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Protectionism starting to emerge

Peter Gardiner says: The only problem with open skies is that it is very difficult for our national airlines to compete against the lower cost base, lower tax regime of the predominantly government-owned, foreign airlines operating into Australia.

In any other industry it would be called capacity dumping!!

Remembering Mac Job

Blind Monkey says: I flew with the Victorian Scout Air Activity Centre for many years.

The first time I exercised the privileges of my then fresh CPL was with Mac as the pilot of the other duty aircraft on the day.

Mac and I flew together regularly and remained in touch for many years after both of us ceased flying with SAAC.

He was a fountain of knowledge, a great practical pilot, with experiences to fill a ‘Boys Own Annual’, a very difficult to replace aviation writer, but most of all a true gentleman.

Vale GM (Mac) Job F-35 rollout highlight’s RAAF’s “greatest opportunity for evolutionary change”

Fifty M says: As a Canberra-based bureaucrat [with some degree of knowledge on the subject matter] I am astounded at the ill-informed and unintelligent babble some readers of this fine aviation magazine are prepared to serve up in a public forum behind a shroud

Use it to inform your views in the first instance.

of anonymity.

A piece of advice – suggest you might please restrict comments on matters of national security to matters of fact which we could all benefit from.

To do otherwise simply devalues the nature of this public forum.

The rationale for purchase of the F-35, its developmental phase, cost and introduction to service are well documented in the public media including feature articles published in this very magazine over many years.

Use it to inform your views in the first instance.

Qantas changes tack on Iraqi airspace

Mike Borgelt says: “Particularly at the altitudes we fly”.

Does anyone think about what happens in a depressurisation incident? Or an engine shut down or failure? I guess airlines cart around the passenger oxygen and its maintenance requirements just for fun?

Jetstar 787 debuts on Gold Coast-Tokyo

Adam says: I think the Jetstar getting 787 idea is due to the fact that our competitors in this part of the region have significant wage benefits over Australian wages…if Jetstar was to go up against say AirAsia X who fly the A330’s also, inevitably the AirAsia operation would be more efficient due to those cheaper Asian wages.

And so I believe that Jetstar with the 20 per cent fuel cost-saving 787s bring that bargaining power back to within a fighting chance…of course, with the A330neo and Scoot getting 787s as well…it’s going to hot things up even more within the LCC fight within Asia, but hopefully with the market as big as it is and Jetstar’s pan-Asian strategy in full swing – a lot stronger than a lot of the others – the fight will be well worth fighting!