Fair enough Iceman. I'm not fortunate enough to travel on AIR very often and never in their business class so I am happy to concede you would have a far greater knowledge than I of whether AIR's product and service offer is up to the mark. Perhaps I misinterpreted your post but I remain of the view those elite upgrade prices are on extremely favourable terms. More too it than just inflight service eh mate. I see AIR looking after you and other valuable Koru club members https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...+December+2019
From where I sit today there's always something to worry about with airlines, its such a dog eat dog business with very skinny margins and they're all ostensibly using the same product, just configured different ways and with staff at various cost level's.
What worries me the most about AIR to be quite honest with you and others is the relentless cost pressure from human resources costs and the endless (last year + 2.5-3%) wage settlements. This compounds away steadily over the years and I fear the airline is getting close to no longer being in a position to offer a world class product and service because they're no longer competitive due to their cost base.
The never ending Rolls Royce fiasco is a serious worry and I wonder if that ever gets resolved properly ?
At one point Qantas and AIR's share price and earnings were the same, a few years ago. They took a much stronger approach towards cost containment and look how well that's worked for them.
Shareholders would have been far better off holding Qantas shares over the last 5 years and that makes me sad.
I only have a 2% portfolio position and its only for dividend yield and I have no expectations whatsoever of capital gains going forward so I don't worry about AIR so much these days anymore. I'm not really inclined towards adding to my very modest position either.
Maybe the new CEO can do some work on cost reduction but the head of the union "Savage", (probably not his / her real name), has chosen a very apt pseudonym in my opinion. While workers get the lions share of the rewards and a culture on entitlement prevails, its hard to get especially excited about future shareholder rewards.