Qantas Sale Amendment (Still Call Australia Home) Bill 2011

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What does the A380 have to do with this ? ...
See this post:
Joyce seems to be defending the decision to purchase A380s over the 777s. I'm fairly sure he said the original model could not fly to LA but the 777ER could. However, by that time, QF had committed to the A380s.

"Today we have this order of A380s that precedes the cost of the 777s . . . The A380 is the clear winner." Lots of defence of aircraft choice, including the 787. ...
 
Joyce: "We're the only airline that does heavy maintenance here . . . We're very committed to Australia."

Senator Ludlam (Greens) put to Joyce that there's nothing in the Act that prevents Qantas from dropping its level of heavy maintenance down to as low as 50%.

Ludlam asked whether there are plans to drop the level of on-shore maintenance. Joyce said a decision has not been made about A380 and 787 maintenance. In the next five years, there are no plans to do anything else but the maintenance "we have in Australia". "We have a commitment to heavy maintenance here and that maintenance will continue".

Joyce: "It will not be economic for us to do the A380 and 787 maintenance in Australia". (I'm not sure how this relates to his statement a minute before that no decision had been made.)
 
Sterle is querying why the website continued to sell tickets after the grounding. He's got a bit heated on it. Brett Johnson from QF said "to be honest, no one thought about it" but by 8pm it was shutdown.

Funny because the website still offerred to sell me a ticket on Sunday.

The A320's will feed to/from the Asian hub. Pretty simple hey?

Qantas has publicly stated that the Asian airline will fly between Australia and Asia. I'm not prepared to accept that QFi will preferentially feed the asia hub.


Sent from my iPhone using Aust Freq Fly app so please excuse the lack of links.
 
Qantas has publicly stated that the Asian airline will fly between Australia and Asia. I'm not prepared to accept that QFi will preferentially feed the asia hub.

That's what I thought as well so going back to what I said
A320's.. Will require flying out of Darwin....

Given the choice of an A380/B777 out of MEL or SYD...

It doesn't even need to be said...

What would the chances be that Qantas ends up bringing all these A320's ordered back to Australia and use them for mainline ?
 
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Xenophon has information (not that it's hard to come by, I guess) that Buchanan is a director, since 2009, of Singapore-based New Star Holdings, which is the holding company of Valuair and Jetstar Asia.


Live by the sword, die by the sword. Saying the grounding was his call has just given the board their get out of jail free card.

Joyce: "We're the only airline that does heavy maintenance here . . . We're very committed to Australia."

Senator Ludlam (Greens) put to Joyce that there's nothing in the Act that prevents Qantas from dropping its level of heavy maintenance down to as low as 50%.

Ludlam asked whether there are plans to drop the level of on-shore maintenance. Joyce said a decision has not been made about A380 and 787 maintenance. In the next five years, there are no plans to do anything else but the maintenance "we have in Australia". "We have a commitment to heavy maintenance here and that maintenance will continue".

Joyce: "It will not be economic for us to do the A380 and 787 maintenance in Australia". (I'm not sure how this relates to his statement a minute before that no decision had been made.)

Not all maintenance done offshore is third world. It would make sense dollars wise to have Lufthansa Technik do the maintenance of A380's in Germany as opposed to setting up a fully fledged A380 maintenance base in Oz for a handful of A380's.

Having aircraft maintenance done in China is a whole different ball game.

Joyce: "Our cash flow at the moment is $1.7 billion. We're spending 2.5".

Returning to the booking of hotel rooms, Joyce said he's told that "there was no more additional rooms booked" as a result of the grounding. Senator Sterle (Labor) then said it must be common practice for QF to book 2000 rooms in LA on a Friday night. Joyce said he would take that on notice.

Joyce: "Our cash flow at the moment is $1.7 billion. We're spending 2.5".

I'm trying to get a senator to ask that question but I think the retort from Buchanan would be 'we don't have access to the wage rates of other airlines'.

If he has been a director of New Star Holdings since 2009 it would be reasonable to assume that he has access to the salaries paid by Valuair & Jetstar Asia.
 
That's what I thought as well so going back to what I said
A320's.. Will require flying out of Darwin....

Given the choice of an A380/B777 out of MEL or SYD...

It doesn't even need to be said...

What would the chances be that Qantas ends up bringing all these A320's ordered back to Australia and use them for mainline ?

Hence why it will still hub out of Asia! Fly to SIN (QF A380) then jump on an A320 to wherever in Asia. I still don't know what part of that you don't understand!

CNS would be a better choice for the Asian market, but not as a hub, rather a destination.
 
The question Xenephon should asking is "How much an FA working for Air Asia X gets paid in relation to the average or minimum salary of thier place of residence?".

Senator Eggleston (Liberal) has now asked this question. He has asked Buchanan to take it on notice and he said he will.

If he has been a director of New Star Holdings since 2009 it would be reasonable to assume that he has access to the salaries paid by Valuair & Jetstar Asia.

Good point. Let's see what comes back.
 
Hence why it will still hub out of Asia! Fly to SIN (QF A380) then jump on an A320 to wherever in Asia. I still don't know what part of that you don't understand!

Qantas to launch premium Asian airline, but it's "not Qantas" - Flights | hotels | frequent flyer | business class - Australian Business Traveller

Once again as you are not getting it, so now I have some FACTS for you from Alan Joyce

"The route opportunities are primarily in Asia," he said. "This is a carrier that we're looking at flying incremental services into Australia, complementing Qantas, and flying an extensive intra-Asia network."

So AGAIN, it will be flying to/from Australia
 
Hence why it will still hub out of Asia! Fly to SIN (QF A380) then jump on an A320 to wherever in Asia. I still don't know what part of that you don't understand!
.

But qantas has publicly stated that the Asian airline will operate flights into Australia. That means not QFi. I think concentrating on A320s distracts from understanding the implications of that publicly stated position.

For example qantas often "changes" plans and diverts aircraft between the various parts of the group.

Sent from my iPhone using Aust Freq Fly app so please excuse the lack of links.
 
But qantas has publicly stated that the Asian airline will operate flights into Australia. That means not QFi. I think concentrating on A320s distracts from understanding the implications of that publicly stated position.

Indeed and I have provided a link for nlagalle and others.....
 
If the proposed bill is introduced, it is far too vague for taste.

Yes, legislation is a lot like that, but as long as the "rules" can not be satisfied according to any given government, that's the hallmarks of a ridiculous piece of legislation. Either the legislation will have little effect or it will have categorically devastating ones, with the usual lag in effect probably expected due to the inevitable legal challenges that may result. Environmental law in Australia is a joke for this kind of reason (although to a lesser extent to what this potential new bill could be).

Also, if this bill were passed then it should be enforced for all airlines primarily operating in Australia - Virgin Australia, Tiger Australia, Air Australia and others.

In a way, I also see how the bill will actually and accurately "stop" what QF is intending anyway. If they have an international off-shoot airline based in another country, that airline is based in that country and is a company there. It is still part of the group, so be it, so how is that accounted for and to what degree can Australian law regulate that? One way to disconnect it even more is to forgo the addition of off-shore "subsidiaries" from Qantas group and instead have them as autonomous businesses (admittedly seeded with capital from the Qantas group) and then have "alliance agreements" - you would only need to make sure they are not too "friendly" to avoid competition and collusion legislation. And it wouldn't be awfully different to how business is done now anyway.

In what way will Australian legislation accurately account for the percentage of heavy maintenance done in Australia? And if that means we need to set up an A380 hangar here, it would be awfully nice if there were some external support for that, because so far the government seems to think that it's as easy as setting up another big shed, drafting over a few odd people (who we supposedly trust invariably as they are Australian and not some foreign worker) at basically almost nil cost compared to current operations, when it is a far more complicated procedure than that: upskilling, licenses to work on those aircraft, supply of parts....
 
It seemed clear - and indeed was a point of Xenophon's questioning - that the Asian-based crew do the entire route, hence his line of questioning on conditions.
The key here is that the CNS viaDRW route is different to the other viaDRW routes.

Passengers departing CNS do so from the international terminal, they clear federal departure formalities in CNS, and remain in an airside holding pen while in DRW (As they have officially left Australia). So having an international crew continuing the DRW - CNS as a tag on service would seem reasonable IMO. (Just like the A330 JQ services MEL-SYD) Note: domestic passengers on all these service require a D sticker.

The domestic "tag on" services to other cities from DRW, as ozbeachbabe points out, are not international services, they are domestic services - they depart and arrive to/from domestic gates. Passengers complete all federal departure/arrival formalities in DRW. Remember: At DRW (like ADL) some terminal gates can be domestic or international, depending which way the door is locked. (So the aircraft doesn't even need to change bays to go from domestic arrival to international departure.)

These services are international tag services, only in so far as they use the same flight number, to all other extents they are a standard domestic service. Note: these domestic passengers don't get a D sticker.

Yet along with ozbeachbabe I have also noted that Jetstar use Thai flight attendants onboard these (true) domestic flights to South East Australia. (Whether they have Aussie work permits, I don't know.)


It would be similar to QF changing a QF400+ flight number to a QF399- number, but everything else remains the same (i.e. departs and arrives a domestic gate) and staffing it with Jetconnect crew.
 
Also, if this bill were passed then it should be enforced for all airlines primarily operating in Australia - Virgin Australia, Tiger Australia, Air Australia and others.

if not it only restricts Q's offshoots, then we can all pay more, some of the parliamentarians are in La La land.

i guess next they'll want the new airline to fly the aircraft back here for servicing too:)
 
A JQ crew member is now appearing before the committee. She is using parliamentary privillege to allege unsafe work practices for JQ cabin crew. A male colleague is also supporting her claim.
 
The male witness claims that Asian-based crew are paid SGD55 allowance per overnight stay in Australia, whereas he (Australian-based) get AUD100.
 
The male witness has described doing a DPS return (presumedly ex-SIN) over a Friday night, Saturday off, called in Sunday, then a HNL on Monday. He added that under his agreement, even if he's sick for just one day, he's required to provide a doctor's certificate or stat dec - but the decs aren't accepted. The female flight attendant is under an agreement whereby she has just four sick days a year that she does not need to provide any documentation for.
 
The two JQ cabin crew giving evidence at the moment are painting a very damning picture of life with the orange star.
 
The male cabin crew member has detailed an incident where a colleague did a Bali return (again, presumedly from Sydney) was driving home from work. She stopped for coffee then continued driving and had an accident. The crew member received no assistance from JQ because "she broke her journey". The crew member has subsequently taken her own life.

In another incident, a crew member of an international flight was instructed to stay behind and clean the aircraft on arrival at its destination, despite a deceased passenger remaining on board. The deceased passenger had expelled the contents of his/her bowels, hence the instruction for the crew member to clean up. And the body remained on board.
 
The committee has adjourned but it's almost certain Qantas will be recalled and also likely that JQ and CASA will be called.
 
The male cabin crew member has detailed an incident where a colleague did a Bali return (again, presumedly from Sydney) was driving home from work. She stopped for coffee then continued driving and had an accident. The crew member received no assistance from JQ because "she broke her journey". The crew member has subsequently taken her own life.
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While obviously a very sad story, I'm not sure the full facts are being told here. Work Cover generally will not cover injuries caused by accidents where diversions are made on the journey home (getting a coffee *could* trigger this issue). And what support should Jetstar give to a staff member who has had an accident on their own time? (Granted travelling home from work. Now was the staffer overworked? Possibly - but that may not make JQ any more culpable). And additionally, the sleep patterns / analysis of the time spent in Bali would give a better indication of whether the person was overworked or was just fatigued.

The other story is pretty shocking and I believe a direct abuse of cabin crew.
 
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