OUR ICARUS‏

With the news that Qantas is losing 5000 jobs, and a hell of a lot in middle management, it makes you wonder just how the Qantas board was able to sit back and watch this eventuality occur for more than FIVE YEARS?

Normally in the corporate world, a CEO has but only 18 months to 2 years to prove themselves as a profit maker or they are removed, so how is it that Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce was able to maintain his 5 million plus a year job for so many years?

Sure, there are many factors to why an Airline would lose or make money and just some of these market and external forces are responsible for what is happening to Qantas now. I am sure that militant unionist wage and conditions demands have had their own effect but just as damaging would be the Carbon Tax, along with the increased high quality competitiveness from other airlines in the market.

I am also privy from a most reliable inside source that there are definitely too many chiefs & not enough Indians at Qantas, thus there is great wage waste in the middle management sector.

All this however does not explain why a long term national and international carrier with the highest safety record in the world is losing millions a quarter, unless the Captain of this plane is making poor choices.

The JetStar and Asian JetStar ventures have definitely been bad moves for Qantas and this is not recent news. Hanging on to these money pits has in fact been more about personal pride than good management, something that Mr Joyce needs to fall on his golden sword for, in my opinion.

When the PM does remove the restriction to foreign ownership laws, another reason why Qantas hasn't been on a level playing field for years, then my guess is that Emirates will buy the majority Qantas shares and I believe that although the brand will always maintain its high quality service & safety standard, that the new owners will change many more things on the ground including wages & conditions.

This will no doubt lead to industrial action and loss of jobs. I wonder where Alan Joyce and his compliant board will be then?............ not applying for the dole, that's for sure!


The constant sabotage by maintenance unions until Joyce grounded the fleet also bled Qantas dry.  Grounding the fleet woke the unions up and stopped the maintenance faults but Qantas had already lost a lot of passengers by then.  The brand had been badly damaged  -- JR