qan worlds second best airline, page-8

Sally, not sure what the frequent flyer program has to do with safety. As a listed company, if you have something which is losing as much money as their FF program was (it was the most generous in the world at the time) then you change it. The pendulum may have swung too far the other way but it beats the hell out of the business folding and your points being worthless. Just ask any Ansett customer.

Also, there's no such thing as a "cheap shot" where the loss of 89 lives is concerned. 4 pilots failed to look at the numbers painted on the runway in Taipei. They were carrying out-of-date charts which still showed that runway as in use. They rolled over the markers warning of a closed runway. The Taiwanese authorities, quite rightly, found them guilty. The Singaporean government, in an attempt to save face, convened their own "mock" inquiry and exonerated the pilots, flying in the face of overwhelming evidence. Saving face means more to them than learning from a mistake. Who in their right mind would fly with a carrier registered in that regulatory environment???

Their procedures were still so sloppy a couple of years later that the pilots in the Auckland incident were exonerated, due to their procedures not requiring a check of the takeoff weight in the computer (the one entered was less than the empty weight of the aeroplane!!!)

As for Emirates... you can't compare them to any listed airline in the world, as they are backed up by virtually bottomless amounts of oil money. Market share (like airport size) is a status symbol to them and airlines in that part of the world are prepared to spend any amount to get it. They should not even be allowed to fly here as it is such an uneven playing field.

For the record, I don't own Qantas shares and am not sure I want to. I just know a bit about the industry.