Some common sense and facts needed on Skytrans closure: It is very sad to see such a great local company cease trading and my thoughts are with the Wild family, staff and suppliers. I have known Simon and his family for a number of years and they have always been among the most outstanding corporate citizens I have ever come across. We worked with Skytrans in recent months to find a viable path forward but the harsh reality of the aviation industry was too much to overcome. The aviation industry has been through some of the toughest years in its history, as witnessed from the financial struggles of the biggest airlines such as Qantas through to the collapse of regional operators like MacAir. This article in todays The Australian paints a picture of just how tough it has been Skytrans over the past couple of years: bit.ly/1F7ejdg For Labor to turn this difficult time into a populist political football is a disgrace. Labor’s Bill Byrne, who issued a bizarre media release capitalising on the closure, wouldn’t know a Skytrans plane if it landed in his front yard. He has no clue or working knowledge about the machinations of the airline, or what’s happened behind the scenes over recent years. As the article in todays The Australian shows, it has been tough going for Skytrans for some time. The airline made a series of business decisions in recent years in a bid to make it through an incredibly tough period in the aviation industry. Withdrawing naming rights sponsorship of the Cairns Taipans in early 2014 was one such decision. The loss of one government contract in a competitive, independent process was not responsible for the airline’s closure. This is a reality faced by most in the private sector, a reality the Labor Party struggles to comprehend. With so many of its MPs and candidates having never worked in the private sector, it is little wonder they don’t get the reality of doing business. Indeed, for Labor to suggest that Skytrans would have survived if only they had been awarded this single government contract is at best completely naïve and at worst deliberately misleading. The future sustainability of any business is taken into account on any government tender, including the recent tender involving Skytrans and Rex. No government, or rather, no competent government, would hand over millions of dollars in taxpayer’s money to a company that was in danger of imminent collapse. Labor should get itself educated on private sector economics and independent tender processes, rather than the taxpayer funded magic pudding and patronising parochialism they feed off these days. In his media release, Labors Byrne also talked about the Cairns jobs market and “growing regional economies”. If he had bothered to take a breath and do a modicum of research he would know the Cairns unemployment rate has fallen since we were elected. Indeed, the latest Cairns Watch report states “Cairns is ending 2014 in a stronger economic position than it was at the end of 2013.”
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 02:23:25 +0000
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