I'm not sure Qantas is a mega corporation. By global standards it's a niche airline at the end of the line of global networks in a highly liberalised sector. Not an easy task surviving, nevermind thriving as an airline in Australia. The market is exceptionally liberalised. It has a single market with New Zealand and allows foreign ownership of domestic carriers (bizarrely with the exception of Qantas). Any number of foreign carriers can come and open shop - several have. Singapore Airlines did with Tiger and failed. Virgin has struggled in various forms. It has an exceptionally liberal foreign access as well, free access for Singapore, India, the US, China, and liberal access to Emirates, Etihad, Turkish and the like. It faces significant competition from foreign carriers from low wage and often subsidised operations. Nevertheless, they are a good operator.Patrick AL wrote: ↑Sat May 25, 2024 12:22 pm evanb -I have no gripe with you personally
-I ....Googled... your website, and scanned through a few of the articles you have published
-You clearly have a deep understanding of the intricacies of the Business of aviation from all perspectives -specifically the Australian industry, and I will not argue your depth of understanding and insight
-as for the core issue here :
It is very simply about a mega-corporation, with huge power and leverage in the industry, manipulating the market to achieve some sort of undue financial/marketing benefit by actively duping many thousands of its customers - through intent, or through entirely unreasonable/unacceptable 'oversight or omission'.
End of story.
Why they actively did / negligently allowed this?
I actually suspect ( broadly informed by some of your own articles) that Qantas -after the whole C'vid19 flustercluck -possibly found themselves in a position to bolster their recovery by deceptively using customer funds as a short-term interest-free finance pool -(possibly to be able to bolster their Aus-US capacity which seems to be flagging).
-but I may be wrong as to the ultimate reason...
-yet even if it is something as simple as the 'the website update team got lost' -it is unethical and inexcusable for an organisation of the scale of Qantas to even suggest that as valid reason -they are culpable in that, they knew it, and they settled.
Hoping that the consumers find fair recompense, and that the Qantas don't do that again!
Good luck with your website, evanb -I expect it will prove very useful to aviation Business in your market.
Airlines, just like any other business should be held to account. I've written plenty (as you probably saw on my blog) which criticises regulatory decisions, including those that have benefited Qantas (unfairly I though). There is a system in Australia to hold businesses to account, which is more than can be said for many other countries. However, people deserve to be treated fairly in that system and that includes businesses. If businesses are not treated fairly then the allocation of capital becomes inefficient and politicians exploit this for corruption. South Africa is a prime example of how inefficient and corrupt everything becomes when people are not treated fairly. China, Russia, and many other kleptocracies.
But fairness also means that when holding people and businesses to account that it requires evidence to support that accountability. It doesn't matter if someone did something wrong, individual liberties put the burden of proof on the accuser. But also intent is important. It we are only held to account for outcomes rather than intentions, then we'd all be in jail. You seem to believe that intent is irrelevant, and I do have a problem with that.
My blog is a person hobby horse. I do work in the industry and have for best part of 20 years. My job is analytics in the economic and network strategy side of airlines. We work with about 50 major global airlines. What Qantas was doing was done by nearly every single one of our clients. Most of them had no idea and not a single one has been held accountable. The paternalistic nature of the Australian system has caught them out.
My problem is not with you. It's with people who don't know what they don't know, but seem to think they know better than people who do. When they are challenged, they respond in childish ways. I don't know what you do, but I'm sure you're good at it and know the area well. When you're engaging people within the realm of your expertise, I would expect that you'd be rather insulted with people responding with "blah blah blah" ...
I also have a problem with the vitriol for something that likely had little to no impact on you.
to sit on cash!
