Ansert's demise as an Australian business icon and major employer had lasted for six months. After the initial grounding on 14th September , through its attempted resurrection and successive ownership bids, to the cessation of business on 4th March , Ansett made almost daily headlines. Under the banner 'Laid off staff - Death of an Airline' came the description of the significant anguish of Ansett's now ex-employees: 'they emerged from departure gate lounge 11, some were crying, some locked arms in solidarity, others strode past television cameras, too angry to speak' Burke, The high profile of the collapse drew considerable public attention and the interest of many parties including the federal and state governments, various unions and the Australian Council of Trade Unions ACTU , bidders for the airline and its subsidiaries, creditors, and the administrators.
Stunning colour video of the that started the jetset in…. In-flight entertainment in the golden age of flying. Glamorous flight attendants show off aircraft. Magnificent color images capture glamorous hostesses. All News Industry Conversations with Geoffrey. Dispelling the myths about flying. Love Switzerland and the DC-3? Then you will love this! News Passenger News. Share on Facebook. Visit our Ratings Now!
United Airlines. VietJet Air. The Australian Foreign Investment Review Board could have deemed the deal not in the national interest. After all, Brierley was known to be having financial difficulties, having taken significant write offs. SIA clearly was the better capitalised investor. Additionally, although it controlled Air New Zealand, Brierley itself now was controlled by Malaysian interests.
The company, while founded in New Zealand, was domiciled in Singapore and registered in Bermuda. But the Australian government did nothing, and thus the outcome was much as Brierley wanted. Arguably, the outcome satisfied no-one. SIA ended up in partnership with the company that had blocked its bid for Ansett. Because of the bidding war with SIA, Air New Zealand paid top dollar for Ansett at a time when the carrier was in need of significant new investment, and right at the point when two cut-price new entrants, Virgin Blue and Impulse, were set to challenge the domestic duopoly.
Problems began almost immediately. It was to be downgraded three more times in the next year. A decade later, it was more vulnerable.
As Virgin Blue and Impulse were tearing at the heart of Ansett in the second half of , it would have been logical to assume that Air New Zealand would seek to safeguard its enormous investment with more capital. But Air New Zealand had its own problems, as Brierley was unwilling and allegedly at the time unable to provide any funding and SIA, having been outmanoeuvred by Brierley once already, was not going to sign any blank cheques.
If it was to be the banker, it wanted a bigger share in Air New Zealand and even its own piece of Ansett. Then it ran into another roadblock as under New Zealand law, SIA as a foreign airline was limited to holding no more than 25 per cent of the airline.
Initial efforts to involve the New Zealand government fell afoul of local politics. The coalition government of Prime Minister Helen Clark was not eager to take up the issue, particularly given that Cushing was the major fundraiser for the main opposition party. In November , this author broke the news that Ansett was losing money and forced Air New Zealand to concede that fact to the stock exchange. The next month Cushing finally appointed a chief executive, former Qantas deputy chief executive Gary Toomey, to run the combined Air New Zealand-Ansett group.
This was against the wishes of SIA. By now, however, Ansett was nearing its endgame. A series of operational and maintenance breakdowns beginning over the Christmas holiday that led to the forced grounding of nine s severely damaged public confidence. Toomey hit the ground running in January of Just three months later at Easter, the s were grounded again over yet another service bulletin oversight.
By now, however, SIA was not as eager to take a piece of Ansett. Instead it again offered to increase its stake in Air New Zealand and underwrite additional capital-raising so the parent could fund badly needed aircraft for Ansett. Starting in July every Monday morning, this author received an email from [email protected] labelled Toomeyland.
In July Qantas was negotiating directly with the Air New Zealand board and Brierley, and Cushing stepped down because of the conflict of interest. Weeks of procrastination and back room dealing followed, as the Australian government pushed the Qantas line and a divided New Zealand government was unsure of what course of action to follow.
With Virgin Blue staying in the market, Ansett was finished and bankrupt. SIA already had rejected the same offer and a week earlier had backed off the recapitalisation of ANZ, fearing it would be dragged down as ANZ had to face writing off its Ansett stake.
At the time the Air New Zealand and Ansett staff were going through agony. I had to make these businesses viable and at the same time look at what value could be extracted. I had a split personality. It was just terrible. The people were passionate and 98 per cent were not responsible for what happened. It was really tough, really tough. Management kept telling us there was hope, we wanted to believe it but we had profound misgivings.
If it had survived there would have been massive attrition. Receivership took that painful decision away. On September 12 Air New Zealand abandoned Ansett and its 16, staff, placed the airline in administration, and announced a recapitalisation plan to restore some health to its ravaged balance sheet. Two days later Ansett was grounded. The shutdown was a disaster for Australia as a host of regional centres were cut off and tourism devastated.
Toomey resigned a few days later. Analysts, commentators and some politicians in both countries called for a total policy rethink that recognised the special political, economic, strategic and social needs that have become attached to a national airline. It is also the basis of tourism and business evolution. Harbison called for countries such as Australia and New Zealand to address in a bipartisan way what precisely they wanted from their airline industry, and then establish a clear strategy to achieve it.
He added that removing national ownership controls if required, and exemptions from competition laws relating to mergers, should be embraced.
However, within a couple of days Hodge stood down after unions accused PricewaterhouseCoopers of a conflict of interest. Within a few weeks Skywest, Kendell and Aeropelican were back in the air with some government assistance, and on September 27 the administrators announced that five Ansett As would start flying again with the support of 1, staff.
Despite announcing a deal to buy 30 As from Airbus in early February and confirming that Ansett would rejoin Star Alliance on February 25, the deal to relaunch Ansett collapsed the following day.
A subsequent press conference with Fox and Lew the same day announced that they had received no support from the government for their bid, and thus were withdrawing their proposal. Board problems. Former board member and chief executive after the restructure in Ralph Norris put some perspective on the issues at play in a interview. I remember asking questions about whether the airline could execute the deal, and that is why I stayed on after the collapse of Ansett because I asked those questions.
Norris says that the answers he was given were positive and the other board members were confident. However, the only person who could do the deal was then Air New Zealand chief executive Jim McCrea, who was dumped at the insistence of Singapore Airlines, claims Norris. The maintenance problems that manifested themselves in the groundings of the s at Christmas and the following Easter came about as Air New Zealand integrated its maintenance systems and it found the errors at Ansett.
According to Norris, there was agreement from the New Zealand government that they could increase shares in Air New Zealand to do the deal. In April the New Zealand government released papers related to the collapse, and according to Dow Jones then Finance Minister Michael Cullen said he believed that Air New Zealand did not realise how bad a financial situation it was in until it was too late to solve the problem.
While much of the material released simply confirmed what was widely known about the saga, it underlined that Air New Zealand failed to warn the government about how close its Australian subsidiary Ansett was to collapse until its bid to buy Virgin Blue evaporated.
However Dr Cullen said at the time that he did not believe Air New Zealand covered up how much Ansett was dragging down the company. There was a fundamentally underlying problem that they determined upon a plan A and were not able to get their heads around the fact that plan was unravelling on them.
Dr Cullen told Dow Jones that the government had acted as quickly as possible when information and proposals became available. Dow Jones added that the papers showed that Air New Zealand did not know or did not realise how bad its financial outlook was when it first approached the government for assistance on March 19 According to Dow Jones , the papers showed that government officials were dubious about lifting the ownership restrictions because of agreements with other countries and concern about rumours over the financial state of Ansett.
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission ASIC began an investigation into whether Ansett had gone on trading while insolvent, and eventually determined in July that it would be too expensive and difficult to proceed with an action which would, in any case, need to be many separate actions on behalf of individual creditors rather than just one.
Norris told his audience that the Ansett administrators found no evidence of directors obtaining personal benefit, or of recklessness in their considerations, while there was no evidence of asset stripping, no evidence of claims of inappropriate payment of expenses, or unfair preference payments to creditors, prior to the appointment of the administrators.
Debate will rage for years to come over the responsibility for the demise of Ansett, but possibly the simplest explanation was offered in by then Virgin Blue chief executive Brett Godfrey when he told media that his airline in that financial year would carry more passengers — The fleet productivity of Virgin was also way higher.
The salary levels at Ansett were put into context by a report The post-retrenchment labour market experiences of Ansett workers Webber et al conducted by the University of Melbourne for the Victorian Government in Webber et al noted that many workers had believed Ansett would nurture and protect them through their working lives. The report also found that so cocooned were the staff that just before September 12 , 79 per cent considered their job secure and only 10 per cent perceived any danger to their ongoing employment.
While that result is outstanding it did not help the 30 Ansett employees who committed suicide, nor thousands of staff who could not find another job quickly and were forced to borrow from friends and relatives and who are still struggling with repayments. If any airline learned anything from the Ansett fiasco it was Air New Zealand. From being a train wreck in late it has gone on to blitz the airline world by inspiring its staff.
Last year it won 26 international awards for its innovation and service and it has not only reinvented itself, but economy and premium economy classes as well. Last year 27, New Zealanders applied for a job with the airline and it is the most admired company in the country. This story first appeared in the September edition of Australian Aviation. To read more stories like this, subscribe here. In Australia, Lifeline lifeline. People battling depression and anxiety can also call Beyondblue beyondblue.
0コメント