The Rise and Spectacular Collapse of Ansett Australia
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- Опубликовано: 5 авг 2022
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Venturing back to the Southern Continent, we take a look at what was once Australia's largest airline, Ansett Australia, a testament to both the incredible ability and steely determination of one man to create one of the largest corporate empires in history, and how through corporate mismanagement and a general worker distrust, such a seemingly indestructible element of the Australian aviation scene could be swept aside.
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References:
- Australian Aviation (and their respective references)
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Even Qantas paid tribute to Ansett by naming one of their A380s ‘Sir Reginald Ansett’.
He’ll be turning in his grave
Tribute or dig!
@@xxxxjet1982xxxx I only flew the A380 once (JFK - CDG) and it was a great ride, but.. If you mean tribute (big flagship aircraft, name it after someone you respect) or.. Boondoggle (compensating), sure. Good question. The A380 did make sense on some routes - Emirates does do well with it, as it suits them to a "tee" - but even our flight from JFK was almost comical. "Captain: We are ready to depart, but.. There are two aircraft blocking our exit." Imagine a V-shaped terminal gate with the A380 at the point and two MUCH smaller aircraft at the ends. (yes, poor design, etc. on JFK's part, but..) Flight departed over an hour late. World was not / is not ready for that kind of aircraft.
If only you were paying attention.
Yow were not - because you were programmed to be a ZOMBIE.
Zombies have eyes but cannot see - Ears and cannot hear.
Your eyes see one thing but your brain sees something different.
When you L00K at something be sure to see exactly what it is you
are L00KING at.
It is QANTAS and not Qantas
ANSETT and not Ansett
Learn that ALL CORPORATE {legal} Names are always in the ALL CAPS
iteration
Occasionally a CORPORATE entity will display a Registered Trademark . . .
But that is NOT a CORPORATE legal Name
ONLY a Living Soul has a Name in Mixed Case letters.
That being a Given Name and a Family Name.
FIRST NAME - LAST NAME - SURNAME are all CORPORATE -
and these are the name of the CORPORATE fiction PERSON -
a Gender-less DEAD entity created in the 15th century for the purpose
of conducting commerce with other such ENTITIES.
CORPORATION - from the {Latin} CORPUS - meaning CORPSE - DEAD -BODY
it is how we derive the term BODY CORPORATE
Had you studied Law and Latin you would have learned these things.
Unfortunately your corrupt education system has deliberately dumbed
you down by manufacturing ignorance - and you FAILED to educate yourself
The obvious is in front of your eyes - but the ZOMBIES cannot see.
So learn to pat attention to detail and remain conscious.
Now explain the meaning of the word Conscious.
My youngest students age 7 knew the answers but you do not yet know.\\Reginald Ansett
Reginald Ansett was the founder ANSETT was the CORPORATE name
CORPORATIONS being DEAD entities have the name like the CORPSES in the cemetery
written in ALL CAPS - go and check for yourself and SEE - Learn from it
I think you mean insult not tribute
For those not in Australia, the FIFO flight market is huge. On a flight map you can often see a train of aircraft going in and out of Perth to mines etc in the Pilbara.
Qantas Maroomba Cobham
Probably 2/3s of the remaining fokkers in the world are here, lovely planes to fly on
Early morning at Perth Airport, you will see tons of mining workers with their gears queueing. And in Australian fashion, the announcement are shouted out "Karratha! Karratha! Karratha boarding now!"
I flew a FIFO route in the early 1990s from Brisbane to Moomba 2x per week in a PA31 Chieftain. Great bit of outback flying while it lasted. The miners were 'colourful' let's say :)
@@poorpatrician9488 flew on one up to Broome in Jan - lovely aircraft very roomy for such a small jet.
This is a better Ansett history video than most Aussie-made ones
Except for the annoying and unnecessary constant mispronunciations.
@@benjarongprojects
Oh dear.. has Nurse Ratched forgotten your meds again?
Good old Ansett. Their 767's built as 3 person cockpits with a flight engineer position to keep the unions happy. Even though Boeing designed the aircraft as a 2 crew cockpit.
Efficiency at its greatest.
No different than Qantas employing rude dragons well beyond their use by date as cabin crew. Bitter people who resented actually serving passengers.
Same goes with the Qantas 747-400. Union’s wanted a third seat for a flight engineer, even though it had a full glass cockpit. I guess the unions wanted to make sure there was someone to break up the awkward silences when the Captain & first officer ran out of conversation during the flight...
@60s Man 60s Guitars yeah, exactly! aviation safety is built on redundancy measures, dont think it should be any different wrt humans
@Schooey I think the comfortable ones were in First and / or Business classes.
I remember the strike, and Rob Hawke saying pilots were nothing more than bus drivers (which was strange for him, what with his Union background?). Then, I was living in Brisbane, and my flatmate was singing in a barbershop competition in Melbourne (yeah, yeah, I know, but I'm a supportive friend!), and we flew down for the weekend. Ansett went broke while we were there, and I ended up having to take the train back to Brisbane, which took 3 days...
Watching Ansett go down under the pressure of clearly incompetent management with little or no aviation experience, was like watching a slow motion train wreck.
The last flight of Ansett was one of the first times an airline's final flight was recorded from the ATC comms
yay. As an Aussie I love seeing content like this.
Not a lot of content out there about our history.
I remember being in Australia on my way home to the US when Ansett collapsed. I had always flown Qantas from the US but SYD was a mad house with lots of angry Ansett passengers
Air New Zealand had gotten a lot of blame for the collapse, but much of it was instead on the aging wide body fleet (especially its old 767-200 fleet) and how the News Corporation ran the airline. It would take years to dispose of the mainline fleet.
@@AEMoreira81 and not the spare parts that ANZ amazingly air lifted out of the country strip mining it.
@@AEMoreira81 you mean the aircraft that Singapore Airlines were going to help replace if they had a none-controlling share of Ansett, rather than ANZ taking 100% ownership leaving them with no cash to replace any aircraft?
Always flew Ansett. Gutted when they collapsed. Very friendly people & good service. Felt like a family. Aways avoided Qantas. Refused to fly them (and when I had to was a hot mess every time). Horrid backward airline then; more so now.
Couldn't agree more
The government should've never sold them off. The service has been shit, and getting shittier ever since
The Qantas customer service on a plane is shocking. I’ve flown virgin a lot recently and they are winning the game with customer service. The only reason Qantas is better is you get newer planes more often than not whereas virgin often gives you old planes. If virgin gave food out again like Qantas they would have me on my knees .
My CEO took a decision to shift our corporate travel from Ansett to Qantarse and I militated. Kept flying Ansett despite a Qantas corporate execs wining & dining me to convince to change (I kept my teams all on Ansett for a few years) until I moved o/seas.
That was really good! I remember flying Ansett Australia as a kid back in the mid to late 1990's, but good to see that Virgin Blue (now Virgin Australia) pretty much saved Ansett's workforce after they went bust
We always flew Ansett as our Grandmother was a personal friend of Reg Ansett.
We called him Uncle Reg.
That's brilliant.
Ansett holds a special place in my heart as it was my first time on an aeroplane on one of their 767-200s on the Sydney to Melbourne route, Thanks for covering their story which is often overlooked outside of australia.
A good summary, apart from the mispronunciations of "Ables" and "Bolty" (to use the correct pronunciations), and the absence of any comment about the 1989 pilots' strike. All these years later, Ansett is still my favourite Australian airline - I was present at Perth Airport to watch the very last Ansett take-off.
Not to mention the pronunciation of "Nunawading"
It wasn't a strike - they resigned en-masse. It was tragic.
I too noticed the mispronunciations
Yes, totally agree mispronunciations and the reference to Spring 2001 when it was actually autumn. I appreciate the video. However for someone who appears to be so meticulous, you should really pay attention to details outside your own culture/country.
New Zealand names were butchered too: Selwyn Cushing and Jim McRae.
I spent fifteen years of my business life hopping on Ansett all over Australia, excellent service , Golden Wing lounge , good aircraft, I still miss them.
Yes absolutely. I was in the travel business in the 70's and would always fly and book Ansett for my clients .It was a fabulous airline and totally in my opinion left TAA for dead in every way
@@alanrix5344 A small thing that always sticks in my mind regarding in flight service. Qantas was coffee or tea, hold your cup up and F A poured from one of two jugs in her hands, Ansett was Coffee Sir, extending a small tray which F A took your cup over the aisle to fill then handing it back . Little things count, sadly after their demise it had to be Qantas.
We probably crossed paths and sat in the same lounges enjoying a few on Uncle Reg!
@@hishers251 Very likely, I can say I have spent time in every Golden Wing Lounge in Australia and New Zealand. My favourite had to be Perth on the red eye to Sydney, after a shower and drink and snack lie on one of the couches in the dimmed area and sleep until boarding.
There's no end to my enjoyment when you post a new airplane related video. Thanks for the late night entertainment, and bang up job as usual.
Rory makes the Best independent aviation docs on youtube. Just wish he would participate with us in comments.
@@BobbyGeneric145 you are aware that would take forever to reply to every comment
6:00 The late Olivia Newton-John early in her career in Australia.
And the number of people who were livid at losing all of their Ansett status and frequent flyer points when the airline went under.
Ansett had a TV ad campaign to try and save the airline and used the Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush duet "Don't give up" as its theme.
Never liked Ansett, the sketchy service on the Sydney - Melbourne route in the '70's & '80's in my experience, and it led to the nickname "Chance It With Ansett", given by a colleague. Always happy to use TAA and then Qantas when it took TAA over.
Loved the FIFO worker in a suit & tie- they usually wore hi-vis work clothes; straight off the 'plane and into the pit! Even us engineers wore hi-vis on the 'plane when visiting a mining operation, especially for a couple of hours.
Incidentally, it's pronounced "Aybells".
Qantas was then and even more now a hot mess. Arrogant lazy airline. From the head down.
Ansett. Imo always had better friendly service. And better product. TAA survived simply because it was government. Not because it was good. Same with Qantas - had to be propped up with the merger.
I am a retired avionics engineer here in Aus ( never worked for either airline but travelled in both many times ) My view has been and always will be the exact opposite. I hated flying with TAA/Qantas domestically. They were shoddy and cramped to a scary degree with terrible customer service.
Qantas international is a different story and they deserve their sterling reputation but their domestic brother has been lunching out on that for a very long time.
"Chance It with Ansett" - I remember my Dad saying that, I thought he came up with it lmao
@@peterd4012 my late Father worked for Ansett in avionics from when they were Butler Airways until he retired at 65 in 1985. He often spoke of Reg Ansett saying he was a great boss and a nice fellow.
Man, I’m so glad that none of my professors I had during my college years talked as fast as you do. I would have only learned half as much while still paying full price for tuition. Listening to you just makes me nervous.
You did it again Rory! LOVE YOUR VOICE! It sounds like those old British Pathe videos!
It wasn't "Helen Clark's personal 727"...it was an RNZAF 727 sent to pick her up in Australia after some irate Aussies blocked the commercial flight she was supposed to be on back to NZ.
Pls do a History on Singapore Airlines !
The mix of public and private is fascinating .
Interesting to see a young Olivia Newton John in the Telly clips.
I used to walk past their headquarters in Melbourne every weekend around the time of their collapse. I remember seeing everything gradually being liquidated until the building was empty.
What an excellent video, it combines a good summary of the airlines history with a very good attempt to untangle the multiple crises that led to it's failure. I recall Ansett was nicknamed Noah's Ark Airways because it had two of every type of aeroplane. There's really just one failing, which is the mispronunciation of a few names; Henry Bolte was prounounced Bolt-ee, Peter Abeles was pronounced Ay-bulls, the suburb of Nunawading is Nun-a-wod-ing, etc. If any video maker wants help with local pronunciation, I'd be happy to help, my histories have won a few awards, so I have a good understanding of 20th century Australia.
Yes, add to that Selwyn Cushing. Should be pronounced Sell-win, not Seal-win.
The NZ PM, who was visiting Melbourne at the time of Ansett’s collapse, was supposed to depart Melbourne via a regular scheduled Air NZ flight. Once ground staff discovered this, they blocked the aircraft at the gate using Ansett ground equipment preventing its departure. Airport staff refused to move the equipment, and a stalemate ensued. Then NZ dispatched a military aircraft to collect the PM and it was refused landing clearance at Melbourne, Essendon and Avalon airports. In the end it landed at the RAAF base in Sale, some three hours (by road) east of Melbourne.
I was in Melbourne for work that week, from Wellington. Not a good time to identify yourself as a Kiwi.
That’s funny
I was working at Gate Gourmet in Adelaide when Ansett went tits up. I had a front row seat across the terminal. I do remember watching it unfold on TV, government was considering scrapping the two airline rule, in order to allow Qantas to take it over. Qantas looked over the books and said ... nah. Ansett was really poorly run. Ansett was our major customer and when they went down Gate Gourmet at the time went down too. It was a free for all in the kitchens when the announcement was made. "take whatever you want" (the food that is). At least I ate well that day!
Gate Gourmet were appalling. According to a transcript on the ABC they left Australia with money owed to their employees. I worked for them in Perth 2014 -2018 and they are a hideous company. They left Perth again during COVID and let’s hope they never come back.
@@paulfromperth5713 I wouldn't be surprised if they high-tailed it out with cash. That sort of thing has been going on for years, and it is the sort of thing that international companies do. British Motor Corporation did exactly the same thing when they shut down Leyland Australia in the mid 70's. Apparently they got away with 40-odd million at the time. I'm just surprised there is no effort on the part of Authorities to look into that sort of thing and seek extradition of executives involved. There would be plenty of other companies that have done this in Australia no doubt. The manager of Gate Gourmet at the time in Adelaide when I was there in 2000-2001, was a guy called Michael Havilland (or DeHavilland - can't remember which). He was a nice enough guy - wine taster, and really knew his stuff in that regard, but was a bit of a lecher, renowned for ogling women at the airport, making inappropriate comments and generally behaving like a womaniser - especially if he had a bit of drink. Was prone to emotional and physical outburst if someone parked in his managerial parking spot. Someone - possibly one of the ground handlers put a luggage trailer there once and he physically violently hauled it out, whilst cursing, so that he could park his car there😀.
@Ian Godfrey, The "Two Airline" rule was scrapped back in the late 80s with deregulation. Hence the short lived Compass Airlines in the 90s.
@@RTransportGuy Sorry about that - my bad. I do remember something at the time about government approval required for Qantas to take over Ansett - it was on TV. Might have been to do with the ACCC instead. In the end, Qantas said no anyway...
Ansett had shops leased out in many Ansett terminals in Australia..ALL the businesses were forced to close ..they couldn't even get in and access their stock in the first few months of the collapse. ...a shitstorm.
There was a local saying about Ansett, "chance it with Ansett", pretty much sums it up.
Excellent video, I flew 737’s for Ansett from 1980 to the pilots dispute in 89. Moved to Qantas and flew for them for 25 years. Ansett was a far superior airline to Qantas and was indeed the best years of my aviation career.
I worked in the aviation & tourism industry during the 80s & 90s, therefore well aware of the political and corporate issues that transpired to collapse AN. That aside, it is very difficult to argue the fact that (for passengers), Ansett was by far the best domestic carrier in the world. I flew with AN by choice (in all three classes F/J/Y) hundreds of times for leisure and corporate purposes from the 1970s right to the very end. Ansett's crisp, enthusiastic and highly professional customer operations, coupled with the most comfortable aircraft seating & cabin configuration, along with world-class in-flight service was nautical miles ahead of any other carrier. To this day, I still compare the countless quality flights I experienced with AN against what is offered to the flying public today. Chalk and cheese. Will love you always Ansett, plus each and every one of your wonderful devoted team members, both on the ground and in the air. I know you all devoted your lives to what was, and will always be, the BEST airline ever to fly!
Kudos in untangling the complexities of all the corporate shenanigans that went on back in the day that led to Ansett’s ultimate demise. It was well recorded back in day and with quality journalism it was riveting stuff.
Also at 7:41 maybe prescience or coincidence weaving in the early footage of the late Olivia Newton - John just before she passed away. Incredibly sad God has taken back two of Australia’s angels with Olivia and Judith Durhum so recently together
Wow Rory that was your best Motion History clip yet and while i did read about Ansett's collapse i didn't think at the time about what led up to it's demise 20 years back until tonight. Thank you Rory.
Your work is at a very high level. In-depth research, excellent narration, superb video editing (and sourcing) and all in all, a creator I believe will blow up soon!!
Yeah except he pronounces Sir Peter Abeles as Ab-bell-les it's pronounced A-bells.
@@clinteastwood8485 No one gives a shit
I'm sorry that I couldn't fully watch this, as I have a lots of fond memories of Ansett, and the staff at the maintenance base at Tullamarine. It was sad when it went bust in 2001. Very sad.
Ahh, Nunawading and Channel 10. Good old Wentworth Detention Centre!
Very interesting, I was friends with an ex RAAF pilot who flew C130's and ended up piloting 747's for Ansett. We hit it off when I explained that I had worked as an expediter for the manufacture of the Kruger flap brackets on the 747 (mid 1980's) and also had looked after the 757 shear tie webs and side of body webs plus the F chords and stiffeners. I had also worked with the Airbus A300, A310 and A320 with the manufacture of some of the ribs for these aircraft. Sadly Brian passed away a long time ago now but he is remembered well. My first and only commercial flights were on an Ansett Fokker Friendship.
First flight when I was 11 years old was with Ansett (Melbourne to Coolangatta) for World Expo 1988. Mum worked for Bob Ansett in the 1980's until early 1990's and our neighbour was an Ansett pilot. I knew people later in life who had worked for Ansett and spoke about the company and friendships they made highly. Thank you for making this short movie. It's a good example of what happens when you combine inexperience with government intervention.
Excellent video. You did an incredible amount of research. Very impressive. As to the airline: what a mess! So many stupid mistakes.
At 7:41 that is Olivia Newton-John who passed away just 2 days after this video was released.
Thank you for a wonderful account of Ansett.
The corporate structure and ownership is confusing, even for me as a corporate executive!
I personally loved Ansett as a carrier, for many years I travelled over 2 million kms with them, their service and customer care was second to none.
Good memories.
First time I flew was on an ansett flight to cairns, the little kids packs and an actual visit to the cockpit was unreal for a little kid
Had the honor of knowing and associating with a number of Ansett employees, they were a bunch of highly motivated professionals👍👌🙂
This has to be some of your best work! Well done. Such a tragedy of a great airline for the customer.
In the mid 70s I lived in a 1949 Ansett/Ansair built Roadcruiser bus in the hills around the Australian hippie town of Nimbin. Fond memories indeed....
Nice work by the way.
Flew Anssett few times in 2000. I remember all their Stewardess were gorgeous supermodels.
1:07 That’s so crazy that the Australian government passed laws aiming to put the bus services out of business because it was threatening their rail industry.
It was the Victorian Railways owned by? - You guessed it the Victorian Government trying to maintain a monopoly - sound familiar?
To prove a point about how large Australia is in terms of distance from the east coast to the west coast it spans 2500 miles from south to north 2000 miles. It's geographical area is roughly equal to the whole of Continental Europe excluding Russia.
We metricated in 1971. Anyone born after that date ... doesn't know a mile from a furlong.
Is that almost a word for word quote from the 1962 film: All Manner of Trains?
@@railtrolley I have no idea, never seen it. In fact after I wrote that I had to look up furlong to find out exactly what it was - apparently an 8th of a mile. One of the many absurd imperial measurements, along with feet, yards, rods and chains. Who the hell measures in an 8th of a mile anyway? Not only that, but there's innumerable definitions of mile apart from the statute and nautical versions.
@@railtrolley it is
@@DKS225 That I can remember that line. I need to get out more!
I can’t believe the Amazing research you put into your videos… thanks so much!
My husband was laying carpet for Lady Ansett, and she was a real lovely down to earth, person. She bought down a silver service, for my hubby and his mate, for lunch ❤She said, " Just ask me if you need anything". He was laying the carpet in the Gazebo🎉
Interesting that there was no mention of Ansett Freight Express or of Ansett coach lines. They always advertised with their coach lines that if a bus was to break down, they could whistle up a plane and get people to their destination.
My grandmother always said “chance it with Ansett.” I guess this is why.
This is exceptionally well research and well worth the watch. hanks for your efforts.
Only issue (in an otherwise brilliant film) is you missed Ansetts expansion into NZ when the Lange govt deregulated the airline industry among other industries.
.......THERE ALWAYS HAS TO BE A BLOODY WHINGER,,,,,,,,,,,
@@creativebubble.7836 where was my whinging? stop being so sensitive and getting offended at someones opinions. Are you going to get annoyed at someone who corrects you over the mispronunciation of "Nunawading" or butchering Selwyn Cushings name?
@@creativebubble.7836 capitals stuck or the medication wear off?
Yes I was wondering when someone was going to cover this beloved airline thank you!!
Thank you for a great upload, I appreciate your work,I would luv if you made an upload about "Wardair" back in 79 as a youngster I flew with them from Heathrow to Alberta Canada on a 747,back then there was no internet/email and so many years later I researched Wardair and found it most interesting,as a youngster we were allowed to enter the cockpit and I had my first ever steak on that flight,it was a dream holiday I will always cherish,the only thing I have of that holiday is a pin badge from the Calgary tower and some pictures but the memories are numerous.
Thank you for a great upload,wishing yourself,family,friends and fellow viewers health and happiness.
Bar that, I love your videos, very thorough research and a wide range of topics, well done
Thank you for this history of the airline. I was in my first year of university when Ansett wound up. All k remember about the situation was the massive redundancies and being in Melbourne, the huge outcry around the corporate office in the city centre.
I never flew the airline, but I do have friends who have some Ansett souvenirs (especially the trollers).
Excellent and very informative video. A catalogue of mistakes in the latter years but it really started to go wrong when Sir Peter Abeles who was the real villain of the piece got involved as Rupert Murdoch clearly realised and was smart enough to get out.
In the good old days before LCC, a trip from Canberra to Brisbane on their BAE146 aeroliner in Economy cost $560 dollars.
The algorithm brought me to your channel. This episode was enough to earn a subscription, a like and a comment. Well done Sir.
I look forward to viewing other episodes you've done.
Major sticking point for the final buyout was that Ansett had an incredibly frequent flyer program which was almost impossible for customers to redeem. That caused a quarter billion dollar liability on the balance sheet that new owners would be forced to carry..
Thanks for a remarkable national story viewed from Canada. Keeping track was interesting and I'm pretty sure I passed myself in the hall twicd.
Another excellent video!
IMO the way Howard and his transport minister pressured the New Zealand government not to allow Singapore Airlines to buy/bail out Air New Zealand (and by extention Ansett) was a disgusting move. If Singapore Airlines had been allowed to do what it wanted, maybe we would have had decent competition ensuring Qantas kept up their domestic service levels (or risk loosing market share to Ansett/Singapore) instead of what Qantas has become in 2022.
There will never be another Australian domestic carrier that's as good as Ansett was IMO (and I say this as someone who flew Ansett back in the day and even got a guest invite into an Ansett Golden Wing Lounge at one point)
Ansett's problems go all the way back before the NZ got involved, courtesy of Peter Abeles at TNT buying every plane he liked, which whilst good for AvGeeks, it wasn't good for efficiency and increased operating and maintenace costs.
NZ had their own ego problems during their time as a shareholder of Ansett by utilising their veto rights to block Singapore Airlines from buying the News Corp stake in AN in the first place, largely attributed to Selwyn Cushing as the then-NZ chairman (NZ's version of Virgin Australia's John Borghetti).
Singapore Airlines does offer competition to Qantas at least internationally in 2 ways - Singapore Airlines as the premium option & Scoot as the budget. Both are better than Qantas. The whole 2 airline policy is a farce to allow Qantas to stay operational, depsite quotes at the beginning of this video about government policies stopping any monopoly.
Shockingly it was Keating that started it.
So much for closer Asian tied
AirNZ was completely rooted by Brieleys and Cushing. Didn't help that the aussies reneged on many deals which cost lots of money as well (and covered in the video). At least in the end the Australians found a good reason to put the thieving b'stard Brierley in the slammer
Victoria State Gov: nooo you can’t put the railways out of business! We must prevent you from doing this!
Ansett: haha airline go brrrr
The rise & fall of Ansett in the past deeply reminded me of the rise & fall of Virgin AU in recent yrs.....so many similarities.
I still remember my last flight with Ansett on a 747-300(leased from SQ) in summer 1998 SYD-HKG as I was invited into the cockit for the landing at the then brand new HKG.
Wow, an exceptionally intricate and informative story of corporate complexities in the Australian airline industries.
That was quite interesting. I only really knew about the Ansett saga via news outlets, mainly News Ltd services. It was a shame to see Ansett collapse. I'd like to see you cover the rise of Rex, from a regional only airline, to one, in the aftermath of Virgin Australia's downsizing, that's now using ex Virgin 737-800s to compete on the main east coast routes, especially the busy and highly competitive Sydney - Melbourne corridor.
One detail not mentioned in the otherwise excellent video was that Ansett operated domestic services in New Zealand between 1987 and 2000 in competition with Air New Zealand following deregulation of the NZ domestic air market by the Lange Labour government.
Those greedy Aussies.
And boy did they shake up Air NZ when they first arrived. Meals and alcohol on domestic flights, lounges, a series of very clever TV ads and the quickest baggage service from plane to carousel you can imagine - still don't know to this day how they managed to have your bag there by the time you walked from plane to terminal.
@@allanmarsh1 not using air new zealand ground crew
@@allanmarsh1 ...very clever TV ads.... "i gave it to the pilot and he threw it out the window!"
@@allanmarsh1 Wasn't Ansett responsible for getting airbridges into New Zealand? Until then, it was a walk in whatever weather out to the plane.
Informative video, thanks for sharing.
Very informative, thank you!
Absolutely interesting, thank you
ah, ansett airlines. pretty sure I have a few old relics various family members kept from them, as well as taa and the ana. speaking of, I'd love to see a video on the ana, especially since its direct precursor that it was reorganised from is the airline which operated the miss hobart, whose loss was the reason that the black box recording unit was invented
Wasn't expecting my hometown of Ballarat to get a mention within the first minute of an RM video, love it..
Really good, though I was really 'perplexed' by the suburb of Melbourne you mentioned ~7:47 and had to listen many times before I finally realized you meant my local suburb where I go to the hardware, get bird food etc... (and my mental attempt to list where Channel 10 offices/studios etc are wasn't of any help, as how I say/hear that suburb named differs so much I didn't see the connection)
I used to fly out of Essendon Airport before Tullamarine Airport opened back in the 1960’s as a young teenager and we mostly used Ansett-ANA with their then new Boeing 727 “ Fanjet” but sometimes on TAA’s new “T-Jet” on our travels to Perth, WA, but these were not direct flights as Essendons runways were too short for direct flights with a full load and fuel and back then we had to swap over at Adelaide on another 727 or DC-9 to continue to Perth but I also remember the DC-3’s, DC-6’s, Convairs, Viscounts, Electras of both Ansett-ANA and TAA as really there was F/A difference between them as they used to take off and land within minutes of each other thanks to the Two Airline Policy! The only difference was one was privately owned and the other was Government owned! It was great to grow up during the then New Jet Age the likes we will never experience again!
Always remembered this airline because of its livery, the 80s one with the stars - 13:14. One of the most unique plane liveries I can think of.
Hey Rory. You should have a chat with Chris Harman. His father was the Chief Engineer for Ansett Australia, and Chris is a passionate aviation history buff. Before that, Chris's grandfather was a ground mechanic for Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, but he did much more. Chris has about 300 original box brownie aviation photos his grandfather took spanning his military and civil aviation career. Some historical WW1 photos include shot-down German fighter planes. The man had a remarkable career and did some amazing stuff. Chris's grandfather cunningly joined the Australian Light Horse at 14 years of age before getting busted by his uncle in Cairo sooner after. He then transferred to the Australian Flying Corps, where he did some crazy engineering like removing an engine from a German fighter, rebuilding it and fitting it to an AFC plane. I am happy to facilitate an introduction if you are interested. Cheers.
Well put together piece mate.There was certainly plenty of complication and wrangling!
Genuinely well done 👍
Ansett share a similar story with Brazil's VARIG which went from a big rise to colapse.
Great video. Love it.
Good work on this
Great video!
Very interesting thank you
Do you have any idea when Ansett changed the liveries? That Australian flag livery was the most nostalgic thing ever! I guess the Southern Cross livery was the 70s/80s, the flag livery was from around 1989 to 1994, and then from 1994 through to 2001 when the airline imploded, they used the starmark livery. I remember the first time I went to an airport was to Melbourne in about 1995 or 96 when I was only a small child, I didn't get on a plane but I do remember seeing the old Ansett jets with the Australian flag on the tail (around that time they were being phased out in favour of the starmark)
Ansett literally was that cookie that gets endlessly regifted
A great video, very insightful. I had a friend working at Ansett who said that management was the issue, too many aircraft types which you touched on, Boeing and Airbus. I think an all Airbus fleet makes good sense due to the ease of certification between the various models.
One thing, your pronunciation of names, "Nunawading" in Melbourne isn't "Nunawayding". Sir Peter Ables isn't Abl-less, although "useless" might be a better pronunciation!!
Back in the day, I used to think that Ansett was the better airline, TAA was a bit tatty and the service wasn't as good although it was rumoured to have been better run than Qantas at the time. A great video.
Flew it once from Brisbane to Sydney in '86, first Airbus I flew on.
I remember when I was younger my grandmother used to work for them she brought a heap of used cutlery over when the upgraded
So sad that so much is wasted in these pointless corporate struggles instead of collaborating to make decent and ethical infrastructure 😔
Australia is large. Once flew Melbourne-Perth 4 hours. Had a 2 hour meeting. Flew back 4 hours. Same day. Was in air more than ground. Long day. Up at 4am for 7am flight. Home at midnight.
Should of stayed the night in Perth. Why would you do it like that?
@@psychedelicprawncrumpets9479
Because my company was a Group of tight a****. That’s why.
I did say after that if you wanted me to do that again I won’t unless you do put me up.
Couldn't you have used video link?
Great vlog as always! I miss some diagrams here. Who owns what and how much. This reminds me of the Norwegian, and also the Scandinavian aviation politics until deregulation in the late 80s. The same thing happend here with airlines like SAS, Braathens and Linjeflyg. Drama, drama, drama. As a parallell story. What happend to South African? The pride of Africa, now I think they only have 7 aircraft left. Make a vlog about that? Keep up the good work!
I somehow didn't realise that the original Ansett Motors that at that time both my dad's & mum's sides of the family would have been living in at the time. It is also amazing that almost none of the mentioned airlines in this video as the top airlines even still exist other than Qantas. the Australian domestic market has really changed since then
I thought our airlines had troubles in the US. You guys take the gold!
Including the merger mess
Quick suggestion for a future Motion History episode - the British Rail PEP prototypes and the subsequent production units (313 to 315, and 507 & 508), the last of which are likely to be gone in a few months.
Nunawading studios in Melbourne is where Prisoner Cell Block H was filmed, the building serving as the exterior of the 'prison'. The interior scenes for Neighbours were also filmed there for many years.
A trivia here: when Ansett started flying into Hong Kong, they needed a Chinese name and it was 安適，pronounce as An-Shi。It was a great name from the Mandarin perspective, as the two characters sounds like Ansett and means “safe” and “comfortable” respectively.
But the thing is in Hong Kong we don’t speak Mandarin~ 😅
In Cantonese it’s pronounced as Ngon-Sik, which is exactly the same as 安息 “rest in peace”😂
Would you fly Rest-in-Peace Airline🤣
Wow what a debacle!!!
Echoing the sentiment of others, a great job in the making of this video. One must, however be an attentive listener....Ruairidh's scripts are "all meat". Great job.... honest.
Reg was tough, really tough, on his son Bob. Was it because Bob merely opened up a franchise (Budget) here in Australia whereas Reg had started his business from scratch? Forty years on, I am still to know.