big cost saving to Virgin from day one.

3. A year after its launch for $10m, Singapore Airlines offered Virgin $250 million to leave Australia. Richard Branson made a ceremony of tearing up a mock cheque in front of the press. A year earlier Virgin Blue was launched in August 2000, with an investment of $10 million.

4. Kim Beazley was in favour of a bailout of Ansett, with its 16000 workers servicing 10 million passengers pa. Virgin then serviced 15 million people with 4000 staff.

Tonight on the TV news was the first time I have seen any admission of a possible collapse of Qantas, unless the board and CEO and methods are changed. There is still a lot of Ansett detritus on the Qantas board.

Tony Sheldon was also on the news, indicating that he is practically guaranteeing collpase by insisting on Qantas staying pretty much as it is.

So we have Kim Beazley and Peter Beattie at opposite ends. Labor prints all over Qantas, and its problems.