I remember when Dixon and Jackson tried to steal Qantas away and...

I remember when Dixon and Jackson tried to steal Qantas away and fumbled at the line with one US investor getting his numbers wrong. Then the GFC came along and that would have buried Qantas which would have seen everything sold and outsourced and basically been just a sticker of a kangaroo on a leased plane, with casual staff and the sale proceeds gone to Dixon, Jackson and their cronies beforehand.

Fast forward to Alan Joyce and he has stripped the wealth out of Qantas for himself and bonus shares to executives and board members. Catering was sold, the land at Mascot is now sold along with the Domestic terminal. The aircraft are all hocked and yet they still got billions in hand outs. Where has the money gone? Jetstar got a free ride in the beginning with free aircraft and servicing and guaranteed belly space paid for, all his Asian Jetstar enterprises have failed, Vietnam saw an executive jailed, Hong Kong and the new planes he bought for 2am departures were sold, with no loss of course. Jetstar Japan was worth nothing, Singapore was nothing special and not 100% owned. It seems as if he is a wanna be kingmaker and Qantas was his to do as he pleased, dictating to the Australian public their social conscience all the while giving free passes to the lounges and upgrades to the various decision makers and media types.

The CEO of Japan Airlines along with all their staff travel economy, yet Alan gets a seat before a paying passenger and up the front of course. Nothing is a problem when he flies, but you and I are treated like imbeciles when we pay the bills there and get a few pieces of lettuce, a piece of bread and a meal which is more like a snack. Alan was a champion of equality, yet 20 year long service members from the ramp were bumped by a 6 month IT newbie as his category was higher, I suppose IT being over at corporate is more important than a guy working in the rain loading the plane, even if he has been doing it for 20 years or more.

Now we are seeing many executives leave as Alan is hated by most of them, I know when he got a pie in the face a whole level of computers at corporate had their PC screens savers changed to the picture of him copping it in the face, yet here he is still. There has been some mild criticism of him lately for illegally sacking 2000 workers but this is only because the same people reporting it are angry for not getting their bags and having to wait in line for once. He lost the appeal on that and now he wants to take it to the high court on another appeal. 2000 people gone and he has replaced them he says with 1500 new staff, casual, 4 hour shift staff I would say, young and fit and only worked for 12 months and pushed out the door with their rosters changed to non penalty shifts so as to be sure we get rid of them before they get too badly hurt and make a claim for worker’s compensation, so make the job not worth it so they resign, they tried it first with QGS, and yes it was their business model.

So now a 400 million buyback, wasn’t that 2 years of savings by getting ride of ground services? Oh wait that was before he lost the court case sacking people illegally and now their is potential for significant compensation for the workers, it is now we only will be saving 80 million a year. So 5 years of savings to get rid of workers, when perhaps natural attrition would have replaced the workforce anyway. The point is Alan Joyce is full of it and the board is just a responsible as he is. The Australian people bought and paid for Qantas and he has trashed it completely, yet the irony is he can do it as the decisions are backed by superannuation companies that hold the votes with money invested by working class blue collar workers. Oh what a game and none of us are allowed to play.