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"Reshoring is the economic idea of the moment. The idea is simple. The costs
saved by manufacturing goods in China will disappear as Chinese wages rise,
leading manufacturing jobs to “reshore” themselves back home to the west. A
rise in the renminbi would accelerate this process.
This would be a dream for Barack Obama, a politician from America’s
industrial heartland. So too for David Cameron and Nick Clegg in the UK,
eager to prove that we are all in it together. Manufacturing jobs have
traditionally paid well and offered good careers to men who did not excel at
school. This group has been hard hit by the past 25 years of economic
change. It is no surprise politicians love manufacturing jobs.
But reshoring will not happen. For a start, wages will not rise quickly in
China, where 34m urban factory workers are paid an average of $2 an hour. A
further 65m factory workers in town and village enterprises average just 64
cents. They would be delighted to work for $2. And 675m people are employed
elsewhere in China, mainly in agriculture and at lower wages. Chinese wages
will rise, but the potential supply of low-cost Chinese labour remains
elastic.
If China runs out of workers willing to work for $2, low-cost producers will
leave China. They will not, however, return to high-wage economies. Instead
they will move to India, Bangladesh and ultimately Africa. This is history
repeating itself. At the start of the 20th century Britain lost its textile
industry to Japan. As wages rose, those jobs left Japan, but they did not
return to Britain. They went first to Hong Kong, then to Korea, and now to
China. Simple products will never be produced in developed countries in any
quantity again.
Electronics is different. Here Chinese wages are well above $2, because
producers want to attract the best and most reliable workers. These
companies follow Henry Ford’s strategy of a century ago. He paid workers on
the Model-T assembly lines $5 a day – double the prevailing wage. He needed
reliable workers, willing to work relentlessly without complaining. High
labour productivity allowed Ford to offer high hourly wages and achieve low
unit costs. High wages at Ford then, and in Chinese electronic companies
today, are a symbol of competitive success, not competitive failure.
The nexus between productivity, wages and competitiveness is critical.
Chinese wages can rise without becoming uncompetitive so long as Chinese
productivity keeps pace with wages. This has happened in the last 20 years,
with productivity rising by 10 per cent a year on average. China is as
competitive as it has ever been.
That said, Chinese labour productivity is still very low by western
standards. World Bank figures show that the average American industrial
worker produces as much as 12 Chinese industrial workers. This means that
even were reshoring to happen, it would not be a one-for-one job exchange.
America would gain only one job for every eight that China loses, even
taking into account the many low productivity Chinese companies producing
for the domestic market. American workers are simply that effective.
The Chinese electronics sector currently employs 3m people. If the US won
back a 10th of Chinese output, China would lose 300,000 jobs, but the US
would gain fewer than 40,000 new jobs. America would not even notice: even
if it won every single piece of manufacturing output from China’s towns and
cities, unemployment would fall by just 2.75 percentage points.
Western manufacturing plants produce large amounts of output and contribute
hugely to the balance of payments. But productivity is so high that they
sustain very few jobs. Anyone who has visited a modern factory will be
struck by the high output and relatively few workers. Productivity is high
and still rising faster than in the service sector.
This means that manufacturing employment will continue to fall, in Britain,
the US and even in China, where it has already fallen by more than a fifth
since 1996. Output has risen in all three countries, but productivity has
risen faster, so that employment has fallen. There is no reason to think the
next decade will be any different. Rapid productivity growth in
manufacturing means that all countries must ensure that their economies
deliver enough service sector jobs to return society to full employment.
The writer is an economic historian at the London School of Economics
Qantas flies again but problems unsolved
31 October 2011
Qantas is back flying again after the court ordered the airline back to work
and sent management and unions into arbitration.
But Qantas is
a high-cost airline struggling to remain competitive against
low cost rivals from emerging nations.
It has faced the deregulation of the industry while hobbled by work
practices that are a hangover from the days when Qantas operated in a cosy
local cartel.
The airline is struggling under salaries paid in expensive Australian
dollars while its productivity levels are up to 20 per cent below those of
competitors.
Similar stories could be told in Australia's manufacturing and service
sectors - companies such as Bluescope Steel, Ford or Heinz - facing low-cost
international competitors.
They are victims of the restructuring of global economic forces.
Qantas has about 30 enterprise agreements with 17 unions. There are other
legacies from government ownership, such as life-long free or discounted air
travel for families of staff. Getting a ground-staff job can require a
family connection. They pay nearly double what an equivalent position would
get elsewhere in the transport industry.
The government has been liberalising the aviation market, with a commendable
focus on delivering benefits to passengers.
International airlines have greater access to the Australian market than
ever before, while budget airlines are making inroads to the market share of
the mainstream carriers.
Qantas has responded, lowering costs by setting up its own low-cost
subsidiaries, using labour hire firms and shifting work overseas.
When the unions say this is a threat to the job security of their members,
they are quite correct. But their jobs will not be saved by defending their
position and forcing Qantas to abandon the use of contract staff, for
example, or to build hangars for local licensed engineers, raising unit
costs.
In taking action that could end with the dispute being arbitrated, chief
executive Alan Joyce has made a high-risk gamble that the commissioners of
Fair Work Australia will see the sense of this.
At the weekend a tribunal of judges retired for over two hours to consider
whether to suspend or terminate the industrial action that triggered the
saga.
After almost 14 hours of evidence over two days, the tribunal, headed by
Justice Geoffrey Giudice, found there was significant uncertainty arising
from the protected action of the unions but in particular from the Qantas
employee lockout and grounding of the fleet.
Qantas and the three unions involved in the dispute will now have 21 days to
resolve their impasse with the umpire's mediation.
Qantas said it was losing $15 million per week due to months of strikes and
other industrial action by unions.
Qantas says 447 flights have been cancelled, with furious passengers in
major cities around the world vowing never to fly with Qantas again.
If both parties cannot reach agreement in 21 days then FWA can impose
binding arbitration. But the anger among staff and passengers is not going
to go away.
"Almost a year ago I flew Qantas internationally. Mistake.
The aircraft was old, the entertainment system completely non-functional,
and the steward in my section was perfunctory (the adventure had died for
him years before). When I pushed my seat back for sleep, it barely moved.
There was nothing faulty about the seat. It's what you get on Qantas economy
long-haul. A stiff neck and a zombie arrival.
I might have treated this as an aberration, a hazard of travelling long-haul
economy class, but the experience turned out to be the beginning of the end
of my years of loyalty to Qantas. It has since become obvious that Qantas
staff, from the pilots down, regard passengers with contempt. Every time
they are in dispute with management over pay and conditions, Qantas
customers are used as cannon fodder.
It is worse than ever. The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers
Association has called for the public not to fly Qantas. This is the same
union that waged an industrial campaign against Qantas for months in 2008
and has since provided a constant drip-feed of negative stories to the media
about safety issues at Qantas. Given that engineers are responsible for
safety, I am not flying Qantas.
Despite inbound tourism to Australia going into recession because of the
high Australian dollar and natural disasters in Queensland, the engineers
want a 15 per cent pay increase over the next three years. It would take
average remuneration to $170,000. They also oppose any changes to work
practices to improve productivity to offset the pay rises they want.
Three unions are engaging in a co-ordinated campaign of industrial guerilla
tactics: the Australian and International Pilots Association, representing
long-haul pilots; the licensed engineers; and the Transport Workers Union,
representing baggage handlers and catering staff.
The long-haul A380 pilots are among the best paid in the industry.
According to Qantas they earn 50 per cent more than their peers at Virgin
Australia and competing Asian carriers. The pilots are taking industrial
action because they want their pay and conditions extended to Jetstar
pilots.
The chief executive of Qantas, Alan Joyce, issuing an apology to customers
on October 13, explained why management was digging in: ''These three unions
want to be paid to do work that no longer exists due to the advent of new
aircraft. They want to retain outdated work practices. They want to tell us
what we can and can't change.
''Effectively they are trying to dictate how we run Qantas.''
I don't know who is providing strategic advice to Joyce and the Qantas board
but announcing a $2 million pay rise for the chief executive, to $5 million
a year, within a month of announcing 1000 staff layoffs was a corporate
brain explosion. It's not the only misstep.
Even so, this is a fight the unions cannot afford to win. If they do get
what they are demanding, Qantas will be following the path of Ansett
Australia. Ten years ago, Ansett went bankrupt under the weight of high
labour costs and financial overstretch. The ensuing years have not got less
competitive.
There is no end in sight to this dispute. So far it has disrupted more than
60,000 passengers, hurt business operators large and small and is causing
chaos to bookings across the travel industry.
The response of the federal government has been inertia. It has the power to
stop the disruption under section 431 of the Fair Work Act 2009, which
states the government can terminate industrial action if it becomes
satisfied that ''the industrial action is threatening . . . to cause
significant damage to the Australian economy or an important part of it''.
But the government has done nothing. It does not want to challenge the
unions.
Nor is it a happy coincidence that the national secretary of the Transport
Workers Union, Tony Sheldon, is running for the national presidency of the
Labor Party.
As this process of industrial attrition grinds on, there has to be attrition
in the loyalty of the ranks of Qantas frequent flyers, who would have to pay
for these demands.
This year I've dropped my membership of the Qantas Club. My frequent flyer
membership will default to the lowest level due to inactivity. I've stopped
self-booking on the Qantas website. I now use travel sites looking for the
best deal. I have 350,000 Qantas frequent-flyer points but will never again
subject myself to the indignity of Qantas roulette in trying to use points
to upgrade. Accessing business class seats on Qantas using points has proved
to be impossible. So I am not renewing my Qantas-linked credit card because
earning Qantas frequent flyer points no longer has any meaning to me.
On Thursday, I went to Canberra. Qantas wanted to charge me $308 round-trip,
special advance purchase, plus a booking fee. After adding the cost of taxis
to and from the airports, there'd be little change from $450. Instead, I
took a long-distance coach for $56 round-trip. It was relaxing and punctual,
and easy to read, phone and work on the way. For an extra hour each way, I
saved almost $400 and avoided the hassles of airports. A lot of people seem
to have caught on because the coach line is now running nine buses a day,
each way, between Sydney and Canberra.
As I was leaving that Qantas international flight last December, the flight
service director, who I'd not encountered on the flight, thanked me for the
positive things I had recently written about Qantas and its staff.
Those were the days. Before the war.
Interval time at the Qantas theatre of the absurd
October 31 2011Ben Sandilands Flight Global
The patrons and the staff have been locked out, but the judges who have been
called in to sort out the plot will not return to the bench until 2 pm,
after last night’s epic opening performances which stretched into the early
hours of today.
If the Qantas revenue figures for the previous financial year are a guide,
its enacting of a plan to lock out its customers as well as three groups of
union workers from late yesterday afternoon will cost it at least $30
million a day.
And it had over $3 billion in cash in hand at 30 June this year.
However it also has a fleet of around 140 aircraft, with 108 of them flying
for the mainline Qantas operations and thus grounded, while the others
continue flying for Qantaslink, or as the Jetconnect NZ based trans Tasman
737 operation.
Jetstar is unaffected, other than having apparently lost any shred of
control as well as unknown sums of money in its Vietnamese franchise,
Jetstar Pacific, which is to become an arm of state owned flag carrier
Vietnamese Airlines, which is another cautionary story about starry eyed
Asian investment adventures for a different time and place than one that is
in turmoil because of the Qantas grounding.
Parts of the grounded Qantas fleet are subject to financing arrangements, so
those aircraft are also no longer paying for the fixed costs they incur just
standing still.
Added to obligations to stranded customers, and the thousands of hotel rooms
the pilot union alleges that Qantas had pre-booked in preparation for
yesterday’s ambush, losses of $40 million per day are not implausible,
although reliable information on this and other topics has not yet been
provided by management.
What Qantas did confirm, to the ASX on Friday prior to the AGM, was that the
loss of revenue attributable to uncertainty over the industrial situation at
Qantas was costing $15 million a week, which it described as unsustainable.
That figure may now be somewhere between $210-280 million a week, suggesting
that there is much about the state of mind of the board and senior
management that remains cause for concern as the hours tick down to the 2 pm
resumption of the hearing by Fair Work Australia of an Australian government
application for its intervention in the dispute because of the damage it is
doing to the national economy.
The evidence given by the department of transport and infrastructure to FWA
late last night about the importance of tourism specifically and air travel
more generally to the national economy is compelling.
But the Qantas involvement with that contribution is in fact, much less
compelling. As the airline often points out, almost with pride it seems, it
is also so uncompetitive at the international level that it only carries 18%
of the carriage, as flown by Australians and foreign visitors combined.
In aggregate it is the likes of Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Cathay Pacific
and Thai International that do the heavy longer haul lifting, which excludes
some of the nearer destinations apart from trans Tasman services, across
which Emirates punts otherwise idle A380s and 777s that have time to spare
between arriving from and departing to its Dubai hub at Melbourne, Sydney
and Brisbane.
It is important not to allow history to be rewritten by Qantas in relation
to the rise of its foreign competitors. They didn’t force Qantas off routes
to what have now become enormously important ‘secondary’ cities in Europe,
or the more recently emerging routes to central Asia, northern Africa or ex
Soviet era eastern Europe.
Qantas failed serve those routes, except via London, and its competitors
filled the gap. If Emirates and Thai International and Singapore Airlines in
particular had not demonstrated business acumen in flying one-stop to those
destinations from Australia, the really valuable contribution Germany and
the continent in general makes to Australian tourism would not have occurred
as quickly or efficiently.
That growth has very little to do with the tired old anglo-centric view of
the world that has seen Qantas struggle to understand new sources of long
haul growth and persist with its ghastly reliance on transferring passengers
to British Airways at London Heathrow, or for those who have been especially
bad, via London Gatwick.
Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Thai International have been the future of
Australian long haul tourism for some time, and now Etihad, in association
with Virgin Australia, is also staking its claim in the void that Qantas
still fails to address even if it finally understands it.
From next March Qantas actually halves its direct participation in the
London market by seeking to hand the completion of two out of four daily
flights to Heathrow to British Airways, a clever move that will undoubtedly
persuade even more of its customers to switch instead to all-the-way
carriers like Emirates or Singapore Airlines.
It makes the claimed Qantas commitment to tourism look shonky. Within
Australia Qantas years ago abandoned or severely reduced its services to
mass tourism destinations in Tasmania, to Queensland’s resort islands, and
to its Gold and Sunshine Coasts.
Jetstar took over those services. It is unaffected by the Qantas industrial
disputes.
Which means that much of the evidence the government provided about the
national economic importance of air travel to tourism late last night is of
reduced applicability to Qantas.
Inbound tourism to Australia has been severely impacted by the strong
Australian dollar. In fact if the cost differential between Qantas and its
most successful foreign carriers is only the 25% its CEO Alan Joyce referred
to in public addresses and announcements in May and August is correct it
would disappear if the Australian dollar went even halfway down to its lows
against the USD, euro, pound sterling and yen in the first decade of this
century.
Of course confidence in anything Mr Joyce says has been put under some
stress this year. On 19 August he said the proposed venture to found an Asia
based premium quality single aisle carrier in either Singapore or Kuala
Lumpur would cost 1000 Qantas jobs. But at the AGM on Friday he said ‘not
one Australian job’ would be lost because of that venture.
At that meeting he also said that without Qantas involvement, Airbus would
never have produced its forthcoming NEO version of the A320 airline family.
That was delusional nonsense. Meanwhile NSW police resources are tied up
searching for the perpetrators of alleged death threats against Qantas
executives and workers. Those were very serious allegations, they are
costing public money, they were made contrary to normal protocols not to
‘blow’ police investigations, and they need to be resolved, but that is also
a story for another time.
It can be argued that the problems that Qantas claim to be experiencing are
self inflicted, in that it chose not to address its major cost problem,
fuel, with an appropriate investment in more fuel efficient airliners, such
as the 777, and is now cutting back on its A380 orders, which is even more
fuel efficient on trunk routes where slots or demand make a nonsense of
services in anything but the biggest jet available.
That is not to avoid taking issue with union demands for ‘job security’.
Those demands are way beyond the pale whether the company involved is
supremely well run, or being managed poorly.
However there are critical political or public/national policy issues bound
up in those demands as they apply to excellence in piloting and maintenance
in not just old aircraft, but new more efficient designs.
And there are critical issues in relation to the Qantas Sale Act, including
whether it might be a good time to abolish it, or take an alternative path
and amend it to make it more relevant to the national interest.
Those issued are due to be addressed at a Senate inquiry starting this
Friday. It is clear from the bills being considered in the course of that
inquiry that the Qantas off shoring strategy by which lower labor costs in
airline operations could be rotated through domestic flights that are
extensions of international flights could be stopped in its tracks.
On the other hand the union arguments about Asia, and the somewhat risky
catch cry against ‘Asianisation’ miss the point that finding a way to expand
into the rapidly emerging air travel markets of the Asian hemisphere is
highly desirable.
But there is no need to murder Qantas, or destroy its standards, in the
process, other than the greedy temptation to drag the airline down to so
called world’s best practice in training and safety.
Australian can export excellence rather than import mediocrity in the
business of air transport.
These are matters Fair Work Australia is highly unlikely to consider when or
if it makes a compulsory arbitration of the three Qantas disputes, with its
long haul pilots, its licensed engineers, or its ground handlers.
Yet they are matters of immense importance that can be resolved in
parliament, and may emerge into the spotlight once the purely industrial
issues have been resolved.
The protesters seem more adult than politicians and
plutocrats
Sunday 30 October 2011
Andrew Rawnsley The Observer
The mayor of
London demands a law against it to stop tent villages "erupting like boils"
across the capital. If you lived like Boris, you too might be a bit paranoid
about boils. The prime minister interrupts a trip to Australia to announce
that the government is poised to intervene. Meantime, the Church of England
is split down the aisle about whether the Christian thing is to embrace the
protesters encamped on the doorstep of its cathedral – after all, St Paul
was a tent-maker and Christ had a robust approach to moneychangers – or to
join forces with the mammonites who run the City of London and have the
protest camp evicted. Much of the mainstream media side with the
establishment by dismissing them as an incoherent and unrepresentative
fringe. Well-paid television interviewers sneer that the protesters are
spoilt brats while grand columnists scoff that they will achieve nothing.
Yet they have already done something fairly remarkable. My congratulations
to the encampment outside St Paul's for sending almost the entire British
establishment into a tizzy every bit as confused as some of the protesters
themselves. Amazing what you can achieve by occupying a small, albeit
famous, patch of the capital with a few nylon tents and some amateurish
banners expressing well-mannered rage about capitalism. You have brought a
frown to the forehead of the prime minister, hyperbolic froth to the lips of
Boris Johnson, attracted the disdain of a pomposity of pontificators and
thrown the state church into something approaching a constitutional crisis.
It is twisted knickers time among pundits, politicians and prelates. Imagine
what might be achieved if this movement can get really serious and starts
taking its protest more directly to the avaricious bankers, corporate
larcenists and crony capitalists who are the central source of their
discontent with how we live now.
The protest at St Paul's is just one example of an international phenomenon.
What began in the Spanish springtime with demonstrations by the splendidly
named los indignados has turned viral and global. It is just over a month
since the first thousand people turned up at Zuccotti Park in New York to
express their rage at Wall Street. Since then, similar movements have come
to life in more than 900 cities around the globe. They have camped in front
of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt and on the Plaza del Congreso in
Buenos Aires.
The default response of establishment opinion is glibly to dismiss these
protests as a passing spasm which cannot achieve anything because the
movement is either wildly unrealistic in its aspirations for a new world
economic order or too vague in its demands. It is true to say that the
protests vary in their tactics and are disparate in their goals. Movements
like this are often woven from multiple threads of grievance, a tapestry of
dissent which can be both a source of initial strength and an ultimate cause
of weakness. But they are loosely united by common themes: fury at corporate
greed, resentment at lack of economic opportunity, concern about social
inequality and alienation from a conventional politics that appears
incapable of doing anything serious to address and redress public
discontents.
The anarchic end of the protesting spectrum do indeed sound naive when they
cry "smash the system", especially when they are either muddled or utopian
about what would take its place. More realistic are those protesters who see
their role as "raising awareness". That is a very valuable purpose in
itself. Simply by existing, they push these issues up the media agenda and
towards the front of the public mind. If it makes it just a little bit
harder for financial interests and their friends among politicians to put
the argument to sleep, it is a little bit worth doing.
The protesters over-claim when they say they speak for "the 99%", but some
of their themes do resonate very potently with mainstream voters. The
occupation movement is succeeding where conventional politics of both left
and right have badly failed. It articulates a profound public resentment
with over-mighty finance and the failure of government to do anything about
it. The protesters strike a resounding chord when they complain that
financial elites are getting rewarded with special treatment while the
punishment for their mistakes is meted out on the rest of society.
On top of the billions of taxpayers' money already committed to rescuing the
banks, the eurozone leaders have just signed up to providing billions more.
Yet from the nabobs of finance there is still not a whisper of a hint of a
scintilla of humility or penance. The Institute of International Finance,
the main industry organisation, reports that banks are handing more
guaranteed bonuses to new employees than they were before the financial
crisis. Governments have neither punished those who wrecked the economy nor
taken adequate steps to ensure that they will be more accountable and
responsible in future. Sir Fred Goodwin – why the hell is he still Sir Fred
Goodwin? Three years have elapsed since the bubble burst in 2008 and yet we
are still waiting for the fulfilment of promises of systemic reform. The
wonder is not that people have been provoked to occupy parks and squares in
every continent but Antarctica. The wonder is that this did not happen
earlier.
The composition of the demonstrations is interesting. A rough survey of the
occupation movement in New York found that about two in three of the
protesters are under 34. This is not just because protesting may be more
attractive to people with unfurred arteries, but because the young are
suffering disproportionately from a crisis not of their making. Youth
unemployment in Britain is at record levels: 20% of the under-24s do not
have work. In Spain, youth unemployment has surged to a staggering 46%.
These protests are an alert to explosive issues of inter-generational
unfairness which most politicians have yet to wake up to, probably because
their trade is dominated by the middle aged. Their generation often did well
enough during prosperity to cushion them from present austerity while the
less fortunate young are asked to pay the price.
A big mistake is to think that because the protesters tend to be youthful it
follows that they should be treated like children. Richard Chartres, the
Bishop of London, has made that error by suggesting to the campers that they
ought to leave in return for a debate under the dome of St Paul's – gosh,
thanks my Lord Bishop. He further asks them to go on the grounds that: "I am
involved in ongoing discussion with City leaders about improving shareholder
influence on excessive remuneration."
I am sure that the bishop is well-meaning, but that is not going to cut it.
There has been "ongoing discussion" for years. The result, according to the
latest report by Incomes Data Services: Britain's top executives gave
themselves a 49% increase in their salaries, benefits and bonuses in the
past year. It does not even occur to the business and financial elite that
it might be good old cynical public relations to moderate their greed while
so many of their fellow citizens are suffering the consequences of corporate
follies.
Who is truly the more adult: the protesters or an establishment that regards
itself as older and wiser? The protesters have largely been very decorously
behaved. They have thus far displayed no propensity to riot or to loot.
Their tents are erected in rather neat rows. They hold laboriously
consensus-seeking meetings at which they keep minutes and take votes. Their
spokespeople are polite and articulate. If they do not have all the answers,
they are at least posing some of the right questions. I don't see why they
should be criticised for the absence of a manifesto when the leaders of
Europe spent months quarrelling and flailing over the euro crisis before
scrabbling together an expensively botched compromise.
The protesters shun formal leaders and hierarchies – and I also don't see
why they should be criticised for this at a time when conventional leaders
and hierarchies have been so conspicuously useless. Here are some recent
scenes in establishment politics. Silvio Berlusconi displays his
incomparable charms by describing Angela Merkel as "culona ichiavabile" ("an
unfuckable lard arse"). Rick Perry, contender to become Republican candidate
for the great office of president of the United States, questions where
Barack Obama was born five months after the White House released his
long-form birth certificate, and excuses himself by saying: "It's fun to
poke at him." A punch-up breaks out on the floor of the Italian parliament
between one right-wing member of the government and an even more right-wing
member. Nicolas Sarkozy tells David Cameron to "shut up" because he is
"sick" of him. David Cameron elevates the tone at prime minister's questions
by shouting: "Complete mug!" at Ed Miliband.
Protesters or leaders? I know who looks the more grown-up.
Qantas in crisis
29 October 2011
Australian flag
carrier Qantas Airways has grounded all aircraft and suspended its domestic
and international operations indefinitely, dramatically upping the stakes in
its ongoing battle with three workers' unions.
While Unions in
Australia are required to give 72 hours notice of strike action, Qantas gave
none.
The airline is locking out all employees covered by the agreements being
negotiated with the Australian Licenced Engineers Union (ALAEA), the
Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the Australian and International Pilots
Union (AIPA).
This comes after several weeks of occasional industrial action by members of
the three unions, which has resulted in flight cancellations and disruptions
that have apparently cost Qantas Australian dollar (A$) 68 million so far.
Operations by
Qantas' low-cost subsidiary Jetstar will not be affected, and the other
members of the Group like QantasLink, JetConnect, Express Freighters
Australia and Atlas Freighters will continue flying.
"This is a crisis for Qantas," said its CEO Alan Joyce in a statement. "If
this action continues as the unions have promised, we will have no choice
but to close down Qantas part by part."
Sadly notices at
QantasAirways terminals in Australia claim that flights are cancelled due to
industrial action. Not so - the notice should read 'corporate action'.
What has been largely lost in all of this is that Qantas passengers have
been held hostage to an industrial dispute.
Qantas passengers are the unwilling pawns in a Mexican stand-off. Flights
were cancelled without notice and passengers left stranded. Their mood
will not be helped by allegations that the lock-out was planned in advance.
Now the Australian
government will be forced to act; but it is unclear what can be done other
than referring both side to arbitration.
Why? Qatar
looking at Spanair stake
27 October 2011
The Spanish news
agency EFE is reporting that Spanair is negotiating the sale of 49 percent
of its shares to Qatar Airways.
Qatar Airways
would become its strategic partner, with the aim of securing the future of
the airline in the coming years.
According to several newspapers reported today, a representation of
shareholders of Spanair, in which the Generalitat is the senior partner, has
traveled to Doha to finalize the deal, which could close in the coming days.
Spanair has long been seeking a strategic partner to ensure the viability of
the company, which closed 2010 with losses of 115.72 million euros, an
amount that improved 2009 results, year in which the airline lost 168
million.
Someone should
tell Qatar that this is a seriously bad idea.
Spanair flies old
planes, primarily domestically with a handful of international routes.
Oddly Spanair is a
member of the Star Alliance; how would its members feel about Qatar holding
the purse strings at Spanair or is it a sign that Qatar is looking to the
Star Alliance for membership?
Pay to be safe
23 October 2011
Only Dubai's
Roads and Transport Authority (RTA)
could come up with a scheme as stupid as this one. "If you want a safe
driver for your taxi then pay extra." So what does that tell you about the
other drivers that they have recruited?
Now the RTA is
back-tracking quickly after online condemnation of this silliness.
The RTA now says
its new "In Safe Hands" programme is a "personalised" taxi service, and
carries no stigma for drivers who are not part of it.
Last week, the RTA announced that families who want to travel with the
city's 60 safest drivers could pay for the privilege. These 60 drivers had
been chosen for their long service records and no traffic offences or
customer complaints against their names.
Now Dubai taxis
are not cheap; it would a cynic who thought this was just extra revenue;
would the taxi drivers be paid extra?
The new programme
costs an initial flag fall of Dh25, plus Dh1.71 a kilometre, compared with
between Dh3 and Dh20 a flag fall and Dh1.60 a kilometre in other cabs.
Waiting time costs the same, 50 fils a minute.
The RTA's
rebranding says that "the service is personalised and characterised by swift
and quality delivery through selecting a number of excellent cabbies," said
Abdul Mohsen Ibrahim, the chief executive in charge of strategy and
corporate governance at theRTA and head of its Dubai Taxi Supervisory
Committee.
A spokeswoman for the RTA added all Dubai taxi drivers are safe,
well-trained and held to the highest standards. Of course they are! That's
why the RTA invented the new scheme?
EK A380 in India diversion
23 October 2011
Emirates Airline
was forced to divert its Bangkok to Dubai Airbus A380 to the Indian city of
Hyderabad after pilots encountered a technical malfunction. This has been
variously reported as a hydraulic problem and a failure of the
integrated drive generator in three of the four
engines.
The
pprune.org website suggests that the failure was not hydraulics but an
electrical problem which included the loss of variable frequency
generators.
The flight, which was heading from Dubai to Bangkok with 481
passengers, touched down at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport earlier
today, according to the Times of India.
Press reports said that the pilots had initially requested to land at
Chennai airport, but the runway was too busy and clearance was therefore not
received. Unlikely; what airport turns away a passenger flight that has
declared an emergency.
Chennai is apparently not an agreed diversionary
airport for the A380 and Hyderabad is.
Fire engines and ambulances were placed on standby at Hyderabad. The big jet
was apparently towed to a parking bay without incident.
Emirates accommodated 80 passengers on another Hyderabad - Dubai flight (EK
527), while another special flight was arranged to Dubai for more
passengers.
Airbus engineers from the company's headquarters in Toulouse, France, were
apparently sent to Hyderabad to attend to the technical snag.
One passenger who
was on the flight left the following message on a frequent flyer web page:
"Emergency landing this morning and we have been in Hyderabad for about 2
hours now. We were woken up I guess it was about two hours out of BKK and
told we were landing in 15. Well an hour later we made what seemed like a
routine landing in Hyderabad. Not much communication from crew at all. No
idea nature of mechanical other than bad enough that we are awaiting two
inbound planes from DXB to take us back (as I assume there was not one
replacement 380 available). That is all we got out of captain."
The politics
behind Thailand's floods
Submerging the
rest of the Chao Phraya river basin to secure Bangkok is a mirror image of
Thailand's political crisis
22 October 2011 Thitinan Pongsudhirak for The Guardian
Thai residents evacuate their houses on a flooding main street in Pathum
Thani province near Bangkok, Thailand. Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA
Inaccurate information, poor management and nature have all combined to
unleash one of Thailand's worst floods in decades. When the newly elected
government of prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra took office in early
August, it wasted no time in rolling out populist policies catered to its
up-country supporters, putting in motion the legacy of Yingluck's brother,
former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in a military coup
five years ago and later convicted and exiled for corruption.
The jury is out on Yingluck's leadership and her ability to pull Thailand
through the ongoing deluge. Whether and how she bounces back from this
flooding crisis will define her premiership.
To be sure, floods are not uncommon in Thailand's low-lying central
provinces just north of Bangkok, the country's traditional "rice bowl".
These provinces have also spawned manufacturing estates for multinational
companies in recent decades. Severe floods also beset the central plains and
Bangkok in 1983 and 1995, with 1942 the most catastrophic. But the cost of
each flood has risen dramatically over the years, as the Thai economy has
become more developed.
Early rainfall this year, intensified by a string of monsoonal storms,
should have prompted early release of waters in the country's main upstream
dams along the Chao Phraya river, the main waterway through the central
region descending on Bangkok before it reaches the sea.
But the dams did not release enough water to accommodate the monsoons. When
the dam gates gushed in earnest, torrential downpours came, thereby
submerging adjacent provinces. The damage to farms and factories is likely
to cost several billion pounds.
The government's response was initially inept. Different ministers issued
different warnings. Inter-agency conflicts and lack of policy co-ordination
were rife. Yingluck delegated and skirted around tough decisions. Her
strengths of patience and even temperament became her weaknesses.
Information was not centralised and reliable. The saturation and
sensationalism of television images on a constant news cycle made the public
edgier. Yingluck has shifted gear and appears more in charge, having invoked
additional laws to give her government more authority short of declaring a
state of emergency, which would give the army more powers.
The floods also have underlined Thailand's urban-rural divide which has
underpinned a broader national polarisation and conflict since Thaksin's
departure. Downstream provinces were awash in order to divert waters away
from central Bangkok. The Thai capital was kept mostly dry at the expense of
its surrounding areas.
Bangkok's omnipotence is partly justifiable as it harbours some 40% of GDP
as well as being the residence of movers and shakers in Thai society and the
yoke of the economy. Yet submerging the rest of the Chao Phraya river basin
to secure Bangkok is a mirror image of Thailand's political crisis pitting
the well-heeled urban elites against the hapless downtrodden elsewhere.
Moreover, the governor of Bangkok happens to hail from the opposition
Democrat party. Unsurprisingly, Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra's priorities
differ from Yingluck's. Unless the rains lighten, this trade-off between
saving the capital to see its adjacent provinces suffer may prove futile.
If Bangkok shares some of the flooding, economic damage will mount but a
sense of equality and justice will prevail. When the floods go through the
capital, they will find faster release into the Gulf of Thailand.
Yingluck's learning curve will have to steepen quickly. This flooding crisis
has enabled her to carve out some autonomy away from her impatient and
blustery brother. Managing the floods requires a day-to-day, hands-on
operation that precludes the involvement of Thaksin.
But the challenge for Yingluck will come during the recovery and rebuilding
aftermath. If ways can be found to institute a broad-based, post-crisis
stimulus programme, she may not need her brother's populism as much, and
Thai economic growth can still clock a solid expansion with minimal slowdown
in spite of global adversity. If her leadership is drowned out by the same
floodwaters, her brother's enemies and opponents will directly become hers.
Emirates Airline - Clark interview
21 October 2011
With the Dubai
Airshow just three weeks away Flight Global has an in depth interview with
Tim Clark, the airline's President.
One item the
interview highlighted was that Emirates has ambitions to introduce
transpacific services from points in the Asia-Pacific, Australasia and the
Americas as part of a future phase of its network development.
Clark said that the transpacific services plan is "the only piece of the
jigsaw that's missing" in the airline's development strategy.
"We're just getting into the start positions: we have the West Coast of the
USA; we have Chinese points; we have Asian points; we have Australasian
points. So the Pacific is encircled and the next stage is to link the dots -
we have the rights." That last note is interesting Emirates has traffic
rights. It is a fair bet that it does not have USA/Australia and vv rights.
Clark said that he recognises that the timing is not quite right yet for
this phase of the airline's network development to begin: "We need to
consolidate our market presence in places like the USA. We need to be as
understood in the USA as we are, for example, in Europe."
Clark said that the USA is a "really difficult nut to crack" from a
marketing and brand-awareness perspective, as it is not a single entity.
"We'll do that through adding more destinations and getting our marketing
act together."
Emirates currently serves around 114 destinations across every continent and
has a passenger fleet nearing 150 aircraft. Clark said the airline is
working on its plan to "globalise" its network: "This isn't a token presence
in a particular city via multiple intermediate points. This is a robust
presence in the points that we serve on a minimum of a daily basis and
eventually two or three times a day," he said.
Abu Dhabi has developed an unhealthy appetite for European airlines. The
UAE’s official national carrier, state-owned Etihad Airways, is eyeing a
tie-up with Virgin Atlantic – which is bidding for Lufthansa’s bmi unit –
and mulling a 25 percent stake in Aer Lingus being sold by the Irish
government. Such deals may deliver tactical gains. But they would be a messy
way to trying to catch up with rival Dubai-owned Emirates.
Etihad is in an awkward position, outdone by Emirates in terms of profile
and passenger numbers. The eight-year-old Etihad flew 7 million passengers
in 2010 with a 74 percent seat load factor. Emirates – which is almost three
decades old – flew 31 million passengers at an 80 percent load over the same
period. Its sheer scale means Emirates is often wrongly assumed to be the
UAE national carrier.
There’s room for two large airlines in the tiny Gulf country. This is a
global market, and the Gulf is a strategic link between east and west.
Etihad doesn’t disclose its finances but says it’s on track to be profitable
in the next year. Operational growth has been impressive, driven by its 30
plus bilateral code-share agreements with other airlines. Emirates has
roughly one third of that amount.
Any financial investment into Aer Lingus, or into Virgin to assist with its
bmi ambitions, would mark a big strategic shift. European ownership rules
limit Etihad to a minority stake. Indirectly funding a bmi deal and buying
the Aer Lingus stake could cost around 600 million euros. But it isn’t clear
what benefits this would bring. Ownership isn’t required to have a
code-share agreement and there would be limited synergies, given fuel and
staff are the two main costs. Nor is Etihad desperate for more of the
landing slots held by each airline.
The industry is littered with failed minority investments by airlines into
rivals. Singapore Airlines’ 49 percent stake in Virgin Atlantic, picked up
in 2000, didn’t help it grow overseas and few analysts now attribute any
value to the shareholding. Emirates sold its stake in Sri Lankan Airlines
back to the operator last year for less than it paid. And Swissair’s
buy-to-grow strategy in the 1990s helped to bankrupt the airline.
Emirates’ success has come from years of disciplined organic growth.
Etihad’s search for strategic shortcuts is probably in vain.
In defense of Dubai
18 October 2011
The sorry state of the British media is simply summed up by the fact that
Tanya Gold won Feature Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards in
2010.
For a newspaper that prides itself on responsible, articulate journalism her
article “Why Dubai..?” on 14th October plumbed new depths. Sadly many of the
comments that follow her article reflect the tone of the author.
The article adds nothing to our knowledge about Dubai; it is lazy; it is ill
researched (Gold visited over two years ago) reporting masquerading as news.
Anyone who knows me or who has read my web site (www.rascott.com
) over the last five years will know that I have regularly been critical
of Dubai on many levels. But Ms. Gold’s tub-thumping diatribe, based on a
shopping visit two years ago manages to offend just about anyone who has
chosen to try and make a decent and hard working living in this city.
Dubai is not perfect. This is a 40 year old nation. Dubai’s growth as a city
has occurred in the last 25 years. Mistakes have been made and will be made.
But for almost 2 million people it is home. And home, wherever it is, is
where the heart is, if only temporarily.
Let us start with some of the abuse hurled at Dubai in her article which
need to be addressed:
"Why did Liam Fox choose Dubai for his mysterious stopovers between London
and Afghanistan?"
Dubai has provided a base for NATO forces serving in Afghanistan, including
British, American and Canadian troops. It is geographically convenient and
politically friendly. Fox is following a well trodden flightpath in
arranging meeting and reviewing Afghanistani operations in the UAE. Further
a number of defence contractors to the British government are based in
Dubai.
"Bahrain,
or maybe Oman, were the usual options."
In case Ms Gold had not noticed showing British support for the current
Bahraini regime would be unfortunate.
"Of all the slave states in all the towns in all the world, he walks into
mine."
I am sorry; but slave state? 85% of the UAE’s residents are foreigners
employed through work visas. At any level most have chosen to come to Dubai
because it offers them a livelihood, career, experience, opportunity that is
not available in their home country. I am not a slave; my wife is not a
slave. And we will leave tomorrow if we want to do so.
"In 2010, over 700,000 British tourists stayed in Dubai's hotels, according
to the Dubai tourism website. The British are Dubai's best customers, which
exposes how much people will collude with, or ignore, evil if their hotel
rooms are cheap, sumptuous and have cable TV."
Statistically the number does not make much sense – many people are on
stopovers between where they came from and where they are going to. Sure
Dubai attracts its share of high profile visitors. In part because it hosts
its share of high profile events; from sports events to film festivals. And
why not? How does a new, small city get onto the world map. It makes itself
important.
Describing Dubai as evil is just silly. It is not perfect. But it is self
aware. It is changing. It will continue to do so. It looks after its own
people; I have no problem with that. Isn’t that what every nation should
aspire to?
"It
is a truly fabulous destination where visitors can indulge in top-quality
state censorship, great homophobia, fine misogyny, state-of-the-art police
brutality and, of course, fantastic indentured servitude."
Nations have rules. Live within those rules. Be discrete, avoid creating
offence and you will be surprised how liberal much of the Middle East
actually is. So many accusations. So little evidence. Police brutality;
honestly for the Brits to preach about police brutality is simply funny.
State censorship: No. Self censorship: Yes. But nothing compared to China;
or to Thailand; or even (how things change) to Hong Kong.
"Dubai
does not impose income tax, so the tourists are joined by an international
convention of laughing parasites – all refugees from tax. I used to hate
them, until I realised that any British people who want to live in Dubai, we
can probably afford to lose."
Governments choose how to raise revenue. Dubai does so through housing
taxes, road taxes, residency and visa fees. Dubai operates at a surplus.
Case closed.
"Dubai, like the rest of the UAE, is a repressive state, hiding behind
religious piety and that dreadful word glitz. If Mickey Mouse is in
residence here, he has some of the smartest kids locked up in Space
Mountain. Do not dare to be gay, or adulterous, or a democrat in Dubai.
Homosexuality will get you up to 10 years in prison – party on, gays"
Yes, adultery and homosexuality are illegal. As they are in many other
countries by law and/or by custom. But no one is going to spy on you 24/7.
Behave discreetly; do not attract attention. No one is looking to bang
people up for what goes on behind closed doors. But if you want to grope in
public then this is not the place to do it. And honestly it may be a better
place because of that.
"It is an authoritarian oligarchy; the face of its ruler, Sheikh Mohammed
bin Rashid al-Maktoum, smiles from billboards and, sometimes, from our
Queen's own carriage at Ascot. There is no press freedom in the UAE, just
self-censorship. Insulting the royal family, or the flag, or possibly the
architecture, will get you banged up. Everything gets you banged up in
Dubai, except conformity and mindless shopping in the malls."
And just where is Miss Gold’s rant on self censorship in Russia or
Singapore; on the penalties for insulting the royal family in Thailand; for
burning the American flag; for being an artist in China. Easy target. Lazy
writing.
"Who built this city in the desert? There are 250,000 foreign workers in
Dubai, drawn mostly from India and Bangladesh. They are indentured servants,
that is, slaves. The usual way to recruit them is to draw them a picture of
joy – great wages, fabulous working conditions – and charge them an enormous
recruitment fee. Then, when they arrive, the construction companies often
steal their passports, deny them their wages, and say they must work
endlessly to pay for their return home, while living 10 to a room and
working in the terrible heat."
Construction workers are often brought to the UAE by recruitment agencies in
their own countries. Most if not all of these workers are actually saving
money and supporting an extended family in their home country. Has Ms Gold
condemned the influx of Eastern European workers in the UK, or Turkish
workers in Germany or Burmese in Thailand or rural Chinese migrating into
the cities for the lowest paid work.
Do I hear Ms Gold condemning the Western firms that have outsourced their
manufacturing to the lowest cost labour available? Who is exploiting who? We
live in a global world. We might not like it but it is certainly not
confined to Dubai.
Asian workers continue to flock to the UAE and other gulf states because
they do find employment and are able to support their families back home.
This does not excuse abusive treatment and bad practice towards them. But
conditions have improved and lessons have been learned.
"African
men carried my bag (my bag-carrier had a law degree), Bangladeshi men
cleaned my room, and Thai women with false names – who can be bothered to
pronounce a Thai name when there are so many of them? – served my dinner.
These were human being beings acting as wallpaper."
Dear oh dear. Thai men and women are all given nicknames by their families.
These are not false names or another Dubai prejudice.
You see – for many of us one of Dubai’s attractions it that it is so
diverse. Go into Ikea in Dubai – how many languages you will hear in one
place; all with the same purpose. That to me is something to celebrate not
to denigrate.
Take the airline, Emirates. It has crew from some 110 different countries.
For every one that leaves there are twenty people lined up to take that job.
That is a success story. That is people taking the opportunity to fulfil
their ambition.
"Dubai is a place of horror, the land where fundamentalism meets
hyper-capitalism. Could anything be worse?"
Actually the only thing that is worse is journalists who get paid to cause
offence. The only saving grace is that I assume Ms Gold will not be
returning to Dubai.
Dubai is not perfect but then again what major city is? But it has given a
home to many hard working and talented people seeking to make a difference
to their lives and to the lives of the people around them. For many it is a
first step on an international career; to others it is a safe haven in
regional turmoil; to others it is a holiday destination with beaches and
sunshine and enough that is exotic and different to enjoy for a few days.
The Emiratis have welcomed and embraced foreign investment and foreign
residents; it must be a battle to preserve their own culture when they are a
minority in there own nation. For the most part, and there are always
exceptions, they are polite, decent, respectful. honest people; ill
deserving or Ms Gold’s contempt.
As for the tired Arab antisemitism cliché? Exactly what else does Ms. Gold
expect? The UAE remains an Arab country with an Arab, Muslim population. As
such anyone carrying an Israeli passport is not permitted to enter the
country. The majority of other Arab states as well as most non Arab Muslim
nations enact similar laws. This is in solidarity with the Palestinians.
The majority of the people that work here are decent hard working folk who
are pursuing careers, opportunity and experience. If there is a bling factor
it is a small percentage. Most of us eat in food courts and not in smart
restaurants. Most of us create homes for our families. We are all really
rather dull. Sorry Ms Gold; that is not the Dubai that you are writing
about. Indeed many people here are sensitive to the injustice that goes on;
many do something about it.
Ms Gold conveniently omits Dubai initiatives such as Dubai Cares; my old
company led the way by donating AED10million a year for ten years to that
cause. Or the work of the Emirates Airline Foundation; staffed entirely by
volunteers.
Dubai is and will change; it is a young nation; its wealth was born on oil.
It quickly recognised the need to create a diversified economy; including
tourism, fed by arguably the most successful airline in the world. If it has
a role model it is probably Singapore; guess what; it’s role model is
another ex British colony that has prospered while Britain flounders from
one economic or political crisis to the next. 'Mother nature doesn't take bribe money'
"Thailand is a
tropical country with monsoon seasons. Annual flooding is even more a part
of life than skin-whitening cream, but less so than corruption. Given
climate change, deforestation, decades of poor planning and mismanagement,
the flood disaster will get progressively worse and worse. The present
disaster will pale compared to the next one.
Decades of mismanagement and short-sightedness cannot be blamed on any one
government. It requires a collective effort to achieve this level of
incompetence. But I can guarantee that in news meetings of every media
organisation in the Kingdom over the past weeks, editors have been pulling
their hair out over how to report the flooding situation accurately. The
problem is the confusion and mixed messages given by the authorities.
This minister says one thing. That minister says something else.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Science and Technology Minister
Plodprasop Suraswadi, spokesperson Wim Rungwattanajinda, Justice Minister
Pracha Promnok and Bangkok Governor MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra are all
''official authorities'' on the flood situation. But their stories are
rarely ever the same.
Editors scratch their heads and ask, ''Can't these people have one centre of
command and control, one voice and one direction?'' and ''Who's in charge
here?''
All the confusion culminated on Thursday night when Minister Plodprasop
suddenly rushed out of a cabinet meeting to tell the public that a sluice
gate had burst and the north of Bangkok was about to be hit by a metre of
floodwater. It was a false alarm.
This prompted mass panic and resulted in the Facebook wall of the Don Mueang
flood relief operations centre receiving more hate messages than your
average Bangkok socialite has had botox injections. The entire government
was embarrassed. We just don't know what we are doing.
We complain when foreign governments issue warnings for their citizens to
stay away from Thailand because we value tourism baht like school
administrators value tea money.
At the same time, the Japanese embassy urged the flood relief operations
centre to help foreign governments keep updated on what's going on by also
reporting on situations in English. They can't know what's going on if we
don't tell them.
In the comical irony that is life, a tear-drop may be worth a thousand words
in English, or Japanese.
Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong burst into
tears and gave a consoling hug to a Japanese investor whose factory in the
Bang Pa-In Industrial Estate was inundated by floodwater as efforts to
strengthen the dykes failed.
The tears of failure should be sufficient to let foreign governments know
exactly how things have fared.
In fact, if you watched the news, you saw the deputy prime minister bawling
like a baby. Some may interpret these as genuine tears, while others may say
it was just playing up for the cameras. After all, tears garnered worldwide
good publicity for China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao after the 2008
earthquake.
All the confusion led to Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand telling the public:
''Please listen to me and me alone. I will say when we should evacuate.
Please believe me and only me.'' We just don't know what we are doing.
Take any old Hollywood disaster movie _ meteors about to hit the Earth,
alien landings, the Earth's core out of whack, the coming of the apocalypse,
or any old disaster.
The first thing they do is send out helicopters with stern-looking FBI men
to pick up all the experts, whether they are academics or working in the
relevant field.
They are the experts. They spend their entire lives becoming the experts.
They know what they are doing.
They are put in charge and 90 minutes later the crisis is solved, with a
couple of romantic hook-ups and an Oscar-winning original soundtrack to
boot.
But instead of taking valuable life lessons from cheap pirated DVDs on Silom,
we do the complete opposite. We make reality even more ridiculous than
Hollywood makes fiction.
I am sure Minister Plodprasop is tech-savvy and a mean hand with a Bunsen
burner. He probably knows quantum physics as well as any red-blooded Thai
male knows a good massage. After all, he's the minister of science and
technology.
I am certain Minister Pracha is a very just man and knows every letter of
the law. In fact, while most people sing in the shower, he probably recites
the constitution while having a bubble bath.
I'm willing to bet Prime Minister Yingluck is err, is umm, is err, is a
wonderful business genius. After all, she's was a high-ranking executive in
companies owned by her brother.
But how are any of these people experts in flood management?
Having all the ministers in the entire cabinet actively involved may be a
sound publicity stunt at first. But is it sensible to ask a hairy, fat
plumber to don ballerina spandex and dance Swan Lake?
We just don't know what we are doing. A fine example is Capt Somsak
Khaosuwan, director of the National Disaster Warning Centre, who I
interviewed some weeks ago. He knows the problems inside and out _
nature-made, man-made and politics-made.
He's the expert. He knows what he's doing. Is he in charge of things? No. He
has to take orders from people who don't know what they are doing, even if
they mean well.
It's the same old soap-opera tale of how Thailand can't get it together
because good men are bogged down by politics.
Sure PM Yingluck has trouble articulating words and ideas, and at times
simply does not know what's going on, but I do believe that she cares.
Certainly, Minister Plodprasop may be more excitable than a 17-year-old boy
anxious to collect his girlfriend's promise on prom night, but I do believe
he cares.
Of course, Democrat party chief Abhisit Vejjajiva is doing early campaigning
and repairing his image, but I do believe he also truly cares.
Donation centres have to ask people to curtail their charitable impulses
because they have run out of places to store the donations. Hundreds of
volunteers, ordinary citizens, flock to disaster areas to help the victims.
We Thais care about each other, even if our leaders don't know what they are
doing. So take that care and turn it into something positive.
First, admit that we simply do not know what we are doing. Second, learn
from people who might. Perhaps seek help from countries that have mastered
flood management.
Sure, every country is unique in its problems. Certainly, there's no
one-size-fits-all solution. But of course, there are things that can always
be learned and adapted. I do not know the model that works, but I do know
the model that doesn't _ the one we are using.
Yes, the risk of losing face is great. To admit that we do not know what we
are doing and worse, seek help from foreigners? The toll of the existential
horror to the Thai identity may have us all foam at the mouth with blood.
But it's a burden that we must bear because the lives and livelihoods of our
brothers and sisters surely hold more value than any vain delusion that
stems from inner insecurities.
However, before we look anywhere else, why not simply put our own people _
who actually are the experts and know what they are doing _ in charge.
Thailand is not short on good, capable people. We have plenty of them. We
just prefer to bog them down in a web of politics and pettiness.
Or perhaps true experts can't be put in charge because flood management,
like everything else, is a money game, as such it's heavily politicised. And
that is another can of worms.
This entire story is typical, and decades in the making. The theme of
incompetence; the plot of mediocrity; the characters that are
self-righteous, vain and greedy; and the climax of disastrous loss of lives
and livelihoods. Yes, there's something we know best how to do, to get
things done in our favour. But unfortunately, Mother Nature doesn't take
bribe money."
Information for
flood donation as below...
♦ Ruam Jai Chuay Phai Nam Tuam (The Heartfelt Help for Flood Victims
Project)
Bank: Krung Thai Bank, Nana Nua Branch
Account Number: 000-033000-0
Contributions in the form of food, supplies and goods can be made at:
- Krung Thai Bank, all branches within Bangkok and surrounding provinces
- The Post Publishing Company Limited
136 Na Ranong Road, Sunthorn Kosa, Klong Toey, Bangkok
- All Centara Hotels & Resorts throughout the country
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
♦ Prime Minister's Office
Bank: Krung Thai Bank, Government House sub-branch
Account Name: PM's Office's Relief Fund for Flood Victims
Account Number: 067-0-06895-0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
♦ The Thai Red Cross Society
Bank: Siam Commercial Bank, Thai Red Cross Society branch
Account Number: 045-3-04190-6
Fax deposit slip to: 02-250-0120
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
♦ Rajaprajanugroh Foundation
Bank: Siam Commercial Bank, Palace's Office sub-branch (Sanam Sua Pa)
Account Name: Rajaprachanugrah Foundation
Account Number: 401-636319-9
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bank: TMB Bank
Account Name: Rajaprachanugroh Foundation, Sanam Sua Pa branch
Account Number: 046-2-44777-2
Fax deposit slip to: 02-281-1423
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
♦ Public Health Ministry
Bank: Siam Commercial Bank
Account Name: Public Health Ministry for Flood Victims
Account Number: 340-2-11600-7
For more information, call 02-590-7104-5, 02-590-7196
Reprinted here because
this even offends me - I have often been critical of Dubai but this really
is offensive trash from the Guarfian.
"One thing confused me about the headlines this week, which were essentially
a morality tale about the loneliness of the professional politician. Why did
Liam Fox choose Dubai for his mysterious stopovers between London and
Afghanistan? Why couldn't it be somewhere else, perhaps the Wembley Plaza
Hotel in Middlesex? Four times in 18 months the former defence secretary
laid his head there, when Bahrain, or maybe Oman, were the usual options.
But it was Dubai, one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates. Of
all the slave states in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine.
Fox is not alone. In 2010, over 700,000 British tourists stayed in Dubai's
hotels, according to the Dubai tourism website. The British are Dubai's best
customers, which exposes how much people will collude with, or ignore, evil
if their hotel rooms are cheap, sumptuous and have cable TV. Virgin Holidays
say on its website: "Dubai is like no other place on Earth. It is a truly
fabulous destination where visitors can indulge in top-quality hotels, great
shopping, fine dining, state-of-the-art spas and, of course, fantastic
beaches. There is, however, more to Dubai than meets the eye …"
Yes indeed, it is unique, and there is more than meets the eye. That copy
could be rewritten to say, "It is a truly fabulous destination where
visitors can indulge in top-quality state censorship, great homophobia, fine
misogyny, state-of-the-art police brutality and, of course, fantastic
indentured servitude," and it would not be libelous – not in Britain,
anyway. Dubai does not impose income tax, so the tourists are joined by an
international convention of laughing parasites – all refugees from tax. I
used to hate them, until I realised that any British people who want to live
in Dubai, we can probably afford to lose.
I went to Dubai two years ago because a friend was going for work and I am
not a woman to let a friend go shopping in a tyranny alone. I knew there
would be trouble, reading the guidebook on the plane. Dubai practises
religious tolerance towards all religions, it said – except Judaism. So I
knew I shouldn't do anything explicitly Jewish in the UAE, such as complain
about the racist cartoons of hook-nosed Jews sitting on the world as if it
were a big space-hopper made of gentiles. UAE newspapers think all Jews look
like Harvey Weinstein crossed with Shrek. But Dubai, owner of the Burj
Khalifa, the tallest building – or spike – on Earth has worse to show us
than some casual antisemitism.
Dubai, like the rest of the UAE, is a repressive state, hiding behind
religious piety and that dreadful word glitz. If Mickey Mouse is in
residence here, he has some of the smartest kids locked up in Space
Mountain. Do not dare to be gay, or adulterous, or a democrat in Dubai.
Homosexuality will get you up to 10 years in prison – party on, gays! A
group of transvestites got five years in Abu Dhabi for dressing up; two
lesbians got a month in Dubai, for kissing on the beach, before being spat
out with deportation. I met a British woman in prison in Dubai. She was
there for adultery, on the word of her husband – pale, thin, denied access
to her children, almost too atrophied to speak. In the end, I didn't
interview her. Appearing in the British media might prejudice her case, and,
anyway, she had no words.
It is an authoritarian oligarchy; the face of its ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin
Rashid al-Maktoum, smiles from billboards and, sometimes, from our Queen's
own carriage at Ascot. There is no press freedom in the UAE, just
self-censorship. Insulting the royal family, or the flag, or possibly the
architecture, will get you banged up. Everything gets you banged up in
Dubai, except conformity and mindless shopping in the malls, one of which
has a mountain in a fridge, which you can ski down – if skiing, rather than
shopping in a tyranny, is your thing.
And in neighbouring emirates it is little better. Human Rights Watch is
detailing the case of five Emirati reformers, all awaiting trial for talking
about democracy. The attorney general, Salim Saeed Kubaish, says they are in
prison for "instigation, breaking laws and perpetrating acts that pose a
threat to state security, undermining the public order, opposing the
government system, and insulting the president, the vice-president and the
crown prince of Abu Dhabi".
One, Nasser bin Ghaith, an economist and lecturer at Sorbonne Abu Dhabi,
managed to get a statement out from al-Wathba prison this month. "I have
reached," he writes, "an unshakeable conviction that this court, measured
against international norms of justice, is merely a farce and facade meant
to legitimise and make credible verdicts and penalties that may have already
been decided. It is purely an attempt to punish me and those with me for our
political opinions." They will not get a fair trial.
And who built this city in the desert? There are 250,000 foreign workers in
Dubai, drawn mostly from India and Bangladesh. They are indentured servants,
that is, slaves. The usual way to recruit them is to draw them a picture of
joy – great wages, fabulous working conditions – and charge them an enormous
recruitment fee. Then, when they arrive, the construction companies often
steal their passports, deny them their wages, and say they must work
endlessly to pay for their return home, while living 10 to a room and
working in the terrible heat. In Dubai, they cannot change jobs, and they
cannot strike; those who do face violence, or deportation. Last year 113
Indians committed suicide in Dubai, or one every three days.
And there is no stopping. The recession is a blip as the UAE expands like an
octopus. A vast project is afoot to create a new tourist paradise. Saadiyat
Island in Abu Dhabi will be ready in 2020. The Louvre, which should know
better, but doesn't, will have an annexe there; so will the Guggenheim, and
so will New York – New York! – University.
We asked a Welsh couple why they came here. The answer arrived, from the
man: the hotel staff would hold my dick if I asked. For me, that is not an
advert, but others like to travel where labour is cheap and desperate and
therefore loving. In my hotel they styled the ethnic minorities. African men
carried my bag (my bag-carrier had a law degree), Bangladeshi men cleaned my
room, and Thai women with false names – who can be bothered to pronounce a
Thai name when there are so many of them? – served my dinner. These were
human being beings acting as wallpaper.
It is almost understandable, if you are a psychopath. For every piece of
human misery Dubai offers, it has a wondrous piece of leisure to distract
you. This is, entirely, its terror. So there are buildings of incredible
scope and ugliness, fake islands in the shape of continents, and the Burj
al-Arab hotel, which is shaped like a sail and stuck above the Arabian Gulf.
This is all meat for gibbering travel PRs. There are many places on Earth as
repressive, but North Korea and Saudi Arabia are not touted as dirty weekend
destinations for residents of liberal democracies. Dubai is a place of
horror, the land where fundamentalism meets hyper-capitalism. Could anything
be worse? So again, Liam Fox, why?"
Emirates price
tag for an A380 stands at $234,000,000
14 October 2011
Source - Flight Global
"Quick item from
the Department of Things That Probably Weren't Meant to be Posted on the
Internet: WSJ.com inexplicably posted an announcement from Nimrod Capital
LLC, which today bought the first of three A380s it is leasing to Emirates,
each for 12 years.
"All the headlines have been focused on China Southern's first A380 delivery
today, but for Doric Nimrod Air Two Limited, MSN077 is their first aircraft,
and the 16th of 90 that the Dubai-based carrier has on order.
Doric Nimrod Air Two Limited (the "Company") is pleased to announce that its
wholly owned subsidiary, MSN 077 Limited (the "Subsidiary"), has today
acquired an Airbus A380-800 aircraft bearing manufacturer's serial number
077 (the "Aircraft") for the sum of US$234,000,000. The Aircraft was
delivered to the Subsidiary today at the Airbus delivery centre in Hamburg,
Germany."
The Airbus list
price of an A380 currently stands at $375.3 million, providing an
interesting glimpse into what Airbus' largest superjumbo customer is paying
for its new aircraft. At $234 million, Emirates is receiving a 38% discount
off list price, which is not far off the industry standard for the magnitude
of the carrier's order.
What's not clear from this figure is if the price of the Engine Alliance
GP7200 engines, which list for $16.6 million each, is included in that
price. Further, what share of the price includes the extensive interior
customization and in-flight entertainment is also not known, but at the
price Nimrod is paying, you begin to get a rough sense of the share that
revenue that actually goes back to Airbus.
Cameron bottles
it on defence
14 October 2011
Liam Fox quit
today as the UK's defence minister. He should have been fired.
But UK Prime
Minister Cameron failed to act. And failed to recognise just how seriously
his government was undermined by Fox's nonsense.
Fox quit under the
weight of this week's news stories surrounding his friendship with his best
man, Adam Werritty.
Fox's departure came only hours after Werritty had been back for a second
interview with the cabinet secretary, Gus O'Donnell. He has been conducting
an inquiry into claims that his friendship with Fox potentially jeopardised
national security and raised issues around conflicts of interest.
Fox had clearly and repeatedly broken the ministerial code. He gave Werritty
access to governments and ministers. He allowed Werrity to use a business
card identifying him as an advisor to the defence minister.
Downing Street insisted that the prime minister had been prepared to tough
out the relentless coverage and wait for O'Donnell's report to be concluded.
But new
allegations emerged on Friday showing that some of the businessmen who were
funding Werritty's trips abroad had an interest in influencing defence
policy. The Guardian was poised to report that two of Werritty's financial
backers had defence interests.
This put into question Fox's repeated assertion that neither he nor Werritty
had profited from the 40 occasions they had met over the last 16 months.
The problem is
that this is the defence minister responsible for national security. Yet his
judgment is clearly flawed at best. His conduct put personal
relationships and possibly profit before the nation's interest.
He should have
been fired. The smell or at best stupidity, and at worst malfeasance, was
overwhelming.
In his resignation statement he said: "I mistakenly allowed the distinction
between my personal interest and my government activities to become blurred.
The consequences of this have become clearer in recent days. I am very sorry
for this. I have also repeatedly said that the national interest must always
come before personal interest. I now have to hold myself to my own
standard."
In his return letter, the prime minister emphasised that Fox and his wife
Jesme Baird have "always been good friends" and that Fox had been a "key"
member of his team who had done a "superb job" over the last seventeen
months.
Wrong wrong wrong.
Cameron needs to hold his ministers to far higher standards.
Flintoff quits
on Dubai
8
October 2011
Former cricketer
Freddie Flintoff has quit Dubai and his role as sports ambassador to go back
to England.
For a so-called
ambassador for Dubai he was quick to bite the hand that fed him - or at
least convalesced him, saying that he was fed up of the sunshine.
Flintoff told Hello magazine that: "Dubai was great for a while. We were
there for a couple of years and lived all over in rented places in Jumeriah
Beach, on the Palm...it was sunny all the time but I really missed England
and everything I wanted to do was here...as much as it was great for them
(his 3 kids) to be able to play in the pool in Dubai, there is not much else
for them to do other than go to the beach, go in the pool and I want more
for them than that.
Flintoff is not
the first sportsman to jump on and off the Dubai bandwagon in unseemly
haste.
Tiger Woods may be
the highest profile name to drop off; he was paid off and his golf course
and real estate project are slowly slipping back into the dessert.
Then there was the
unbuilt Steven Gerrard Tower and the half-built Boris Becker Business Tower.
There is the luxury villa that David Beckham still owns on the huge Palm
Jumeirah; it presumably lies empty.
Micheal Owen
touted that "I chose to invest in Dubai because I believe there is huge
investment potential in Dubai." This was in a glossy promotional video for
the First Group, one of a number of investment companies that sold the dream
of luxurious living in Dubai.
Nikki Lauda and Michael Schumacher also have unfinished projects in their
name.
In almost all cases, the stars involved were sold property at knockdown
prices and were then paid handsome retainers in return for the use of their
names. When the money runs out to pay the retainers the stars are first out
of the door.
England's
unreasonable expectations
8 October 2011
Montenegro
Reserves 2 England 2. England scraped the draw that they needed in
Montenegro last night. Montenegro rested some key players that were on
yellow cards in preparation for their game against Switzerland.
How bad were
England? Iin the early hours a friend, and he knows his football, sent me
the following:
"Cole is a little
flash ****
Terry is a slow slack ****
Barry is a blundering bumbling *******
Downing a dumb ******* donkey
Parker a plodding prattling *****
Midfield are ****"
Rooney was sent
off. His dad has already been charged last week in a football betting
scandal. The whiff of scandal in English football again.
The Premiership
has killed English football. There are half a dozen premiership teams that
can beat the national team.
Too many foreign
players and no pride left in playing for England. Money talks. Money comes
from your club. Get injured playing for England and the gravy train runs
dry.
And in the
Guardian today the secret footballer wrote : Play for my country? I'd
rather join the 'bomb squad' in Marbella....adding this wonderful quote -
"representing England is a bit like sleeping with the Queen – an honour
obviously but how much enjoyment do you actually get?"
The point is that
England are no good. They failed to beat Montenegro (population just
600,000) either home or away. Sure they are in Euro 2012. But after another
long English season it woud be wise to have minimal expectations.
Emirates inks
$55m deal for London cable car system
7 October 2011
Dubai-based Emirates Airline was on Friday named as the
sponsor for London's new cable car river crossing - to be known as the
Emirates Air Line, in a 10-year deal worth £36m ($55.9m).
The £36m, ten-year deal, will see the cable car stations named Emirates
Greenwich Peninsula and Emirates Royal Docks, with the 34 gondolas painted
in the airline’s red livery.
The service – which will have a capacity of 2,500 people in each direction
each hour – will appear on the Tube map, but fares and operating times are
still not confirmed. It is due to open next summer, although Transport for
London (TfL) is not guaranteeing it will be ready for the Olympics...it
would be a coup for Emirates if it is ready for the Games.
The sponsorship cash falls well short of the £59m total budget of a scheme
the mayor originally hoped would be entirely funded by private finance.
London Mayor Boris Johnson said: “Emirates are one of the most successful
airlines in the world – ask yourself why they put £36m into this. I think
we’ve got a good deal and they’ve got a good deal. £36m is a good sum to
give London a cable car that it needs.”
The cable car links the ExCeL exhibition centre and the O2 arena.
The cable car is a
supplement to the new Greenwich rail system, Crossrail, which of course will
carry huge volumes of people, many more than the cable car was designed for.
“But in no way does it distract our energies and efforts from our upgrades
to the Tube and investments in the Overground, DLR and trams, as well
delivering Crossrail.”
Emirates Airline president Tim Clark said: “As one of the world’s most
innovative airlines, this link with this new form or air travel in London is
a perfect fit for us. The Emirates Air Line will take off as an iconic
landmark for London.”
The Emirates Air Line will connect north and south London, travelling
between two new stations set to be named Emirates Greenwich Peninsula and
Emirates Royal Docks.
Scheduled for completion in summer 2012, it will offer commuters and
visitors majestic aerial views as they travel across the Thames and provide
a much needed additional river crossing.
Work to construct the Emirates Air Line has begun with the foundations to
build the two stations, Emirates Greenwich Peninsula and Emirates Royal
Docks, now complete.
The steel towers which will hold up the cable line are currently being
fabricated into giant helix components ready for installation on site.
Over the next few weeks building of the stations sub-structures will start
to form the shell of the new stations that will welcome passengers once the
Emirates Air Line opens for business next year.
What does not come
over in the press releases is the great branding that Emirates gets for its
investment. Emirates have been allowed to appropriate the roundel for the
cable car’s logo. The cable car route, and the Emirates/roundel logo, will
also appear on the Tube map, with a ‘Emirates red’ streak linking the two
stations. It is not quite the first time that corporate branding will appear
on the London transport map (Ikea got there first) but it’s a huge move
toward greater sponsorship all the same. Maybe Dubai has set the example as
passengers travel from Noor Bank to Emirates or Etisalat for instance.
For Emirates, it
looks like a steal: they’ll get their logo all over London for a relative
pittance.
Steve Jobs is dead
6 October 2011
As a
quick aside - this news does put the launch on the iPhone 4s into
perspective. The press conference and briefing was just 48 hours ago. Tim
Cook and the Apple team went ahead with the announcement and launch despite
knowing how bad Steve Job's health had become. The press conference was a
little muted. Analysts felt that Apple was not revealing all that it had in
terms of new technology. It is remarkable that it went ahead at all.
"If
you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of
the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship,
it just gets better and better as the years roll on." --- Steve Jobs,
1955-2011
"Steve Jobs is dead. The Apple chairman and former CEO who made personal
computers, smartphones, tablets, and digital animation mass-market products
passed away today. We're going to miss him. Deeply, and personally.
Steven P. Jobs passed away on October 5th, 2011 after a long struggle with
pancreatic cancer. He was just 56 years old. We mourn his passing, and wish
his family the very best.
Let's address this up front: Gizmodo and Steve Jobs had, at best, a
tumultuous relationship. Yet no matter how much he may have hated us, we
admired him.
No, that's not quite right. We loved him.
He was the reason many of us got into this industry, or even care about
technology at all. He made the computer personal, and the smartphone fun.
Bill Gates may have put a computer on every office desk, but it was Steve
Jobs who put one in every dorm room and bedroom and living room. And then,
years later, he repeated the trick, putting one in every bag and every
pocket, thanks to the iPad and iPhone. If you use a computer or smartphone
today, it is either one he created, or an imitation of his genius.
He changed the way movies are made, the way music is sold, the way stories
are told, the very way we interact with the world around us. He helped us
work, and gave us new ways to play. He was a myth made man.
Prior to Steve Jobs, computers were alien to most of us. They were
accessible to few people without an engineering degree. Not merely because
of their complex operating procedures, but also because they were so cold
and so inhuman. Jobs understood that they could be something more than that.
That while computers would never be people, he could endow them with
humanity. He could transform them into machines that not only anyone could
use, but that everyday people would enjoy using thanks to the art of great
design. He made them something that would be part of our lives. And he did
that again and again.
His life story is familiar, but it deserves repeating. He was given up for
adoption by his unmarried parents. He grew up in California, and was very
much a product of that place and time. He took drugs. He got into phone
hacking. Both were precursers to what would always be his interest: changing
the status quo.
In 1976 he started Apple in a garage. Together with Steve Wozniak, he
shipped the first true fully-built personal computer, the Apple I. He drove
development of the Mac, understanding that it was the future of computers.
The great thing that we would all see. He brought in a grown up to run the
company. And that grown up forced him out of the company that he built and
into the wilderness.
While he was gone, he started NeXT computer. The NeXT operating system would
form the underpinnings of Apple's OS X, and iOS.
He also started the best movie studio of the past 30 years. Pixar's films
were innovative, to be sure. It pushed the boundaries of CGI to such an
extent that even today its early films still look great. But technology is
only a tool. As with everything else he understood that great technology
alone is not enough. It must be human to have an impact. Pixar movies tell
stories. They make grown men cry. That was the impact of Steve Jobs.
He became a family man. He reunited with his biological mother, and his
sister, the writer Mona Simpson. He married. He had children. He was, by all
accounts, a great dad. It was his role as husband and father that helped
drive his second act at Apple.
After his return to Apple, the company began shipping iconic product after
iconic product. Products that defined a decade. The iMac, OS X, the iPod,
iTunes (which was very good, before it was very bad), the iPhone, the iPad.
All of these were deeply human products. They reflected his understanding of
how technology was used not only in the workplace, but in the home. In his
keynotes, product demos typically showed not executives, but families.
He made Apple into the most valuable company in the world.
He never met his biological father.
He accomplished so many things, in so many fields that it's tempting to
compare Jobs to someone from the past. A Thomas Edison or a Ben Franklin or
even a Leonardo Da Vinci. We tend to do that because it helps us understand.
But it does him a disservice. He was unique. His own person. Our own person.
He was our emblematic genius. In 100 years, when historians talk about the
emergence of the age of intelligent machines, it is Steve Jobs they will
hold up as the great exemplar of our era.
They will remember his flaws, too. When Atari hired Jobs and Woz to write
the code for the iconic Atari game Breakout, the pair earned a $5000 bonus
for completing the work, largely done by Woz. But Jobs kept the bonus a
secret, and only paid his partner $375. When his daughter Lisa was born in
1978, he spent two years denying he was her father. His denials forced her
and her mother to support themselves on welfare. In the workplace he's often
been described as temperamental and even petulant. He could be arrogant and
unforgiving.
He was not a god. He was simply a man.
Yet for all his faults, he changed the world. He made it better.
He once famously asked of a critic "what have you done that's so great?" For
Jobs, the answer to that question was very nearly unlimited.
Our world will be less interesting, less exciting, and less meaningful
without him.
Goodbye, Mr. Jobs. We will miss you so very much."
South Africa
sings to China's tune
5 October 2011
It is a good
example of the breadth of Chinese influence and of how the world
increasingly looks East and not West.
Although the South
Africans deny it Chinese pressure has led to the Dalai Lama cancelling his
trip to South Africa, where he had been invited by fellow Nobel Peace
laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
The Tibetan spiritual leader's office said the South African government had
failed to grant him a visa on time.
Archbishop Tutu said South Africa was "worse than the apartheid government"
for failing to issue the visa. "... At least you were expecting it from the
apartheid government," he told a nationally televised news conference.
The Dalai Lama had been due to take part in celebrations on Friday to mark
the archbishop's 80th birthday.
It may be that
agreement was reached last week when South Africa's Deputy President Kgalema
Motlanthe visited China for four days of talks last week and signed a number
of bilateral trade and investment deals. He made no public mention of the
visa issue while in China.
It is the second time in two years that the Dalai Lama's visit to South
Africa has been blocked.
Beijing considers the Dalai Lama to be a dangerous separatist seeking to
lead Tibet in breaking away from China. However, he has repeatedly stated
that his goal is for greater Tibetan autonomy rather than independence.
Protests have been held outside South Africa's parliament by his supporters,
who say the country's sovereignty is being compromised.
At the weekend, the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre put its name to a petition
calling for the Dalai Lama to be allowed into South Africa.
Signatories to the petition said they were "ashamed and hurt" by the visa
delays and that they believed the Dalai Lama was being refused entry "on the
basis of political considerations that are inconsistent with our
Constitution and the values contained in it".
It is a little sad
that China feels threatened by two eighty year olds celebrating a birthday.
EK
expectations....
4 October 2011
Emirates Airline
is expected to place orders for a significant number of aircraft, including
30 A380s and additional Boeing 777s at the Dubai Airshow next month.
The largest international carrier already has around 199 planes on order,
scheduled for delivery through to 2019, but is expected to announce new
orders to support its rapid route expansion and in preparation for the
delayed delivery of the Airbus A350.
EK may already account for some of the 29 unidentified orders for 777s
already on Boeing's books. Emirates has a history of placing orders through
the year without making them public and then announcing them at the show.
Analysts expect an announcement of at least 20 Boeing 777s for Emirates as a
result of the A350 delays and their need to fill that gap as they dispose of
older airplanes. This would mean the phasing out of older 777s, the A340s
(both 300s and 500s) and some early A330s.
The airline is also expected to announce an order for a further 30 A380s, to
take their total order for the aircraft to 120. This would be the lighter
extended range A380s which could fly non stop to the US west coast.
State-backed Emirates is among the world’s largest buyers of new aircraft.
The carrier has already ordered 90 Airbus A380s. With about a hundred 777s
in the Emirates fleet now and about 40 still to come, the carrier is also
the model’s biggest airline customer.
Airbus said in June it planned to push back the launch of its largest A350
wide-body aircraft by 18 months. The delay allows Airbus to meet buyer
demands for a more powerful engine, and puts the model into more direct
competition with Boeing 777-300ER. But the delay may well be longer. The
A350 has not flown yet. And the engine upgrades have been criticised by the
airlines as insufficient.
Emirates does appear to have more aggressive expansion plans and needs to
have aircraft ready for new routes. Additional 777s are a safe and available
choice.
Fastjet will
not be easy
2 October 2011
The Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday that Fastjet, the proposed new
airline to be set up by
Sir Stelios Haji-Iaonnouhas
formed would target the transatlantoc market rather than compete head to
head in Europe with easyJet. Sir Stelios and his family still hold a 37.4pc
stake in easyJet.
The newspaper said that Sir Stelios is also thought to be working in
partnership with other entrepreneurs who are already attempting to build an
airline.
Analysts question
whether Fastjet will ever be more than a one page website. Sir Stelios has
been battling to extract cash out of easyJet for shareholders and the
proposed Fastjet may just be part of the annoy easyJet strategy.
Andrew Lobbenberg, airline analyst at easyJet's broker Royal Bank of
Scotland, said of Sir Stelio that "he has come up with a series of moves
that have been disruptive for the board...it's fairly colourful, if a little
extreme, but we do not think it will become a real airline."
Those investors have had an interesting ride since Haji-Ioannou decided to
turn into an activist investor who battles the board on a number of major
areas including the purchase of new aircraft as well as dividends. He has
had some success with shareholders receiving a special dividend of £190m.
The Civil Aviation
Authority says it has not received an application for an airline operating
certificate, which would require Fastjet to pass tests relating to areas
such as the fitness of its key personnel and its financing. Should the new
company be certified outside the UK, the process need not necessarily be
lengthy, however. It is thought that when easyJet received its licence, the
procedure took about five months to complete.
There is no low
cost transatlantic airline; and few long distance low cost carriers. Air
Asia X is one that does work; but is supported by its own large feeder
network across SE Asia.
In a note to clients on Friday, Peter Hyde of Liberum Capital identified
five barriers to entry in the airline industry: access to capital, access to
cheap aircraft, the business model, the brand name and access to networks.
"Start-ups need to find some routes where they can generate positive
cashflow relatively quickly," Hyde said. A transatlantic LCC would simply
lead to a price cutting war where the established carriers have always won.
One alternative could be for Sir Stelios to acquire a company or some assets
from an existing carrier; BMI, which Lufthansa appears ready to sell is one
possibility.
Tom Glocer says there’s a business to fix and he’s not going anywhere “for a
good long time”. Some close watchers of Thomson Reuters are less certain:
they think the recent promotion of James Smith moves him closer to occupying
the chief executive’s suite in New York.
The succession is in place, some analysts believe. They speak of internal
turmoil and say Smith, 52, a former journalist steeped in the ways of the
former Thomson Corporation and the Thomson family, its Canadian majority
owners, is being groomed as a future CEO.
Wrapped into September’s announcement of the latest restructuring was news
of the exit of Robert Daleo, another Thomson veteran, as chief financial
officer. It was said he planned to retire next July when he turns 63, a
relatively young age by North American corporate standards.
For the present, Glocer, 51, survives as the last senior executive of the
old Reuters still serving at the highest echelons of the new company.
Smith’s sudden and immediate elevation to chief operating officer of the
entire business is a significant advancement for the chief executive of the
minority professional division, which looked after the legacy Thomson legal,
tax, accounting and healthcare (the latter now being sold) products. It puts
him in a strong position to succeed Glocer, who is under pressure to boost
sales to financial institutions, Reuters reported.
Major restructurings are complex, disruptive and uncertain of success. What
drives a $23 billion corporation whose shares are listed in New York and
Toronto to undertake two in only two months? The conclusion that the first
one was rushed and did not work is difficult to escape.
A glance at the charts tells the story: the stock languishes around $27 from
a 52-week high of $42 and are down 25 per cent from a year ago. Then look at
the business: its struggling markets side has failed to make a breakthrough
with its flagship product, a desktop system called Eikon. The timing of
Eikon’s launch, in the depth of a severe downturn affecting players in its
core market, could scarcely have been worse. The banks and other financial
institutions it was designed for were cutting budgets, laying off people,
and delaying new technology orders. Eikon needs a fresh start – an
unequivocal assurance that it is fit for customers’ purposes and an
energetic effort on sales.
The Thomsons, whose shares in the group have lost more than 20 per cent of
their value this year, were sufficiently worried about the performance of
markets to demand the first re-organisation in July. Hence the abrupt
departure of Devin Wenig, a former Reuters executive who was the division’s
head, who supervised post-acquisition integration and who was once seen as a
potential successor to Glocer. Five other key executives went with him.
Reuters’ own report of that overhaul quoted people familiar with the
thinking of the board saying Glocer had been given about a year to
accomplish a turnaround. After the second reorganisation, Reuters said
Smith’s preferment raises fresh questions about how long Glocer will remain
CEO, and whether the markets business has deteriorated further in the last
two months.
Glocer, a mergers and acquisitions lawyer who masterminded the sale of
Reuters to Thomson in 2008 and then became chief executive of the combined
operation, was asked in a recent Reuters interview about succession plans.
He replied: “I think Jim is an extraordinary executive and he’s always been
in the frame of who the board should consider one day as a successor. That
is a board process. It hasn’t started yet. I’m going to stay for a good long
time to fix and thrive under this business.”
After the July upheaval Glocer took direct charge of markets. Now, after
only two months, some of the burden of hands-on management has shifted to
Smith, whose 24 years working for the Thomsons give him deep knowledge of
how they like to control their businesses.
Glocer intends to remain involved with customers, strategy and products
including Eikon. Smith will take the “operating rhythms” and “directly
manage in-year performance”. The merger of the two operating divisions may
result in some layoffs, though any cutbacks will affect “chiefs, not Indians
in front of customers”.
Sales and migrations to Eikon from existing products were good in September,
Glocer reported, and a major software upgrade is due in October. “We are
really focused on the remainder of the year on performance and product
quality with a view we will enter the year with a significantly improved and
stable product,” he said.
Much, possibly including the fate of Glocer, will depend on how successful
that has been when Thomson Reuters’ financial results for 2011 are announced
in the new year.
Smith views his appointment as an important step towards delivering the
promise of Thomson’s acquisition of Reuters – “namely, turning the world’s
greatest collection of news and information assets into the world’s greatest
news and information company”. He told staff: “I accept the new assignment
with a healthy dose of realism about the size of the task. I do not have a
magic wand or a pre-baked set of answers.”
Over the coming months work would be guided by a mission to shift focus and
resources towards customers. Fewer layers of oversight and more resources
directed towards customer insight, product development, sales and support
were needed.
“Make no mistake, there is a lot of work to do … stay focused on your
customers and the job at hand. I will take care of the plumbing and look
forward to joining you soon full-time at the front line.
“The pace of change in the world is unprecedented. When the dust settles,
there will be winners and losers. In the downturn of 2008 many of our
businesses put clear blue water between themselves and their competitors.
Heading into 2012 the seas again look choppy. But no one is better
positioned to win. The ultimate outcome will be up to us.”
