Qantas Airline Facing a Tough Year

Qantas is facing another difficult year but the airline believes it has the ability to handle whatever problems comes its way.

2011 was possibly the worst year since the collapse of Ansett. Qantas is expected to show a pre-tax profit which is 66 per cent lower than 2010. This year the Qantas crisis committee met on 17 occasions to deal with a number of natural disasters, problems due to actions by the unions and its decision to ground the airline. In the first half of the year there were floods and cyclones in Queensland, the volcano that erupted in Chile spreading ash over Australia and New Zealand as well as earthquakes in Japan and Christchurch.

This coming year isn’t expected to bring such an array of problems, there is the European crisis that may affect the airline.

The group that represents airlines “International Air Transport Association” has made ranging forecasts from $4 billion profit to $8 billion losses for the industry as a whole. The latter forecast will only happen if there was a major banking crisis that would see the Asian-Pacific airlines loose approximately $1 billion rather than showing a $2 billion profit.

One thing in Qantas’s advantage is that 43 aircraft are soon coming to the end of their leases and there are also 16 aircraft due for retirement. This will allow the airline the option to either expand or contract its operations.

Qantas also have the option to walk away from their Boeing 787 order. Due to the late delivery of the aircrafts Qantas enjoy the flexibility of having no cancellation penalties which means they can walk away at any time.

This unique situation gives Qantas the fleet flexibility that other airlines can’t match. This will allow for either large growth over the next year of a cut back in services depending on how things pan out.

While its international operations have suffered over the last year, its “Jetstar” arm of the company has seen great growth along with “Frequent Flyer” with profits of around $340 million. These subsidiaries of Qantas have remained constant during economic crisis and are now the life blood of the company.

Jet Hire Direct can provide a number of options for private jet hire in Australia, New Zealand and the Asian region.