My uncle worked for Ansett at Tullamarine Airport Melb, he and my aunt would come up to Sydney to visit quite often, in fact they came up one weekend to visit left on Sunday evening and the next day Monday my father passed away while my uncle was on his shift, he explained the situation to his boss there who allowed my uncle some emergency time off and got him and my aunt on the next flight to Sydney, even though it was a full flight they flew in the jump seats of the cockpit. Funny thing is my uncle and aunt landed in Sydney just as the Ambulance was arriving at my front door (mum was talking to my aunt on the phone when my dad was having his heart attack), since that day i'll always be greatful to Ansett who were able to rush my aunt and uncle interstate faster than an ambulance traveling inside one city. Oh and the ambulance, their excuse was they had no free ambulance's at the time so they had to divert one from Sydney's North Shore out to Sydney's Outer Western Suburbs which is supposedly why they took so long to get here.
The people might have been nice but Ansett was a badly run airline. Inefficient, staff overpaid, mixed fleet with too many variants, Ables and Murdoch loaded it with debt. Air New Zealand bought into a dog and had no choice but to cut it lose to save themselves
