Collapse of Ansett Airlines

There is also evidence that the Australian Government is to blame for not grasping the serious problems faced in mid 2001 by Ansett and Air NZ, problems that Prime Minister Howard and his senior ministers certainly knew about (Koutsoukis, 2001b). Throwing the blame towards Air NZ might be a ploy by Howard to deflect public attention from his role in this episode of Ansett? s story. Singapore Airlines, which owns 25% of Air NZ (and thus of Ansett) was willing to invest new capital but the plan was delayed and eventually thwarted by the Australian Prime Minister, despite the fact that a number of his senior ministers advised him to go along with it. (Koustsouskis, 2001) There is little doubt that the delays in reviewing the Singapore Airlines proposal over several months of 2001 allowed time for Ansett? s and Air NZ抯 financial problems to deteriorate beyond the point where at least one of the airlines would fail financially. Thus a reasonable conclusion is those management deficiencies, as well as dithering 2001 by the Howard Government, were the triggers of Ansett? s collapse. (Koustsouskis, 2001)…