Qantas passengers 'expect delays'

[Chris Tully]

QANTAS passengers can expect delays this month following the breakdown of wage negotiations with maintenance engineers who have promised to take industrial action.

Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon said the airline would not increase its offer after the engineers' union informed him of its planned industrial action.

He said the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) will commence overtime bans from May 15 and will hold four-hour, stop-work meetings on May 16 and May 23.

The ALAEA is pushing for a new enterprise agreement that includes pay rises of five per cent a year rather than the airline's standard pay offer.

"Qantas has made it very clear,'' Mr Dixon said.

"We will not break our wages policy of three per cent annual pay increases and a one per cent additional superannuation contribution, as we reinvest our profits in aircraft purchase to continue to grow Qantas in difficult times.''

He said the union is in the wrong and passengers may suffer for it.

"This action is unjustified and we plan to ensure all customers reach their destination on these days,'' Mr Dixon said.

"We will be expecting some delays during the two Friday afternoons.''

AAP

A real shame.

[Nigel C]

What's that? The ALAEA demands or the Qantas reply? And why?

[Alex G]

"Reinvest our PROFITS as we continue to GROW" - Difficult times???

Can't be that bad if you've got the cash to purchase new aircraft!

[Steve B.]

Alex G.

Alex, if you are going to quote text then quote that text without change, or leave off the quotation marks.

Your quote should have read, "reinvest our profits in aircraft purchase to continue to grow Qantas in difficult times.''.
NOT ""Reinvest our PROFITS as we continue to GROW" - Difficult times???"

You show the same cavalier attitude and deceptive practice towards quoting text/people as many of our Australian journalists.

Now, my observation on your post.

Would you rather Qantas paid increased dividends to share holders and increased wages to employees, or to invest in new aircraft to remain type competitive and reduce the maintenance costs of the older aircraft types?

Qantas is undergoing its largest ever new aircraft aquisition. These new aircraft will go a long way to ensuring that Qantas will remain competitive. These aquisitions are very costly but they are necessary to remain competitive, so, yes, times are difficult, not only for Qantas but many international airlines.

The alternative I guess is avoid the difficult times by not investing in new aircraft and slowly go out of business with the subsequent loss of thousands of jobs.

Regards
Stephen

[Chris Tully]

Expect the price of fuel to probably reach USD$200 per barrel by the end of the year. You can call that an extremely difficult time!

Airlines will go bust if it gets to that.

[Alex G]

Ok Stephen, how about this:


"reinvest our profits in aircraft purchase to continue to grow Qantas in difficult times.''

Profits, Grow - Don't sound like difficult times to me.


Ok maybe i should have worded it better to get my point across. So shoot me, at least at the moment i'd die happy
It just sounds like a bad choice of words in Mr Dixon's statement mixing PROFIT and DIFFICULT TIMES together!

[Daniel F]

Just because a company is profitable doesn't mean it is going well.

For example, say you had a $1M deposit with a bank and they gave you $10 interest in a year... would you be happy about that?

Same thing with a company. Shareholders give the company money to invest and shareholders expect a reasonable return, not just any return.

[Chris Tully]

Fuel comprises 43% of costs for Qantas.

With only a small proportion of fuel hedged and with oil hitting USD$126 today per barrel, the future will certainly be difficult.

Qantas will struggle to meet its cost of capital on international and domestic operations, yet the market expects 'better than before' returns.

Investors will demand Qantas attain efficiencies and drive down costs further.

It will certainly be difficult times going-forward.

Expect very poor returns from all airlines.

How do you reinvest into your company if you can barley pay your investors...

You can only borrow so much!

[Rhys Xanthis]

They dont get a bad deal as it is...Just creating problems...

[Andrew M]

Originally Posted by Chris Tully

Expect the price of fuel to probably reach USD$200 per barrel by the end of the year. You can call that an extremely difficult time!

Airlines will go bust if it gets to that.

Currently at $126 per barrel !