Forum Archive Index - October 2001

["DR" <kat47@bigfoot.com>]

Another angle on $885m is that if they spend it on AirNZ they haven't got it to waste either. They have it tied up for a while.

Up in Auckland, Manukau City to be precise there has been a debate going on (mainly at Councillor level) over the merits or otherwise of divesting its 9.8% of Airport shares. The best argument that I have seen is that by keeping them they cannot spend the cash resulting from the sale. So the story goes, if they did sell, it would go to reducing borrowings and hence the rates but only until they had found some utterly useless way of spending the money. Then they would raise more borrowings to get the total up to their limit again.

 

Lets use the new taxpayer support to engender a campaign to fly AirNZ and get as nasty as we can over Qantas who have tried and apparently succeeded in screwing us several times. Firstly by buying into AirNZ and selling out for a quick profit (1989?) then lobbying the Oz gummint to stop the "open skies" (1994) and then trying to screw up any possible deal (2001)

I personally will NEVER fly Qantas again or their associated group if possible.

 

D.