Management and Organisational Behaviour Qantas

On October 22nd, 2001, the Industrial dispute between QANTAS and its employees was initiated with the offering of a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement. This proposed an 18-month wage freeze for employees plus a sliding scale profit share scheme. Ten out of twelve unions under QANTAS accepted the terms of the agreement, barring the unions of manufacturing employees (AWU and AMWU). They were holding out for a 4-6% pay rise. On the 8th May 2002, some ten months later, the dispute was resolved when QANTAS agreed to an across the board 6% pay increase. This essay provides an in-depth analysis into the dispute, including causes, the resolution process, the role of stakeholders, and costs and benefits for all concerned.

In the local region, Qantas managed to outweigh its competitor by gaining a toll of 65% compared to its competitor. Evidently this shows Qantas is the number one preferred airlines compared to other competitor airlines like Virgin, Tiger Airways and Emirates airlines. However the situation is not the same in South East Asian region as Qantas only managed to obtain about 15% of market share compared to likes of Air Asia who leads the market share with 60% in this region. Conversely, this is not a concern for the airlines as the airlines managed to generate revenue of 5 billion dollars, with a predicted passenger growth of 4.9% which is equivalent to 2.9 billion passengers by 2034.

1) Qantas Airways Limited is the national airline of Australia, it is also the largest airline in Australia. The Qantas Group’s principal business is providing domestic and international air transport services for passengers. Additionally, Qantas owns several subsidiary companies such as Jetstar and QantasLink that also operates flights to domestic and international locations, and Q Catering, a premium full service flight caterer.

Already JetStar, Tiger, Air Asia, Virgin Blue, for example, are low-cost airlines and are established in the Australian domestic market. This creates the need to differentiate to survive.

Qantas began as a private company, it was purchased by the government in 1947 and was later privatised during 1995 it is currently operating as a private company.

Government Policies –All businesses operating in Australia are subject to policies applied by the three different levels of government - local, state, and federal. Government policies have a big impact on Qantas. For example their economic policies (monetary, fiscal policy) have a direct impact of the level of economic activity and therefore demand for its service. The federal government’s new policy the Fair Work Act is a lot more pro worker which has increased Qantas’ operating costs. All businesses must be aware and understand all government policies in order that they are abiding by the law.

Rivalry among industry competitors has caused attention to be focused on tariff levels. Airfare prices were at an all time low in 2009. This suggested a strong competitive rivalry based on price differentiation. This price differentiation will cause a dramatic loss in revenue if these prices continue to drop and this would lead to a reduced competitiveness. In an effort to safeguard revenue and reduce expenditure, Qantas has developed a strategy to deal with a change in the external competitive environment. .

This method involves selling products below production cost. This attracts customers to the business, who then purchase other products. Ultimately, this improves profits, brand loyalty, and market share. Qantas has used this strategy during the launch of its subsidiary, Jetstar, in 2006. For example, flights from Melbourne to Sydney was offered at $19. These low airfares attracted customers away from its competitors, such as Virgin Blue. This had seen

Qantas capitalized on by increasing its domestic share of the market from 55% to approximately 80%. Qantas management had effectively filled the gap left by Ansett by moving planes from the depressed international routes to the company’s expanded domestic market and by leasing planes from overseas to expand its aircraft fleet by

By outsourcing, Qantas is able to significantly reduce costs and maintain it’s competitive advantage. However this advantage also has a draw back, hundreds of engineers have also been cut from their jobs and have had their jobs given to people overseas. This puts a bad reputation on the name of the business as an Australian business will cut jobs from Australian workers and supple foreign workers with jobs. Families and friends of these workers may feel resentment towards Qantas and choose to travel with another airline instead resulting in a loss of customers. This strategy has been effective in reducing cost but has resulted in a reduction of quality and safety and led to a decreased business reputation resulting in a loss of customers and stakeholders.

Qantas has three major problems. 1.) Fuel efficiency, 2.) Lack of communication between employers and employees, 3.) Competition in the corporate customer market (Ferguson

Qantas is one of the major companies in Australia, and also is an important part of the airline global industry. However, this report suggest that, it is not an appropriate time to invest in this company, because the company is going through financial

The weakness of Qantas lies in the management and their lack of investment in their employees. The management weakness can be seen in many of the financial and operational issues. Qantas faces several Industrial disputes which the company’s competitors do not experience. These issues affect the interior structure and the external opportunities to gain new customers. This also makes this their biggest

The following report examines the organisational environment for the Australian Airline industry with particular emphasis on the task and general environment followed by analysis Jetstar Airways’ business-level strategy focusing on the airline’s competitive advantage.

Problems: Nearly all major airlines had done this unsuccessfully, proved unsustainable over time, never had a high-cost carrier transformed into a low-cost carrier.