Why has Qantas such a good safety record

[lakeland27]

well ? was Abbotts feigned outrage justified or was he deflecting in an attempt to salvage what he can out of the situation ?

are the australian maintenance crews good or is abbott right in implying someone else can do better ?.. is he un-Australian ?

[lakeland27]

don't mind him.  he's really a softie . unless you talk planes, money or british PM's

[boris1gary]

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@lakeland27 wrote:

don't mind him.  he's really a softie . unless you talk planes, money or british PM's

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i don't either but the semantics bore me after a bit. 

[monman12]

" I do agree with everything in my post"
That is a definitely worth a chuckle B1G.

"QANTAS  nearly 60 years ago, and more than 2.5 million flights have passed without major incident. Skytrax consistently places Qantas among the world’s best airlines."

This year (2013) it has climbed five places to be rated the 10th best airline in the world by Skytrax.

In 1999 a Qantas 20 year old 747 ran off the end of the runway in Bangkok.

"the Bureau of Air Safety released its interim factual report on the incident and it provides uncomfortable reading for air travellers.
It now appears the accident occurred through a combination of poor weather information, crew miscalculation and questionable flying procedures.
Qantas is not disputing any aspect of the report."

"An investigation report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau into the accident, found that the Qantas first officer and captain misjudged the landing and were inadequately trained to subsequently prevent the accident."

Accidents do happen in flying ( I have had 2) however it is of interest to note that Qantas then spent $100 million repairing this old 747-400 - WAY above its current full sale value. WHY.

Why? might be because Qantas did not want a total constructive hull write-off of  a large jet on its safety record which would show as a major accident.

"Qantas raised eyebrows by spending almost US$100 million on repairs to a 747-400 that ran off a runway during a storm in Bangkok in 1999 rather than writing the aircraft off."

Jul 2008
Australian airline Qantas will repair a gaping hole in the side of one of its planes to preserve its track record of never losing a jet in an accident."

Yes Qantas is a good airline, expensive and somewhat dated, but range restricted by government and union chocks,  and with only 17% of international traffic it would be good to allow the board and CEO to pursue what they and the shareholders want, as opposed to people who in most cases are not even shareholders who travel according to price , not livery!.

nɥºɾ

[lakeland27]

you miss the point. Jobs MM jobs.  job growth and job creation and Taking active steps to keep jobs here is the governments primary function in this respect. it is their responsibility to actively do all they can to preserve employment levels as high as possible for the voter who put them in.  it isn't a governments role to aid investors over employees . priorities .

Qantas has a good record for safety, the extra rating  decent in flight meal adds to the score is irrelevant if the plane ditches somewhere. the argument is once again around fiscal aspects rather than the primary employment and safety issues, we'll a;ways disagree in that respect..  will o'seas crews provide the same level of safety ? what will happen to the staff who are 'liberated ' ?

[the_hawk*]

This will happen sooner or latter with cheap maintanence and forien ownership

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/australians-among-239-people-on-board-missing-malaysia-...

[lakeland27]

i'm glad you brought that up and not me hawk. it might be a little early to link the two.

[monman12]

TH,  that is an outrageous comment which indicates a lack of knowledge of aircraft operations (especially multi engined "heavies") and history also:

Qantas 747 accident: "An investigation report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau into the accident, found that the Qantas first officer and captain misjudged the landing and were inadequately trained to subsequently prevent the accident."

LL "you miss the point. Jobs MM jobs.  job growth and job creation and Taking active steps to keep jobs here is the governments primary function in this respect. it is their responsibility to actively do all they can to preserve employment levels as high as possible for the voter who put them in.  it isn't a governments role to aid investors over employees"

It is not a government/opposition (Labor sold Qantas in 1993-1995) role to interfere in the operations of a publicly listed company.   "job growth" currently Qantas will be shedding 5000 of them, and  if you read the QSA amendments you will find that there are requirements to ensure jobs remain:

Excerpt:

                     (h)  require that of the facilities, taken in aggregate, which are used by Qantas in the provision of scheduled international air transport services (for example, facilities for the maintenance and housing of aircraft, catering, flight operations, training and administration), the facilities located in Australia, when compared with those located in any other country, must represent the principal operational centre for Qantas; and
                      (i)  require that, at all times, at least two thirds of the directors of Qantas are to be Australian citizens;

Even if the ownership limits in the Qantas Sale Act are removed, to maintain access to international air carriage rights Qantas will need to remain majority Australian owned.
Catering, flight operations, training and administration facilities: former Qantas chief economist Tony Webber says it is unlikely the airline could shift too many of those jobs overseas: "There are additional opportunities in relation to outsourcing some of its maintenance, so there may be potential cost savings there, but they'll be relatively trivial.

In summary
Qantas will remain majority Australian owned.
Qantas head office always in Australia.
Qantas directors, minimum of two thirds to be Australian citizens.
Qantas facilities (jobs) remain in Australia
Qantas name and logo to remain

So let's ground all the politically hyped point scoring nonsense from all sides and let  the company trade as it sees fit for its owners, the shareholders.

The days of chest beating nationalism displayed as a logo on a tail/rudder are long over.

Anybody heard of  Oneworld Alliance ?

nɥºɾ

[lakeland27]

you don't address the loss of jobs. you might see a company as a mere ledger, but in reality it's much more than that.

[the_hawk*]

John while pilots will always make mistakes and many accidents are blamed 0n piolot error from what I have seen many start with a mechanical or electrical fault that confuses the pilots.

The next issue is that few pilots have little experience actually flying a real plane without a computer to tell them what to do and have no feeling for the plane when a sensor fails.

Air cash investigation is one program I do try to watch and most accidents seem to be the result of a series of events that more often than not started with poor maintance prictices or lack there of, and yes the pilots if they had experence flying without computers and had a better feeling of the plane and ignored proceedures and instruments and let instinct take over they may save the plane, but in doing so would cause more accidents than it prevented so they are stuck with doing as they are trained and the operations manual tells them until they hit the ground