I agree DJ is not at the standard of the Star Alliance yet and that is probably the greatest barrier they face to that idea. I'm not sure I agree about the Godfrey years though.....did they go upmarket? From comments posted on here it seems all they did was level out fares to be competitive with QF but that's about all they did. PE, also from comments on here is questionably a return on investment proposition.
It's a propitious time for new leadership as Godfrey didn't have the experience to take the airline much beyond it's original concept. I doubt that JB will do anything less than expect return on investments as well, the difference being though that he has experience making these kinds of decisions and is probably more aware of the payoffs and pitfalls of such decisions than the previous leadership were.
They are certainly not the airline they were originally. While PE was a bit of a misstep, the addition of features such as Velocity, the Lounge, codeshares etc. are not really the stuff of a true LCC.
To some extent though, and PE probably demonstates this, is that they were a bit beholden to their past as an LCC and couln't completely make that break. As for SQ, there was that symbolic tearing up of the cheque in the dying throes of Ansett that probably hasn't helped their cause on the Star Alliance front.
JB, being less beholden to the past, can probably set about straightening some of those things, and use some of the pieces that were put together in the last year of Brett Godfrey. The alliances with Delta, Air NZ, the new reservation system are all elements of this and are reflective of the move away from an LCC.
One problem, though, is the risk of changing the corporate culture too much, as this can lead to disaffected employees, and their consequent departue from the airline.
This is part of the reason I sugget they look within the Virgin airlines, such as Virgin America for product ideas on where they may want to go, rather than turn themselves into a copy of Qantas.
