Jetstar:

Jetstar spokesperson Simon Westaway writes: Re. “Pilots: time for Qantas to come clean on propping up Jetstar” (yesterday, item 13).  It would be fair to say the pilot union should probably stick to the flight paths and not with thumbing their way through the financial accounts without a better interpretation of what they see within them.

The assertions made by AIPA around aspects of Jetstar’s operations or financial allocations are incorrect.

Jetstar plain and simply pays its way.

Jetstar has a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with Qantas Engineering for its A330 operations, (which has been in place since 2006!) which support Jetstar International services from Australia to Bali, Japan, Thailand and the Asia Pacific and pay a cost per block hour for the provided services inclusive of spare parts provisioning, pooling & support. The SLA provides for full cost recovery and ‘sponsorship in the IATP’ is based on the rules of the association regarding member airlines. The arrangement is such as to ensure the lowest cost to the QF Group by avoiding duplication of unnecessary fees – or in other words sound business practice.

In broader terms under the agreement we pay in full for such items as:

  • Power by the Hour agreements on the engines
  • Maintenance reserves for heavy and event based maintenance
  • The cost of line and base maintenance on these A330 aircraft
  • The depreciation on all spare parts and rotables and pay for spare parts pooling for the fleet
  • Initial provisions for tooling at all ports where our A330 international services operate to/from
  • The cost of the SLA for day to day maintenance support of the operations – and so the list goes.

With our existing fleet of A330s we pay a lease cost to Qantas equivalent to that if we had leased the aircraft externally.

Jetstar is charged with 100 percent of our exposure around fuel and foreign exchange, receiving both the direct upside, but also the downside of hedging losses and we pay corporate charges for this and any service which Qantas provides to our operations.

As any learned industry watcher would be aware our A320 family fleet now numbering almost 50 aircraft in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore have and continue to be completely supported by Jetstar’s well reputed engineering organisation and the fleet remains the backbone of our operations for our Australian, New Zealand domestic and trans Tasman flying operations and growing Singapore hub.

The market is well aware Jetstar has been profitable since its start-up in 2004 and in the successful delivery today of a two flying brand strategy for the Qantas Group and our improved flexibility to participate in particular in the growing leisure segment in aviation.

Jetstar has been a very self sustaining business delivering sound returns on capital invested. This is because the airline is run efficiently and delivers a sustainable return on its growth, has developed a brand that now successfully transcends the breadth of Asia and the Asia Pacific (like few others emanating from Australia) to allow us to profitably participate in these markets, and we have become a leading airline in terms of passenger share and capacity in all markets we serve, which is again key to sustainable success. Importantly we have sound supplier relationships across our business which are in most cases about ‘partnerships’ in such profitable growth.

Again for record our gross costs reduced by 17 percent as reported for the 2010FY half year and EBIT was a record A$121 million for the Jetstar Brands (including Australia, NZ, Singapore operations) for the half year to 31 December 2009.

And for a point of reference the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) are currently not, nor have never been party, to any workplace agreement within Jetstar.

The shipping news:

Peter Sheppard  writes: Re. “Crikey Clarifier: What happens when a ship lands on a coral reef?” (yesterday, item 15). The idea of having a pilot on every ship travelling inside the Barrier Reef is complete overkill and just finding jobs for the boys when you think of how easy it is to control and track shipping movements.

Maritime rules need to be put in place to impound or heavily fine any ship that breaches the designated traffic zones. All ships have to have AIS (Automatic Identification System) activated at all times by International law. AIS can be tracked by a central controller anywhere, even in Canberra where AMSA (Australian Marine Safety Authority) is located.

When a ship breaches the corridor, full identification of the ship can be easily obtained, name, speed, heading, size, destination, last port, owner, and more. This ship can be contacted by VHF, HF, or Sat phone, asked to return to the corridor, or back to a port. If they don’t respond and keep going, the shipping line could be banned from Australian waters in the future.

We have spotter planes in the air all the time that read AIS as well, and any boat/ship coming into Australian waters is always seen and approached, even small sail boats without AIS, which is not mandatory.

I have just followed my boat (60’) in live time up the whole west coast of the US using AIS tracking thanks to a programme written by some students at a university in Greece that covers the whole world. This programme is free and easily found on the internet.

AIS uses VHF frequencies which is available all inside the Barrier Reef to Cape York. If a ship switches off their AIS they should get collared anyway for a breach of International Law. There are currently 45 AIS targets off Mackay as I write this in rural Victoria. I have every single thing I want to know about all these ships, including pictures.

Anzacs:

Mark Heydon writes: Re. “‘Shoot straight, you bastards’ — weekend warriors fear Defence razor gang” (yesterday, item 1). You state in the article that “reports today focus on a reservists being denied payment for marching in the ANZAC Day parades this year”.

The scandal isn’t that they won’t be paid for getting together with their mates for a walk and a few beers.

The scandal is that they ever have been!

Scrabble:

Jason Ives writes: Re. “Daily Proposition: play proper Scrabble while you still can” (yesterday, item 9). Jane Nethercote is correct to point out that the Scrabble proper noun furore was a beat up (although some of us think the game took a turn for the worse when QI became a legitimate word in the late 1990s). She is also to be commended for encouraging people to get out and play Scrabble.

However, she is incorrect when she says that K-N-I-C-K-E-R-S is worth 18 points. It is in fact worth 13 points. Jane forgets that Scrabble sets only have one letter “K” which means that the second K in KNICKERS would have to be a blank tile (worth no points). It’s still worth laying it out though as there’s a good chance that by playing KNICKERS you’d be using all seven letters in your rack (plus one already on the board) earning you a 50 point bonus.

See you down at the pub.

Have a crack:

Geoff Hopkins, writes: Why doesn’t your daily opinions highlight the extraordinary waste  with the pink bats, solar heating  and “Education Revolution” spending. Surely Julia Gillard’s and others response is pathetic and this needs to be driven home by your “unbiased” commentators.

After all a $1 billion dollar waste could fund a lot of programs and it is our tax money being thrown away.