September 12-14 2001 - when Ansett came crashing down

[PineappleSkip]

The sept 11 anniversary will be doubly poignant for many AFFers. September 11 events we all know about.
September 12 2001, Ansett filed for voluntary administration.
September 13 2001, the in flight caterers pulled the plug and it was their last day in the Air. A crazy day. My last flight was that evening, we had non upgradable Y tickets SYD-BNE, but they upgraded us anyway (remember Diamond status!). No in flight catering, but the wines were wonderful. We were wondering if they came out of the board room. The cabin crew couldn't drink of course, but they sure wanted us to.
Early in the morning of Sept 14, the administrators puled the plug and Ansett was no longer in the air.

There were of course rescue attempts, the Mark II brief period of flying again, the failed tesna bid, and so on. But the great airline that existed before that never really took off again.

I loved flying Ansett. I still miss them!

Thousands lost their jobs. I counted myself lucky, mrs pineapple and I both just lost a few 100,000s of points. But for me, points were never the same again. I swore never to accumulate a huge pile of points again. Funny money. Use it or lose it.

Ok so here's my questions.
What memories do you have of Ansett's last days, of your last flight wth Ansett?
Did the great collapse change the way you look at FF pounts? How you deal with them or accumulate them?

Cheers skip

 

[nlagalle]

I still remember the day quite well.. Wasn't flying anywhere like I am today but I still had gold wing membership (only 6 months in!) and lost about 50k of points which was nothing on the people who lost their jobs.

Our paper on September 12 (which was 9/11) had a front page story on Ansett going under, but was pulled when the attacks happened (6 editions instead of 3 were printed that day). So I think only a small number of papers were printed with the Ansett story on the front page.

 

[Fantic125]

Thankfully I had arranged award flights for me, +1 & 2 kids for ADL-SYD, CBR-ADL in August, a month or two before the crash.

With the flights I was left with about 100 points left in the kitty...

 

[TonyHancock]

I was in Adelaide during that week. I remember the chaos at Adelaide airport when I was returning to Melbourne, with QF, on the Saturday 15th September. I think by that stage QF had committed to getting AN pax home. I had never flown AN, but the impact on my travel of the collapse was painful. QF lounges were crowded, and customer service from QF was appalling. (I was told, in an email from QF, that they had taken on 60,000 new QP members in two months following the AN collapse.:shock: )_

In terms of FF points I have always tried to use them rather than stockpile them. The AN demise just reinforced that.

 

[richie9x]

I remember those few days well.

On 12 September I flew SYD-BNE on Qantas. Was a very strange feeling. Didn't know if flights would be grounded or what extra security there would be.

Then on 14 September Ansett collapsed. I was flying back to Sydney on that evening, again luckily on Qantas. BNE airport was chaotic. Qantas substituted a 747 on my flight. And I got a first class seat.

 

[markis10]

Ansett still exists on the apron at Sydney, their FOD bins are still in use!

 

[nlagalle]

Ansett still exists on the apron at Sydney, their FOD bins are still in use!

I've noticed at MEL there are still buildings with Ansett sinage on it too..

 

[markis10]

I do miss access to the Tulla Ansett staff canteen, they did a great breakfast! Then again Ansett food was always good!

 

[TonyHancock]

I've noticed at MEL there are still buildings with Ansett sinage on it too..

Including the flight simulator buildings!

 

[futaris]

Ansett Australian Global Rewards - FlyerTalk Forums

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[markis10]

Including the flight simulator buildings!

Fortunately a going concern as a viable business, Ansett Aviation Training :: Home

 

[UP4014]

Normally the Ansett failure would have been front page and for a month, demonstrates how huge 9/11 WTC really was that the Ansett collapse didn't make it to the front half of the newspapers that week. A sad time for commercial aviation both in the US and here.

 

[nlagalle]

Normally the Ansett failure would have been front page and for a month, demonstrates how huge 9/11 WTC really was that the Ansett collapse didn't make it to the front half of the newspapers that week. A sad time for commercial aviation both in the US and here.

I've just gone into the PDF archives to have a read and the front page was talking about Qantas taking over AN as their last hope as SQ said Ansett was beyond saving. The also had pages 6-9 on it as well.

 

[dfcatch]

I've just gone into the PDF archives to have a read and the front page was talking about Qantas taking over AN as their last hope as SQ said Ansett was beyond saving. The also had pages 6-9 on it as well.

Yes, I was still living at Hotham, and I remember going to check the papers at 7am after being up for hours with news from the US.

Obviously it took some hours for the replacement editions to arrive so all our papers were the Ansett story.

Luckily I'd used up most of my points and only had 45,000 lost, which i was quite upset about. And I was just 2 months into my golden wing renewal too

I was one of those who hurriedly took out QP membership and my first QF flight after this was an OpUp MEL-BNE. (and the only one prior to WP status).

 

[harvyk]

I only had one (technically two) AN flights, that said it does fill me with a little warmth and sadness seeing the Ansett logo on what remains (A ULD sitting in a corner of SYD, and the AN flight sim in MEL).

I still remember 10 years ago finding out about AN going down... I'm still of the opinion that if I was to create a new airline in AU I'd seriously consider using the Ansett name and logo (and then making sure the various suppliers knew it was in name only) due to the history and sense of attachment that people still have to the airline.

 

[dfcatch]

Let's not forget that we also lost an Australian Star Alliance airline that day.

 

[simongr]

I lost my honeymoon flights that had been booked using points so had to completely change the honey moon. And I lost about 120k points. Somehow I had just got diamond status I think as well.

When we switched toQF as our corporate carrier it was much harder to get QP membership paid as well..

 

[High Horse]

My husband was working for Ansett and had been promoted only the week before (how optimistic was that lol!). I was 7 months pregnant with our first child, so we were facing going from double income no kids, to no income one kid. The worst thing was all the attempts to refloat the airline made it really difficult for staff to pick up other employment. It was also disappointing as he really loved the airline and it had some great people working for it. We were just really pissed at Helen Clark!
As with most things in life, it just succeeded in opening other opportunities and everything has worked out well since then. If I could have a Sliding Doors moment though, that would be it.

 

[nlagalle]

Yes, I was still living at Hotham, and I remember going to check the papers at 7am after being up for hours with news from the US.

Obviously it took some hours for the replacement editions to arrive so all our papers were the Ansett story.

Country areas only ever get the first edition (time it takes to transport) so they never would have gotten the drop in and those subsequent editions. So those areas would have had a paper that was totally out of date by the time they recevied it. It's not very often that something like that happens that would render the newspaper like that. It's also a mammoth task to re-do the entire paper including changing colour falls, press times and delivery schedules.

 

[UP4014]

I've just gone into the PDF archives to have a read and the front page was talking about Qantas taking over AN as their last hope as SQ said Ansett was beyond saving. The also had pages 6-9 on it as well.

I guess all the papers were a bit different, I just checked the Fin Review for that day, WTC on the cover and one line referring to Ansett being on page 21.