AIR - Air NZ.

[peat]

lets be frank the stated numbers are just numbers and the layoff process is going to continue on and on. After they;ve laid off heaps of the frontline staff, they'll suddenly find they have too many middle managers , and the flight planning will be a whole lot simpler so wont need so many there either.... that department doing iata stuff wont have many internationals anymore so no complex calcs to refund portions of the ticket prices etc etc ... but of course they cant do it all at once and also lets be realistic you cant have cabin crew picking up the phones ....

[Stranger_Danger]

For multiple reasons, I hate shorting, but I am so, so, so tempted.

[Beagle]

Furthermore, I've been appalled at the way some members of my family have been treated trying to get refunds. I've got a couple of relatives who had a big overseas trip booked, have been promised refunds and nothing after weeks - they are out of work now so could really use the money.

The airline appears to be morally and ethically bankrupt already ! That is profoundly shocking !

[keenkiwiflyer]

For multiple reasons, I hate shorting, but I am so, so, so tempted.

How do you short on a NZ stock?

[Beagle]

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...ectid=12333532

Union's and staff appear to have no understanding of the business or the rate at which it is burning through cash. You'd be forgiven for thinking the unions want the consultation process to drag on almost endlessly.

[Snow Leopard]

....honestly I think I'd rather fly JetStar.
....

Now, there is something I never expected to read.

[peat]

For multiple reasons, I hate shorting, but I am so, so, so tempted.

How do you short on a NZ stock?

Its very difficult to short AIR now. Not sure if Beagle still is or not.
The CMC platform is now only allowing positions to be closed out with AIR
At first they stopped you shorting it and now they're bailing from it being one of the stocks they offer even for longs. Makes you wonder why huh?

[Chinesekiwi]

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...ectid=12333532

Union's and staff appear to have no understanding of the business or the rate at which it is burning through cash. You'd be forgiven for thinking the unions want the consultation process to drag on almost endlessly.

Please bear with me and I will keep things brief (ish)

I can say that the Union and the company both have very clear understandings of what is transpiring and what the end game will be - as do the staff.

Staff, in this case older wide body Long Haul crew, are very aware of how this business runs - it may suprise people just how heavily invested staff are in this company, the sense of pride and ownership should be very evident and to boot there are a whole lot of employee/shareholders in this company.

Being an employee/worker doesn't preclude one from being a shareholder and Air NZ has a large number of employee shareholders (not via incentive schemes and the like). They are not mutually exclusive.

In essence the issue of the protracted wrangling over redundancies is simple and here it is.

In 2014 (or 13) Air NZ threatened the union with outsourcing its entire wide body crew resource. So essentially all crew were to disestablished and those who accepted new contracts with vastly reduced term/ conditions and salaries would be taken back on. The company stated it wanted $6 million PA from the workers.

Essentially a massive 6 million dollar a year transfer of wealth (wages) from workers to shareholders (dividends) - don't get me wrong I owned plenty of shares over these years.

In order to avoid outsourcing the Union agreed to Air NZ's second plan which was to keep all wide body Long Haul existing crew (to which the then new CEO Christopher Luxon famously stated were legacies of the past) on their current contracts but in order to keep that they needed to agree that any new crew member employed forthwith would go onto a new schedule contract - the same vastly reduced terms and conditions and salary as originally proposed in the outsource proposal. The poison was swallowed.

The two groups would be kept separate, The existing crew would operate only on 777 200 and 777 300 aircraft and the new crew group would operate exclusively on the new 787 aircraft. Both crew groups would have vastly different contracts with the contract for each crew group running to 169 pages and within those 169 page contracts were multiple sub clauses affecting different ranks - believe me it was and is a deeply detailed document.

The issue has now arisen whereby some 1500 or so crew need to be put off yet the contracts Air NZ and the Union at the time have now proven to be unbelievably contradictory and almost impossible to reconcile. You can drive a very very wide bus through the loopholes and now you have multiple groups and ranks within groups at each others throats defending their legal interpretations of why their group must remain and another group be made redundant.

The Union itself (though this union ETU inherited the bulk content of these contracts from the previous union FARSA) is at high risk of being sued by it's constituent member groups who have lawyered up. The Union like the company is completely tied in legal knots and QC's are now involved - this is a case where the company got too clever in 2014 and tore the crew apart and put in place what they thought were smart contracts.

The price they pay now for getting those annual $6m wage savings is the pain now that all suffer with these convoluted and completely contradictory contracts - I have seen them they are utterly open to challenge on so many levels and are in fact the subject of three legal challenges and more to come.

It is not the the company, the union or the staff are necessarily slowing things down it is a function of god awful contracts.

However this week the redundancy calls are being made en masse and the company has acceptable that the inevitable post redundancy legal challenges will roll in.

My disclosure:

I was but am no longer a shareholder in ANZ
I was made redundant by them yesterday.
It's been my beloved career and I mourn it deeply.
Life goes on.

[Snow Leopard]

....I was made redundant by them yesterday....

Sorry to hear that

[Sideshow Bob]

My disclosure:

I was but am no longer a shareholder in ANZ
I was made redundant by them yesterday.
It's been my beloved career and I mourn it deeply.
Life goes on.

Very sorry to hear Chinesekiwi.

Indeed having been in a similar situation, the sun does still comes up - but takes a little time.

Take care, and all the very best.