Sean’s Blog

In case you didn’t know, Alan Joyce is the CEO of Qantas, Australia’s national airline. Last Saturday he took the unprecedented action of grounding the entire Qantas fleet. It left passengers, the Australian Government, Qantas workers and the unions completely stunned. It was a case of “What did he just say? Did I hear that correctly? Is he insane?” A mere 8 minutes from the announcement, at around 5pm Saturday, every plane was stopped on the tarmac. Every single plane. Even those that had boarded were told to “get off, you won’t be flying today.”

Why take such drastic action you may ask? Qantas had already sustained months of industrial action that has been causing flight cancellations and passenger inconvenience not to mention a 68m loss of revenue. The unions had told him this would go on for another 12 months if their proposals were not accepted.

Now look at Europe, months and months of talk and half-hearted solutions and now Greece kicking up again. The market has been desperate for decisive action, for the leaders to take the bull by the horns and make the hard decisions. It tried last week, but again, the bazooka shot everyone was hoping for, the one that would convince the markets that the future of the Eurozone was certain, never came. The package that did result is now at risk of collapsing because the Greeks want a vote on it. Like with Alan Joyce, cries of “are they insane? Where do they expect to get money from when in December they need to roll around 6 billion in debt?” So, where to now? Another meeting, sure, why not? They will sit down and discuss matters at the G20 this week.

Alan Joyce made, as he called it, the toughest action possible in grounding the fleet. The result? Fair Work Australia stepped in on Sunday and dismissed all industrial action. The planes were back in the air by Monday afternoon and in the words of Alan Joyce “No further industrial action can take place. No more aircraft will be grounded and no services cancelled as a result of industrial action. You can now book Qantas flights with complete confidence.”

Done. Crisis sorted. Can the Euro leaders learn from Alan Joyce? The world hopes so, as the European debt crisis is negatively affecting the global economy, and every world leader is saying “Sort this out and sort it out now!” Words to that effect have started to come; the leaders of Germany and France told Greece on Wednesday it would not receive another cent in European aid until it decides whether it wants to stay in the euro zone. Just more words? Not if Alan Joyce was in charge. You are in or out, now let’s get flying!