Wirraway From Australia, joined Mar 2001, 1321 posts, RR: 1 Posted (11 years 5 months 1 week 4 days 15 hours ago) and read 697 times:
From Tues "Sydney Morning Herald" http://www.smh.com.au/news/0112/11/national/national7.html Qantas Kicks Ansett
Qantas also announced changes to its domestic operations yesterday, with flights every 30 minutes in morning and afternoon peaks between Sydney and Brisbane, and Melbourne and Brisbane. It is a deliberate strategy aimed at gazumping its main rival, Ansett, ahead of the relaunch planned by Solomon Lew and Lindsay Fox in February.
The new services follow the successful launch of the CityFlyer service to Melbourne last July.
Qantas will also introduce package meals, rather than tray meals, to all flights except Perth.
There will also be the potential for automatic swipe-card check-in for all passengers from January, overcoming queues.
Qantas executive general manager sales and marketing, John Borghetti, said domestic passengers were insisting on flexibility. "It's now a question of speed and frequency - not just in the terminal but in the aircraft," he said.
The extra flights to Brisbane puts Ansett Mark II under enormous pressure, especially as Virgin Blue and Qantas have unveiled major discount ticket offers for February and March.
Although bookings with Ansett are healthy over the Christmas holidays, no tickets can be bought for travel after January 31 - the day the Lew-Fox syndicate is due to take over operations. While they say they are committed to the sale, they are still wrangling with Singapore Airlines, which they want to manage the airline.
Industry analysts now say Mr Lew and Mr Fox may need to acquire the airline progressively from the administrators, Mark Mentha and Mark Korda, because there are too may logistical difficulties to surmount.
Wirraway From Australia, joined Mar 2001, 1321 posts, RR: 1 Reply 1, posted (11 years 5 months 1 week 4 days 6 hours ago) and read 628 times:
"Industry analysts now say Mr Lew and Mr Fox may need to acquire the airline progressively from the administrators, Mark Mentha and Mark Korda, because there are too may logistical difficulties to surmount."
As well as this dire prediction from this morning, Qantas has also yesterday announced that from the 2nd Feb
16 additional flights SYD-C/berra and 11 extra MEL-C/berra,
together with the "Cityflyer" Brisbane flights, puts
unbelievable pressure on Fox/Lew at startup.
Wirraway From Australia, joined Mar 2001, 1321 posts, RR: 1 Reply 2, posted (11 years 5 months 1 week 4 days 6 hours ago) and read 621 times:
[Dow Jones] Qantas to beef up domestic capacity on key routes in the new year, reports The Australian Financial Review. To add 16 services on Canberra-Sydney route; 11 services on Canberra-Melbourne route; further flights on Brisbane-Sydney and Melbourne in February. Will put further pressure on struggling rival Ansett Australia which collapsed earlier this year and should underpin share price also aided by low oil prices.
Jsmith From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 5, posted (11 years 5 months 1 week 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 587 times:
Funny how all this action on QF's part is timed to co-incide with the entry of the new AN.
I know DJ has been increasing capacity and offering discounted tickets at the same time, but given DJ's size, the "DJ effect" is not going to necessarily harm AN's entry like QF's plans are.
In any case, DJ has been offering low fares generally since its inception, so it cannot be said that it is offering cheap tickets just to fend off a new AN. Unlike QF, which chooses to "timely" dump capacity into markets - using Citiflyer to Brisbane for example.
Wonder whether the ACCC will be drawn into any upcoming squabbles about predatory pricing which are sure to be raised? Any modification to the Trade Practices Act which might see the threshold for abuses of market power in Part IV lowered, should make QF very concerned. There may be legislative change on the way - notwithstanding the govt's statements about this already.
Wirraway From Australia, joined Mar 2001, 1321 posts, RR: 1 Reply 6, posted (11 years 5 months 1 week 4 days 1 hour ago) and read 556 times:
Jsmith
Howard and Anderson said a while ago there are
no plans to change the Trade Practices Act, this
leaves the ACCC with the same rules to go on,
which don't seem very effective going on past
experiances, a couple of hours ago the Federal
Court has reserved its deceision on the Ansett
$195m, I think when this is handed down will
decide which way Fox/Lew will jump.
Wirraway From Australia, joined Mar 2001, 1321 posts, RR: 1 Reply 7, posted (11 years 5 months 1 week 4 days 1 hour ago) and read 545 times:
Posted :Tue, 11 Dec 2001 14:20 AEDT
Federal Court reserves Ansett decision
The Federal Court has reserved its decision on whether to approve the terms of the deal between Ansett's administrators and the Fox-Lew group.
Final submissions were made today with the main point of contention being arrangements for a government loan of $195 million to pay former Ansett workers' entitlements.
The Government wants to be treated as a priority creditor when Ansett's assets are realised
The court set no time for a decision, but the Administrators say more than 4,000 former Ansett staff could be paid before Christmas if the deal was approved promptly.
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