Australians To Pay More To Fly!

This is obviously government policy.

For some reason, the media has gone very easy on the government for its at first mystifying decision to bar Singapore Airlines from flying the Sydney-LA route. QANTAS are in the news this week for planning to offload its heavy maintenance into Asia but the government claim that to allow Singapore (or Emirates) to fly that route will cost Australian jobs. Apparently allowing Air Canada to do the same is neither here nor there.

Um...won't it all be the same? I mean, QANTAS will move 2500 jobs offshore in any event (any way they can) so Singapore Airlines, who will have to create a maintenance operation here to service the aircraft after that long flight, will obviously have to employ people to do so. So that's one furphy the media swallowed without a hint of discussion.

The Age (www.theage.com.au) ran a straight-faced story about the decision and towards the end of the article that mentioned Government back-bencher and close friend to Geoff Dixon Bruce Baird, also runs the Government party's Friends of Tourism committee. My my my. This was the same Bruce Baird who tried to link Singapore Airlines' bid to the execution of convicted drug-runner Van Nguyen. Right. He said that a barbaric act should be punished by barring SIA from the Sydney-LA route. Again, the media let this one pass with barely a blip.

SIA are obviously getting upset and have blamed protectionism on the decision. Well, that one takes the PKB (Pot, Kettle, Black) award for February. Singapore's government-owned airline talking about protectionism after its frankly shameful treatment of JetStar Asia's applications.

Geoff Dixon should shut his mouth. He's got what he wants and now he's gloating. Well, punk, as a long-suffering QANTAS customer, I think you ought to sit down and review the last couple of weeks. QANTAS is seeding the media and Coalition politicians with the 'jobs will go' story while at the same time engaging the unions in a battle over dumping 2500 jobs into Asia in the name of cost-cutting! You've still got your poor-man's duopoly of QANTAS-United with cute little Air Canada thrown in. You've still got your outrageous margins, excuse for poor, self-interested scheduling and a government telling you to merge with SIA even though you're wildly profitable and doing well. All of which affects us as customers because you continue to pursue cost-cutting by dumping staff and pissing off the ones you have left.

Here endeth the lesson.