When did you think Ansett were in trouble?
 

When did you come to the conclusion that Ansett was in serious trouble.

For me it was on September 7. I booked a last minute fare BNE-SYD for $110.00, for travel on September 8th. one day advance purchase. I could not believe how many flights were still showing $110.00 about 10 flights, Ended up choosing a A320.
Qantas were showing $199.00 each way and even Virgin were showing $117.00

I can't believe that Air New Zealand were not able to trim the schedule and sack some staff but maybe the unions were to strong and would have stuffed them anyway.

There have been glimmers of hope since September 7th but since then they were never going to be the great airliner they once were.


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Indecision is the key to flexibility

in january 2001, when reading Australian newspapers day after day, on inner Australian AN flights,about AN for a long time of over 2 years, not meeting mechanic maintenance standards ...

I agree with Rudi - the key identifier was the maintenance.

I know many disagree and say it was all a big conspiracy and Ansett were unfairly targeted, and perhaps they were, but all the same, if they had done the maintenance, and had the paperwork right, they couldn't have got in to trouble no matter who didn't like them.

I loved travelling Ansett, especially international, their service staff and pilots and everyone you came in contact with were great. But, when it came to the back-room orgainising level, I found them to be basically hopeless.

That said, I didn't predict their tragic demise, even though others on this board were prior to September 2001.

I am weary of hearing about AN lately - it is all over now.

But please lets stick to the facts, even at the funeral.

The maintainance debacle at easter was more about perception than fact.

An error was made in the planning of scheduled work. That same error was made at other airlines. CASA was fully aware of the oversight but did nothing to correct it. The flaws that required repair were found in aircraft at QF and BA and others.

But hey, dont listen to me. Just watch the TV news for the facts.

The day I knew Ansett was doomed to failure was when it stopped offering decent food in the GW lounges and it started that stupid rule that if you did not have a boarding pass you could not enter the GW lounge (many a time I was at the airport with a ticket but not a bp as I was waiting for confirmation that I needed to do the trip).

I tried once to drum up a $4million account for Ansett and asked a friend (who was the CFO of a company spending $4million a year on Domestic) if she would like to see the GW lounge in CBR (we were both flying on Qantas in C -paid for by her company - we are both Qantas club members and I was a GW member so we didnt just want to get into a lounge) and the lady at the GW lounge denied entry on the basis that we were not flying on the day on Ansett (I offered a guest pass and never had a problem doing this in the past).

I wrote about this to Ansett (with two follow up letters) - so they could maybe make it up to her somehow - and got no response in 2 years!

That was when I really saw that Ansett's days were limited.

About 4 years ago. I'd already switched my own flying over but when AN announced that they were pulling out of MEL-HBA and handing that to Kendell I switched the children to QF for their 3 times a year flight and was delighted with QF - they actually checked your ID before handing the children over and gave you receipts, while AN were very casual about it all just so long as the children cried out "Mummy" or "Daddy" or something similar when they saw us.

Audrey

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