(Code) Sharing
While a firm believer in the ideals of Open Source software, it is Code Sharing of a different kind that gets my back up. (without reclining)
My absence from this blog owes much to the fact that I am commuting week on-week off between Adelaide and New Zealand. In recent weeks Qantas and Air New Zealand have stirred up a lot of press bemoaning that trans Tasman travel is losing them money. They claim that they are sending the equivalent of 18 empty 737s in both directions each week. Astounding.
Incredible even, since in all my travels I have not chanced upon one flight out of Adelaide, Sydney or Melbourne to or from the land of the long white cloud that wasn't full to bursting. My only explanation is that either they are lying, or they are quite literally sending the empty planes and squashing the rest of us onto the full ones.
Indeed yesterday, in recognition of my frequent flyer loyalty and Qantas' commitment to service, I was stuffed into a middle seat [you know the kind - so narrow if you stand up the seat comes with you and designed for people without arms] for 5 hours distracted only by my Non-Lactose Special Meal featuring cheese, milk, butter cookies and ice cream and seeing of March of the Penguins on an LCD postage stamp for the sixth time.
But I digress.
Qantas and Air New Zealand have reached agreement to Code Share services, meaning they can CUT competition and the number of services they offer. Will this mean bigger planes? No. Still nothing larger than a 737 from Adelaide or Wellington. Will it mean more routes serviced (say Adelaide to anywhere other than Auckland)? No. Will it means more vowels strangled while jumping the ditch? Probably not.
Jist my fufty cints worth.
Scott.
Willungtn.
