I have double trouble. :(
Booked to fly in 4 weeks to Finland via Bangkok!
Qantas is dying....
Bangkok is drowning.....
Pray for me
Seems like the union's push for job security will have them all losing their jobs soon enough.
Bloody heck, I made the above post before I surfed the news websites. Biggest game of 'Chicken' I've ever seen.
Thewest.com.au
UPDATE 2.50pm: Qantas has grounded its entire domestic and international fleets indefinitely and announced the lockout of all employees covered by the agreements that are currently in dispute.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the groundings would take place immediately and announced the lockout will begin at 5pm Monday.
“We are locking out until the unions withdraw their extreme claim and reach agreement with us,” Mr Joyce told a press conference on Saturday.
Mr Joyce said his hand had been tipped by the impossible demands of the three unions.
“They are trashing our strategy and our brand,” he said.
“They are deliberately destabilising the company and there is no end in sight.”
If the industrial action continued, Qantas would have no choice but to shut down its business “part by part”, the chief executive said.
He believed the lockout and grounding of the fleet was the only effective avenue at his disposal to bring about a solution to the dispute.
Mr Joyce said he was sorry the course of action had become necessary but the ball was now in the unions' court.
“They must decide just how badly they want to hurt Qantas, their members ... and the travelling public,” he said.
The airline will offer hotel accommodation and alternative flights to those who are mid-journey and can't get home when the grounding takes effect.
And there will be refunds and ticket transfers available to passengers whose flights are cancelled.
Qantas said it would keep passengers updated on the situation via its website, Facebook page and Twitter.
The airline said today there were 64 aircraft in the air, 36 domestic and 28 international carrying more than 7000 passengers.
These aircraft will complete the sectors they are operating and will then be grounded.
In total 108 aircraft will be grounded in 22 airports around the world.
The airline says, 13,305 passengers are booked to travel on Qantas planes from overseas ports to Australia in the next 24 hours.
About 1310 international passengers may be at international airports now waiting for their flight to depart.
Follow thewest.com.au on Twitter
I was supposed to fly with Qantas in a fortnight with work.
I cannot rely on Qantas in the future. What a shame.
RIP Qantas this will cost you dearly.
I'm all for unions, to a point. They do make pay negotiations easier for the individual and the company when they negotiate for all. But somtimes I think unions lose sight of the bigger picture, the company is there for the benefit of the shareholders that invest, not the employers that work for them.
Anyone who works for a living that thinks their employer owes them anything more than wages and accrued leave entitlements are kidding themselves, it doesn't matter how long you have worked for the company they ultimately owe you nothing more than your next pay check.
Killed by unions? For what? They could agree to the Qantas deal and lose their jobs or fight the Qantas deal and lose their jobs. What have they got to lose?
For my money, Joyce runs the company. He gets paid the big bucks to find ways through and negotiate. He doesn't get paid to chuck the company in the bin.
Killed by Joyce more like it.
Question; who would get the blame if a Qantas plane fell from the sky?
The CEO would finally get the wrap under legal obligations so how does he protect the traveling public safety.... stop the planes flying, then they won't crash... simple.
Would you fly in a plane with a known mechanical problem and it wasn't fixed.
Part of the Union claims were to "provide continuity of employment" despite technology changing. So what you need to keep people on that are no longer required? The employer needs to be able to adjust its workforce to meet changing times.
Why do you think there are now so many contract and casual staff used in industry these days?
Oh by the way my daughter does / has done work for Qantas.
Paddy Irish F&%K its not the unions that will kill the company it the new CEO who has just recieved a 71% pay raise and is hell bent on breaking up a good company and sending it off seas to justify his producivity shares bonus SHAME SHAME SHAME strange that it was done when all the attention was on CHOGM
Is qantas going broke..?
1 Do they not agree to these employee demands cause it will bankrupt them..?
2 Are they just trying to wring every last cent out for share holder benefit..?
If they're not to the first and are to the second...
Seems a tad contemptuous towards the market they service.
We reap what we sow, and it's friggen harvest time...
We are quickly finding out on all fronts just how much all those imported bargains are actually costing us...
Those smelly hippies occupying public space in protest, inconveniencing you whilst you try and consume, those arrogant well paid professionals sitting on their hands refusing to bow to company demands of profit at all cost....(including ultimately your safety and national sovereignty)
Turn off the tv and think about what's exactly happening now..
We better start lifting our heads out of the junk mail cataloges and take our country back or before we know it our kids will be making belts on street footpaths with a brick and a financed hole punch for their child labour boss to ship back to india, while we learn to speak hindi to get a job at a tele communications call centre...
I like this commentary from Dick Smith www.dailytelegraph.com.au/nocookies?a=A.flavipes
The worlds changing and most of us no longer care to pay the premium to fly with a premium airline. Nowadays, they are really just buses that fly.
Personally I'm counting on Qantas to get me to WA this summer, cause for the price, and the luggage allowance, they are a cheaper option then Virgin/Jetstar. When you got a premium brand with more highly paid pilots etc trying to compete with the budget airlines, you know that something has to give.
As far as CEO pay goes, I agree its ridiculous how much executives get paid, but its not just qantas. Hence all these occupy protests we have seen of late. To put it in perspective thou, the CEO of Mcdonalds in australia gets paid twice what alan joyce is paid.
No wonder Ireland is fooked financially.
If this is the management they churn out.
GFC who cares!Gimme a 71% pay rise.
A CEO who pockets 2 million $ pay rise (don't want to think what his gross is) yet cannot accept his employees asking for 30 or 40 (maybe more in some positions there)bucks a week extra??????????
The cream-scooping fatboys up top of these companies have got to be stopped - someone else mentioned obcene too.
This man is an out and out lunatic. You would expect a man earning millions would have the skills to negotiate with even the hardest or most arrogant unions. I am not 100% behind the unions, however just imagine individuals trying to negotiate with the bosses if this is how they respond. Time to start the conspiricy theory. Maybe this idiot is a mere well paid pawn, sent over here to bust up Qantas and open up our skies to airlines from all over. Might sound good for the short term, however, just remember Qantas's safety record. I would rather pay a few dollars more when I fly and have some confidence in the plane and company.
The main reasons QANTAS has a good safety record is the compartive emptiness of Australian skies and the usually sunny Aussie weather.
Let QANTAS go overseas if it wants to. In return open up the Australian domestic air travel market to foreign airlines. Australia owes QANTAS nothing and in return QANTAS should expect nothing from Australia.
It should be the right of every worker to withdraw their labour if they choose to. In return it should be the right of every employer to ask a worker to leave and never return if that worker decides to withdraw their labour.
Unions are more imperative now than just about ever
The problem with the unions is, all the hard work and conditions we've come to take as granted and have allowed us to prosper collectively as a nation came about from the unions of our fathers and their fathers times.
The last few decades unions have become infested with cronies seeking personal political aspirations.... The labor (Labour in Australia mate) party full of trade unionists is the perfect example.
properly organised, unions could bring corporate greed and the political pig trough to it's knees while keeping employment conditions and future opportunities soaring...
But we're gonna have to stop spending our monies at the $2 shop...
Call me cynical but it is amazing how the Queen was able to get on a flight before Qantas cancelled all flights. That was good timing
Just a thought.. do you think maybe 97% percent of shareholders at the AGM voted to approve his pay rise because they knew he was about to become Australia's most hated man?
