Sydney, 14.09.01

Ansett Australia - The Story Is Over

For 70 years, Ansett Australia was serving its customers in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. The airline was founded by Reginald Ansett as an air-taxi company. In 1936, they were flying the first scheduled passengers from Hamilton to Essendon on a Fokker Universal. The first crisis came in 1939 when a hangar with four aircraft burned down. But thanks to government's financial support, the airline could survive. In 1942, Ansett stopped all scheduled service expect of one single route and mainly transported US soldiers on their way to the war. After the Second World War, Ansett named itself Ansett Transport Industries (ATI) and bought three DC-3 aircraft from the US Army. Since then, Ansett did continually expanded its domestic route network. In 1964, the Boeing 727 arrived and Ansett got its first jetliner. Reginald Ansett died in 1991 and in the same year, Ansett planed a "large" order for new aircraft, including five Boeing 767-200, twelve Boeing 737-200 and four Boeing 727-200.

A very big milestone came in 1992. That year, the Australian government decided to change its aviation politics. Until then, only one airline (Qantas) was allowed to fly to foreign countries, but couldn't fly domestic routes. From now on, Qantas could also start flights between Australian cities - and Ansett could go international. They started service to numerous destinations in Asia and expanded again with the arrival of two leased Boeing 747-300, which arrived in their fleet in 1995. This Jumbos were used on the routes to Hongkong and Osaka (Japan).

In 1997, Rod Eddington came to bring Ansett Australia back to success. After he got a frist overview about the company, he told the media: "Ansett is a great airline - but a weak company". He started a large programme to keep the airline alive. Ansett started to use smaller aircraft and stopped the service of several unprofitable routes. Furthermore, a lot of non-aviation subsidiaries were sold that time, for example hotels or the Diners credit-card licence.

But there were quite a lot of things wrong with this airline - since many years. Rod wasn't successful at all. The problems were too big for him and Air New Zealand, which bought 50% of the stakes to gain more access to the Australian market.

An interesting detail is, that Ansett never had accidents, there was only one incident when a Boeing 747-300 landed in Sydney with no front gear [see picture]. But earlier this year, the Australian government grounded several aircraft (mainly Boeing 767), because the maintenance was not done properly. This scandal surely was not good for Ansett's reputation.

What Ansett finally brought down, were the huge owes of more that US$ 2 billions. Air New Zealand, which now holds all of Ansett's shares went closely to bankruptcy, and can only survive with the helping money of the New Zealand government and the main stakeholders.

Qantas got the offer to take over the airline for the symbolic amount of just one dollar, but with all the owes in the parcel. No wonder that Qantas didn't took it. Anyway, Qantas will take a piece of Ansett's market, while Branson's Virgin Blue also will try to grow now. There are rumours that Virgin Blue may take over a part of Ansett's grounded fleet. But much more improtant that the planes are people. 16'000 of them are loosing their jobs. And that's really the most bad part of the wohle story.

It's always sad, when an airline goes for good. And especially when it is such a great airline as Ansett Australia. I'm sure you all will miss the A-birds at the airports.

more...

• Browse through the milestones in Ansett's history
  
• Read the official press release about the suspension of Ansett's services.
• See more Ansett pictures from airliners.net

Recomended Links:

>> http://www.ansett.com
>> http://www.qantas.com
>> http://www.virginblue.com