airlines – Made by Mikal

The Chairman’s Lounge

Post author:mikal
Post published:July 12, 2026
Post category:Book

Title: The Chairman's Lounge
Author: Joe Aston
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
Release Date: 2024
Pages: 359

★★★★★

This is the story of the downfall of an Australian business hero, the destruction of an iconic Australian brand, and hubris. In a mere four years Alan Joyce when from hero status in Australia, to literally hiding out with his mother in Dublin while being hounded by the press. Truly his downfall was impressive.

However, I think it’s also another example of Welshian management ultimately failing, as seen with General Electric in The Man Who Broke Capitalism and Lights Out. This includes: publishing accounting results that while inline with the definition of the accounting standards appear to have redefined expenses in a manner convenient to management with little rationale provided; misleading customers on their refund rights at a time when those same customers were trapped at home suffering and Qantas was sitting on massive cash stockpiles; illegal union busting; and shedding large numbers of highly skilled staff which simply couldn’t be replaced in a timely manner when travel ramped back up again. That is, optimizing for this quarter’s numbers by completely ignoring the longer term impact of the decisions being made.

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On Virgin Atlantic premium economy

Post author:mikal
Post published:May 10, 2007
Post category:Travel

Welcome to Mikal's badly organised travel tips. On the trip to Dublin I flew Virgin Atlantic premium economy. That's kind of like anyone else's business class, given the classes on Virgin are economy, premium economy, and upper class. It's much cheaper than anyone else's business class fare to Heathrow though. I thought that premium economy was pretty good... The seats are old and both of the ones I sat in were subtly broken, but the seat spacing is excellent, the seat is wider than normal, and reclines just that little extra. The extra money was worth it given I got off the plane and walked straight into a meeting in Dublin, and on the return flight I got a heap of work done. Premium economy even offers power for laptops, although my corporate-issue iGo doesn't work with the new Lenovo x60, and Virgin didn't have a tip for the x60 in their collection. That's a pretty common compliant with the newer Intel Core2 laptops though -- they draw too much power for older universal power supplies. I got around the power problem with two "eight hour" batteries for the x60. The quotes are because I actually get more like four…

I-94s at the airport

Post author:mikal
Post published:July 23, 2006
Post category:Travel

Andrew is having some pain with his I-94, I suspect the first problem is that he flew United who are self admitted cunters. Secondly, you're meant to hand in the I-94 at boarding not check in (or at least that's my experience). All is not lost though, apparently you're meant to mail the I-94 back to them, although that wont be processed in time for your return to the US. Update: my brother assures me that it's no big deal to mail the I-94 in, even if you're returning quickly to the US, as they're not processed in real time at the airport either. So, perhaps the delay isn't a problem...

I like screen oopsies

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 6, 2005
Post category:Travel

I've already posted this image today, but it was buried in a bunch of other stuff. Check it out: Funny. Especially given United's terrible check in service.

Mental note: Avoid this airline

Post author:mikal
Post published:June 9, 2005
Post category:Travel

I hereby make a mental note to find out who this airline is, and avoid them like the plague. Four Two mac minis lost in one trip from luggage whilst in the care of the airline. [tags: theft luggage baggage handler]