Airlines

Grounded Tiger Airways is not enough reason to rule out job cuts, according to Qantas (ASX:QAN). Chief executive Alan Joyce said in a TV interview that decisions on possible redundancies will be announced on August 24.

A structural shake-up is in the works for Qantas (ASX:QAN), and chief executive Alan Joyce is expected to speak about it in Canberra today. On the agenda are union issues and changes to overseas routes with hopes to reverse the losses on the airline's international flights.

Flight routes will be shared between Virgin Australia (ASX:VBA) and Singapore Airlines, Virgin announced yesterday in a trump move against Qantas. Virgin and SIA signed an agreement that would join Virgin's routes with Singapore Airline's network.

The Qantas (ASX:QAN) cabin crew is getting an offer of voluntary redundancies due to natural disasters and high jet fuel and oil prices. The airline has offered the redundancies in a deal to 7,000 staff on Thursday, the same day it reported a rise in number of passengers for its international unit.

While Qantas has assured its crew that forced redundancies will not occur, it hopes that 5 percent of its cabin crew will accept the offer.

Air New Zealand (ASX:AIZ) solidifies its trans-Tasman partnership with Virgin Blue airlines with a push to sell the trans-Tasman product starting July 1, said Air NZ general manager Cam Wallace.

John Borghetti, the newly appointed chief executive of Virgin Blue (VBA) has hinted in his inaugural public address that he is planning to establish joint ventures with the international airlines by following the same format that his company is planning to follow for Delta Air Lines and Air New Zealand. In his statement, Mr.

Ausenco (AAX), a renowned company that operates in the engineering and project management facilities at a global; scale to the minerals processing and mining industries was the worst performing company in the ASX200 list for the week. The company had a market capitalisation of $286.3 million and lost 30.4 percent to its stock price and was closed for the week at $2.34. Its stocks were traded at $3.36 during the last week.

Air New Zealand (AIZ) and Virgin Blue (VBA) are in talks over a possible Trans-Tasman alliance. The potential cooperative alliance will help reduce costs for both airline carriers for a route which has been marginal or loss making.

Today is OzJet's first day of commercial flights and as of 24 hours ago the fledging carrier had sold some seats for its peak morning and evening flights.

But next week it doesn't have a single booking for flights in the middle of the day.

There are more cabin staff than customers, in fact.

"I'm not stupid - if it's not being supported we'd take a view after six months," is all Mr Stoddart would say on how long he would cover the airline if bookings did not pick up.