I flew for Ansett for 10 years prior to the pilots dispute in 89. Went on to fly for Qantas but my time at Ansett was without doubt my best years in aviation. It was a great airline pre dispute from a pilots perspective.
My last day working with Ansett in Brisbane was Sept 11, 2001. I finished at 2100, got home at 2145 and was watching the late night news of the World Trade Centre. Was off Wed/Thur back day shift Friday. My dad started with Ansett in 1970 and I started 6 months before the pilots dispute in 89. Very sad event for all the workers.
I just recently found this link on You Tube and am broken hearted. I worked for Ansett International Airfreight for two years in the United States and it was by far the best job I have ever had. After handling the preparation for the SYD 2000 games and all the work behind it I was devastated that the airline was going under and that operations were ceased in 2001. The collapse of the airline was a blow to the world and a loss for everyone. There is not one airline that exists today that can match the service and the loyalty that Ansett staff put in to make the airline that absolute best. I miss everything about it and can only hope that someday an airline will evolve that will match that of the great Ansett Australia.
It wasn’t abandoned, my parents worked there, one as a pilot and one as a front desk, New Zealand actually bought Ansett and stole lots of it’s electronics making it die, after it died in 2001 it came back in 2002 using the last money they have by selling lots of planes leaving only 4 operating Ansett planes, after they tried to revive Ansett, it failed and never came back.
First time i went on a plane on my own was with Ansett. I was a minor (14 years old) and the staff did everything they could to make sure i was comfortable and kept me informed of what was going on. Melbourne to Brisbane, 2 and a bit hours, and they checked up on me about 5 times in that short flight. Best flight experience I've ever had. Even my parents felt comfortable leaving me to fly alone after the airline called to see if i had any specific needs. When i got to Brisbane, Ansett staff escorted me to the gate for my connecting flight to central Queensland and made sure to show me where the food, toilets and entertainment were so i wouldn't walk around lost. Brilliant staff and services that you don't get these days. Sadly missed
I miss Ansett. I use to love mystery flights. Turn up early at the airport, pay for a return flight to somewhere, and be home again that night. They also had standby tickets available, which were cheap just to fill in empty seats.
You left out the Pilot's dispute of 89' that too had an effect on the Airlines. Singapore Airlines wanted to buy the other share of Ansett but was blocked by the Australian government. The government as well as Qantas and New Zealand didn't want Ansett returning to the skies the game was rigged.
No -- Ansett was financially overstretched. At the time I worked for another transport company that refused to yield to workers requests for a very reasonable wage. It too is 'no longer with us'.
@slimchancetoo Ansett was being asset stripped since the early eighty's to pay for it's increasing debts due to gross mismanagement from Peter Abeles and Rupert Murdoch. They really didn't care for Ansett they were in it for the buck, it played out very similar as portrayed by Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street. Don't forget the number of small businesses in the tourist industry that went broke during dispute. It virtually destroyed the tourist industry in Cairns.
@sunsetlights 100 Rupert Murdoch along with TNT's Peter Abeles did an aggressive successful takeover bid for Ansett in 1980. That was beginning of the end for Ansett as a independent airline now owned by greedy corporate raiders. Murdoch and Abeles were asset stripping Ansett during the 80's before Ansett's eventual demise.
When I started at QANTAS in the mid 90's I knew something wasn't right with Ansett as we were driving around in new Toyota 4WD vehicles while Ansett ground crews were using beaten up 1970's Ford Escorts.
You should see some of the ageing beaten up ground crew vehicles Qantas crews are driving around in now at Sydney Airport. Some have got as many Kms on them as some aircraft.
Having not living down under,,it totally escaped me, as to why I never saw them in any aviation clips, but was a VERY informative historical video, cheers from NJ USA
Ansett started as a domestic service in Australia, about 1950s I think? It only started to fly international during the 90s, then collapsed. It was a great domestic airline, the QANTAS of domestic flights in Australia. It had an amazing safety record.
As a kid, I remember their 727s landing in Port vila, Vanuatu. Going to the airport just to watch jets land and take off was a favourite family past time for a lot of families back in the 80s and 90s 🇻🇺🇻🇺🇻🇺🇻🇺🇻🇺🇻🇺🇻🇺🇻🇺
Gonna show my age. This is what 80's kids sang in the Oz school playground: Jingle bells Batman smells Robin flew away Wonder Woman lost her bosoms flying TAA Hey!
@@potedude Best ads of the 80's: - American express with mr wong - solo man drinks solo on a kayak - Sidchrome you can't hand a man a grander spanner - Telecom the way we were... - John West with the Japanese guy who says "I karnnnnanowwww!" that got said all over school. - How could I forget - "Two. Two thirty. Two thirty brunswick street. Fitzroy. Erik. Erik Planinsek." That was a fashion store. A few years ago a radio station asked for Eric Planinsek to phone in. He didn't. Agh.
@@potedude I went on a holiday to Tasmania in 1982. Saw the water wheels and those drums in a river, port arthur and launceston. In those days there wasn't a barrier in the plane between you and the pilot; when we landed back in Melbourne we could see the pilot in his cockpit as we got off. It was a normal 747 jet.
unlikely you will ever get them , in all honesty you were lucky to get an average of 96% of your entitlements considering the mess and the devaulation of its assets
Don't confuse employee entitlements with super. I lost a third of my super with Air NZ "keeping many months" which we never got back, and then the super fund having to be liquidated. We all know how that works with the lawyers and accountants making heaps.
The only people who made money out of this situation were those scumbag administrators, Korda-Mentha and various lawyers, I suppise. Ansett never recovered from the 1980's.
Johnnie Black I used to work for Ansett’s former travel arm Traveland, when Ansett went broke. With regards to my entitlements (I was only there for four months July-November 2001), I got all them, but I didn’t get my super.
So was I, flew Ansett all over Australia frequently for years. Earned masses of frequent flyer points for retirement trip. Lost them all when the company went bust
My first flight that I remember was with Ansett flight from Melbourne to Coolangatta airport for vacation on the Gold Coast I was 11. I was so excited I remember I was given colouring book and pencils. since then I have flown many many times. It's a shame it doesn't exist any more. Thank you for explaining what happened to this great Australian company, what a shame.
As unfortunate as it was for the employees, Ansett collapse was the best thing that happened to the Australian flying public. As a duopoly Qantas and Ansett purposefully failed to compete with one another and kept the airfare prices high. With the Ansett collapse and emergence of Virgin Blue on the Australian market that all quickly changed and ushered a new era of affordable flying.
HA! Didn't you know that the comments on this video are all about nostalgia & remembering things the way they weren't. Back in the "good old days" ordinary people Drove interstate with their friends and or family. Whom ever in the group had the biggest car, or the car thought least likely to breakdown , was the nominated car that everyone crammed into, whilst sharing the driving and the fuel costs as flying in the "Great" Ansett era was simply UNAFFORDABLE to many.
well done video, I was fully prep'ed for some mis-truths I was a former Ansett employee, and one that found out the hard way about the only thing missed was the first Administrators said it was too hard, and it was the 2nd administrators that pulled the pin and you are correct imo with the singapore deal (with hindsight) being the last viable option that would have saved it, and something that I think singapore also regrets
Hey mate. Wonderful video - you’ve nailed many of the key points and had some really great footage there. If you’re open to it - happy to grab a coffee one day with a few of us old timers who were there and lived through it. I’m sure we could help contribute some additional thoughts and advice that you may like to add to s recut version should you ever wish! Feel free to message me and can email further. Bravo / really well done video !
Love this video mate, I noticed you used DJ Tiësto Adagio For Strings soundtrack, it makes the video much more better. It’s sooo AMA,zing exploring Abandoned Australian relics, I wish these old icons comeback to life including Wonderland, sorry went off topic but great videos keep it up 😁😁😁
This video reminded me that me and some mates lost our money on a pre-paid Ansett holiday to the Gold Coast for October 2001 Indy race. Filled in claim forms but never saw our money again.
During the night before Ansett collapsed for the first time ANZ moved into the Brisbane engineering hangers and knocked off a shitload of spares taking them to NZ and some of the caterers got a heads up and reclaimed their gear before they were locked out by the Administrators.
Air NZ did own Ansett, so I guess they can do whatever they wanted with their own company, but it probably made it less likely Ansett would ever be able to recover. Certainly in the days following the 1st shutdown, there was a lot of hatred for NZ in general. The Unions even blocked Helen Clark's Air NZ flight from leaving Melbourne, causing the RNZAF to send a plane over to rescue her.
@@Pete856 Serves them right! the kiwi government should've had enough common sense to deny Air NZ's wish to pursue Ansett! What the hell were either of them thinking?!
@@mikespearwood3914 My understand is air NZ wanted to fly their own brand domesticity but were told they couldn't, but they could buy an existing company, so they did. Then came Virgin, and the rules changed, they could do the domestic market......almost like Air NZ were setup to fail with Ansett.
@@mikespearwood3914 They didn't want to buy Ansett, they were forced into it by the Ocker Govt. as a condition of being allowed to fly domestically in OZ.
I had the same thought while I was listening and thought what a good idea, 1. Read for those that cant be bothered 2. Add some stock footage 3. ???????? 4. Profit
Great video definitely nailed most of the points from the rise to fall of Ansett. It was a great place to work, great people, but poor decision making from above ruined the airline as you spoke about.
Fun fact, One of the 727 aircraft's was handed to Aviation Australia in Brisbane and now serves as a training aid sitting outside their hangar painted in an Aviation Australia livery ;)
Loved your video. A couple of errors of fact: (at 6:17) TAA introduced the first domestic wide-bodied aircraft, the Airbus A-300 in August 1981, over 12 months before Ansett introduced the B-767-200. (At 6:35,) Ansett was the third carrier to introduce the A-320 after Air France and British Airways. (BA accepted the A-320s ordered by British Caledonian as part of the aquisition in 1988.)
You do some great content! But I reckon you should invest in a better microphone. But otherwise I love watching your videos and learning the history of Australia
I remember flying Ansett in 1988. I bought an inexpensive multi flight ticket to Perth, Sydney, Townsville, Brisbane and Cairns. I remember it being the proper local plane service that the Australians were proud of. I only found count today that it went out of business.
How about a video on Grundy world on the Gold coast, it was a weird theme park/arcade at the top of a shopping centre. Even stranger was that it was built by reg Grundy productions, a tv company that created most of Australian tv from the 70's til the 2000's, these included neighbours, Bert's family fued, and pretty much every program that was on Aussie tv from 4pm til 8pm
Was an excellent airline to travel on & I travelled on them often for work. I preferred the onboard service & loved the family atmosphere of the crews. Sadly in the last year things were of a very cheap airline - no onboard meals but the old brown paper bags used in USA. I loved their attention to detail & was offered a Golden Wing Club Membership so enjoyed the benefits. I saw the check in staff using carpet sweepers to clean the terminals as 1/3 of lights operated in 2001.
Before they moved to beyond the black stump - there was a Liquidation store in the Brisbane south eastern burbs called Trads - for the longest time you could still purchase cutlery packets, sick bags and some other paper ephemera with Ansett branding. It was a real blast from the past.
Wow you have done your homework. My first ever flight was on Ansett. Nothing but good experiences but I changed allegiance when old Reg came out with some truly horrible and unnecessary remarks about his employees. This really matters to me then and now. I have gone on to be a platinum frequent flyer with two different airlines and still have my Ansett Golden Wing card. I also have Ansett's last three in flight magazines.
Loving these videos man, I'm bindging them all ATM, looking forward to more abandoned episodes, would love to see episodes on things like Borders, sugar fix, granny mays, Onetel, warner brothers stores, oh oh oh! Fox studios back lot tour!!!! Hahahah anyway keep them up man
Ansett Airlines went bust in the same week as Jihadis flew planes into the Twin Towers. I had lost a lot of frequent flier points, but I comforted myself by thinking that I hadn't lost my life in a crash.
The best service I’ve ever witnessed world-wide was with Ansett. Lovely people, great service and nice comfortable planes. It’s too bad their story had to end this way.
@@boratisgod we didn't actually know the airline was closing down. Wasn't until the crew thanked us as we were disembarking and told us it would be the last time.
While this is a pretty good summary it mainly misses(it touches on it on the 3 pers flight crew on B767) is the labour practices and the grip the unions had on the company. These practices had the company paying huge money to a range of workers including pilots, baggage handlers(yes earning upwards of $90T per annum back in 2000) etc. It wasn't just about the money either, the union permitted work practices meant productivity was a dog. This was a doomed company from structural issues, not so much aircraft type selection(although as mentioned B767 was symptomatic of the issues faced).
@@frankwatt745 Only flew Ansett once. Was OK, but the short flight between Adelaide and Melbourne wasn't enough to judge. Besides, thos was in 1998, and Ansett was well into decline by then.
One of the Ansett 737’s Can still be found in the Moorabbin Airport Museum - The Tail Is Missing due to most likely to save space for the Metal Stairs at the Back of it.
Cool! I didn't know you had your own "Abandoned" series that's just like that of Bright Sun Films, except focusing on Australian businesses rather than US businesses! And just like that channel, you too started out as a gaming channel (from what I can tell), but haven't shifted to focus on just films. It's OK, though.
You have understated the Compass issue . Abel’s told Bob Hawke his great mate that Compass had to go so Hawke killed it. Bob Hawke the great workers friend. About 3 days before Xmas they hit Compass over navigation charges, check it out. Compass was killing Ansett and it had to go.
Hey man, did you ever go to xerts in darling harbour back when that existed, i dont think it exists anymore but i remember it being a big thing for kids back in the early 2000s-2005ish
As a proud australian who had been flying on this airline since i was 5 years old I was hit hard when we lost the mighty icon of Australia. This still upsets me and rightly or wrongly i still will never fly air new zealand for this !
A bit obscure. But could you do a video on what happened to Roller City? They were a roller skate indoor rink franchise. They had an ad on TV with the line" get your feet on wheels, now you really roller skate, roller, roller city!" I used to roller skate there every Saturday from about 1983 to about 1985. Do they still exist? I haven't seen them advertise ever. There seems to be some "roller city" places still in Australia. I don't know if it's the same franchise. In any case they don't seem to have ever reached the heights of public cut through of the 80's.
I flew on them once in 1970 a DC-9 from SYD-BNE and came back on TAA which I thought was better. Very poor decisions on the part of ANZ, but in the regulated industry back then actually clearing costs and making a profit took a back seat to rediculous expectations.
I flew on Ansett in 1995 from HKG-SYD & BNE to CNS. I miss Ansett as they were a good company with excellent customer service and I never had anything bad to say about them. Hopefully someone may buy them again but maybe that's all but impossible now given the length time that has past.
I remember taking off in one of the Boeing's just before they were grounded. It was shaking and rattling like crazy. Whole plane was vibrating. I thought it went they couldn't afford to repair them, and with the loss of revenue from the grounded planes that was finally the end?
My father worked for Ansett as a leading hand from 71-02 he received 16c in the dollar for his life time of super... nearly crippled my parents retirement.
I had a return ticket from Sydney to Perth & back just a day or two after they collapsed in 2001. I got my money for the ticket eventually back through the Credit Card provider, but that took about 3 months. The Frequent Flyer Points I had accumulated prior to that planned trip under Ansett & Singapore Airlines were lost. Thousands of points. Ironic that the collapse occurred just days after 911....but Ansett was already beset with troubles, in the aftermath of 911 they would've floundered anyway. Lost money on accommodation & car rental, that was irrecoverable.
And the company that did their catering, Gate Gourmet, flew out of Perth, and no doubt the rest of Australia with out ever paying their employees their entitlements. The full transcript is on an ABC webpage.
Actually history tells us we did. Imagine how well Qantas would've given us a "like it or lump it" airline had there been no competition. I'm glad that Virgin Blue started up. I doubt there would have been Australians bold enough to pour money into the Australian airline industry alone. The fall of Compass would be enough to scare them off. Maybe Dick Smith would've started one, but he'd have us flying in GAF Nomads.
Hello! Excellent video and definitely well written and researched with fantastic supporting photos/videos. To help grow your You Tube channel you will need to invest in better sound equipment/a higher quality microphone. The microphone that you're currently using has a static/blurry type sound that isn't crystal clear like what you will need to grow your channel. Also, be VERY careful about what songs/tunes you use in the background of your videos as these are subject to copyright. I could hear a few tunes which I suspect are restricted to copyright. I'm from Brisbane so 100% want you to succeed and do well on You Tube! You're doing amazingly well so far, but still, have a couple of things to address. All the best! Cheers.
another thing that didnt help ansett was their total lack of management of the air freight side , it was seen as open check book and zero accountability , basically it was a bludge job i remember every time i went to ansett air freight terminal at kingsford smith in sydney the forkies would be out in the open in a group just sitting around smoking ( you could do that back in those days ) and talking and there would be only 1 forkie unloading the trucks , this meant freight rarely made the planes they were intended for and the delays and lines were at one point worse than port botany ( if you ever have been stuck down there you know you can waste an entire day without hauling a single thing ) and management didnt seem to care , it was sad because i flew ansett a few times and i used to really like it although i preferred australian i just remember the both being way better than qantas , i basically only fly virgin or rex now
Sad but true !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sir Reg owned just 4% of the airline/business conglomerate he founded and which was as much a part of 60's Australian life as the local milk bar or the town hall dance on Saturday nights. He was shocked, stunned, when informed that he did not have any right to occupy his favourite hobby farm, up near Seymour Victoria, or several other assets he regarded as 'personal property'. Sad but true -- I was there on the crew that removed his and his family's effects from the farm. Oh to hear the sound of Sir Reggie's helicopter taking him home at night again. "Those were the days my friends those were the days."
They have a romance to their name like PanAm were you think of their grand history. A lot better than being on a packed flight were it's entire history is misery.
@Mickey Finn I think that is known as vocal fry. You can give me the most interesting subject out there then when i here a tone like that narrating ... mmm ... bye!.
I used to love Ansett. I was a kid living in Cairns in the late 1970s. I'd ride my Malvern Star out to the airport after school and on weekends. Most jets flying in were DC-9s with the odd B727. I even got a guided tour by the pilots once of the whole plane as it was doing the turn around. Took home flight navigation maps and other goodies. In the mornings, the TAA DC-9 would take off over our home, followed 5 minutes later by the Ansett jet. You could tell the difference by the way the Ansett jet crackled on ascent. I was too young to understand the two-airline policy but loved that Ansett represented free enterprise. just like the PMG/Telecom, TAA was just another "government run" entity that had you by the short and curlies. Growing up I tried to avoid TAA/Australian Airlines/Qantas. Good to see that Virgin and the deregulation of the two airline policy made Qantas become more competitive. Compass employees may disagree though. Can I suggest you be careful with editing. Too much "dead space/black screen" in this.
@Event Horizon Oh, OK I thought the government handed it all to TAA on a platter, especially Australia post mail and flying government staff. I was too young to fully understand the workings of TAA way back then.
